A three-judge federal panel struck down Virginia's state House of Delegates map Tuesday afternoon as unconstitutionally gerrymandered along racial lines. The 2-1 ruling ordered the state to come up with a redistricting plan by Oct. 30, eliminating a map that had actually increased the number of minority legislators but had the effect of diluting blacks’ voting power by sorting them into majority-minority districts and making the rest of the state map more Republican friendly. “Overwhelming evidence in this case shows that, contrary to this constitutional mandate, the state has sorted voters into districts based on the color of their skin,” Judge Barbara Milano Keenan wrote in the majority opinion of the U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Virginia.
At www.washingtontimes.com
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