Henrico NAACP proposes revised reapportionment plan as county supervisors prepare to approve their own
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The Henrico NAACP is taking issue with some elements of Henrico County’s proposed magisterial district reapportionment plan and has submitted its own proposal on the day the board is set to adopt a plan formally.
The reapportionment process is required by state law every decade, as a way to reflect updated population totals after the latest U.S. Census figures are released. Henrico’s proposal would shift the western boundaries of two of its five districts – Varina and Fairfield – slightly west to increase the populations of those districts (each of which is more than 4,300 people below the ideal population of 66,878).
The boundaries of the Three Chopt District in the West End would shrink, since that district is more than 8,700 people over the ideal figure, while those of the Brookland and Tuckahoe districts each would shift slightly to accommodate the other changes.
If approved Tuesday, the proposal would be sent Thursday to the Virginia Attorney General’s Office for pre-clearance as required by the Virginia Voting Rights Act, passed earlier this year. If ultimately approved by the attorney general, the new map would take effect by late February.
The county’s plan would leave the Fairfield and Varina districts below the ideal population by more than 3% each – allowable under state law (which permits a deviation of no more than 5% either way) but problematic to the NAACP, which wants to see those numbers boosted.
“The goal of reapportionment is to have residents of all districts represented equally, so every resident has roughly the same voting power,” NAACP officials wrote in a letter to supervisors Tuesday morning. “Although Henrico County has adhered to the law, the county could get a lot closer to upholding the value of one resident, one vote.”
The NAACP proposed a map that would keep both districts under the ideal population total but bring them closer to that number than the county’s plan does – within less than 1% for Fairfield and -2.7% for Varina, officials wrote.
“State law allows 5%, but all the residents of Henrico deserve better than a legal ceiling of under-representation,” they wrote to supervisors.
The county’s proposals would keep Fairfield and Varina as majority-Black districts, which the NAACP supports, but the organization fears that the county’s plan could negatively impact other districts.
“The current assigning of residents to each district and the non-compact shape of the Tuckahoe District could have the impact of diluting the voting power of people of color in Brookland, Three Chopt, and Tuckahoe districts,” organization officials wrote. “[T]he Brookland District should not be taking any population from the Fairfield District, especially when Brookland borders the district that is currently the most overrepresented – Three Chopt.”
The NAACP’s plan would make the districts more compact, according to its letter, “and the voting power of every community more reflective of the area in which they live.”
NAACP officials said their plan isn’t designed to increase the voting power of Black residents in the Fairfield or Varina districts but rather that it seeks to avoid diminishing the voting representation of any one group in any district.
“Our focus is the civil rights of people of color, but . . . [t]o protect everyone’s vote, it is important that district boundaries are drawn to encompass roughly the same number of people as much as possible, as well as, shaped to be contiguous and compact,” they wrote.
