| UPDATE - Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has vetoed a weeks work of redistricting legislation completed last week by the WV Legislature.
The redistricting legislation is back to square one, although the veto was directed toward flawed legislation.
Another special session to remedy the problem will begin Thursday.
By Bob Weaver
ORIGINAL STORY (8/9/11) - The WV legislature has done its gerrymandering of West Virginia's political districts following the release of the 2010 census numbers coming this week.
Charleston newspaper columnist Phil Kabler says the statehouse is sinking to a new low.
Kanawha County's seven-member 30th District has been broken apart, with four delegates in one district and three in another.
Mason County was shifted from Republican Congresswoman Shelly Moore Capito's district to Democrat Nick Rahall's district.
The Legislature declined to move toward single-member districts.
The population numbers allows the Legislature to gerrymander the districts, which is suppose to ensure equal representation for the state's three U.S. House districts as well as in its own Senate and House of Delegates seats.
Redistricting with county voting precincts is part of the 10-year census, which sometimes calls for Calhoun voters to be shifted to a new voting place from their historic polling site.
A number of Calhoun citizens have complained they were shifted from their nearby voting place to other precincts.
Calhoun County Clerk Mike Ritchie, said "With a lot of help, we'll try to maintain the old precincts as much as we can," but precincts must be equalized, sometimes causing a problem for some voters.
Charleston continued its precedent with no public input regarding redistricting, which means that small, rural counties are discounted in the process.
A good example is the "local" 2nd Senatorial District which extends from the border of Ohio County (Wheeling) like a snake down to southern Calhoun at the Clay County line, covering parts of or all of Marshall, Monongalia, Marion, Wetzel, Tyler, Doddridge, Ritchie and Calhoun.
The rearranging helps incumbents stay in control.
Gerrymandering is a practice viewed by many as a form of political corruption that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected, or neutral districts.
The practice generally ignores uniform geographic standards.
There has been a predicted population shift from the southern portion of the state to the Eastern Panhandle, which the special session last week giving it some recognition.
Political analyst Robert Rupp says where West Virginians have chosen to live will create a "political hot button" as incumbent members of the House of Delegates and state Senate will be "desperate" to find the population to keep their district intact.
"The amazing thing about redistricting is that this handful of people can virtually do anything they want to as long as the numbers add up," Rupp said.
The new maps should be ready no later than January 2012 in order for county clerks and the secretary of state's office to conduct the May primary election.
See
Lawmakers predict few partisan gains from redistricting - Associated Press
Statehouse sinking to new low - By Phil Kabler
| 
