"Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride."
Bette Davis
"All About Eve"
The late Ms. Davis would have enjoyed the upcoming session of the General Assembly.
Because 2011 promises to be a turbulent year in the legislature.
Since this is a redistricting year, there was little chance 2011 would be a placid year on Capitol Square.
But the national rise of the Tea Party, including its Virginia darling, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, has assured the year will feature pitched partisan warfare on other topics as well.
On redistricting we're on uncharted ground. For the first time, the state's Congressional and legislative districts will be redrawn with one party controlling the House and the other controlling the Senate. There's no telling where that could lead.
Congressional redistricting shouldn't be too hard. Incumbents usually hammer something out between themselves and hand it to the General Assembly. In any case, Republicans won so many seats this year (8 of 11), that it would be impossible to protect them all in redistricting. The 2nd and 4th District may become somewhat more Republican by shedding African-American voters to the 3rd. Other than that, the status quo will probably prevail.
It's when they redraw their own districts legislators have the potential to become an unruly mob.
Many are predicting the gentlemen's agreement that prevailed in the past, the House doesn't meddle in the Senate's plan and vice versa, will be maintained. I'm not so sure. Neither Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw (R-Springfield) nor House Speaker Bill Howell (R-Stafford) and new House Majority Leader Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) have sounded very conciliatory lately. Saslaw and Cox, in particular, have reputations for hard-nosed partisanship.
House Democrats, whose paltry numbers leave them helpless in the face of the Republican majority, may appeal to Saslaw as their only chance to get anything resembling a fair redistricting. In 1991, their first opportunity to draw a new map, House Republicans showed they'd learned their lessons from more than century in the minority. They drew what is arguably the most devastating partisan map in the history of Virginia redistricting. They managed to effectively decapitate the Democratic leadership in the House and draw a map that let them keep the majority for the entire decade.
Republican Senators, who had a smaller majority to start with, were more merciful. They picked the one Democrat they wanted to get rid of -- Northern Virginia's Leslie Byrne -- and were satisfied. Perhaps as a consequence, they lost their Senate majority in 2007.
Even if Democrats in the Senate and Republicans in the House reach some understanding on redistricting -- which would be amazing since they haven't managed to so so on highway funding or electing judges -- will Gov. Bob McDonnell manage to restrain the temptation to kibitz? His predecessors didn't.
