#va03

A map sponsored by Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, includes changes to two districts in Hampton Roads in an attempt to create a second seat favorable to a black candidate. Locke's plan would reduce the proportion of black residents in the 3rd District and boost it in the 4th District. At present, the 3rd District population is 56.2 percent black. It is the only majority-black congressional district in the state, and its elected representative, U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, a Newport News Democrat, is the only black member of the delegation. The concentration of blacks would dip to 45 percent in Locke's version of the 3rd District, which would stretch from James City County to Virginia Beach. The 4th District, now represented by Chesapeake Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, would be reconfigured as a majority-black district in the Locke plan.

The Republican-controlled House of Delegates last month approved a map shaped to protect incumbents and preserve the current partisan balance of the delegation, which counts eight Republicans and three Democrats. An alternative map pending in the state Senate, where Democrats hold a majority, would alter that alignment. Under that plan, the 4th Congressional District represented by U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, a Chesapeake Republican, would be remade into a majority-black territory with new boundaries. It would stretch from South Hampton Roads into Southside Virginia and no longer include all of Chesapeake and Suffolk. The proposal has sparked an outcry among Chesapeake Republicans concerned about the city being partitioned. The 3rd Congressional District represented by U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport News, would cease to have a black majority, but would retain a significant black population. It is the only majority-black district in the state.