Update, Nov. 30: Applications for public seats on Virginia’s new redistricting commission officially open Monday.

Established in a voter-approved constitutional amendment on November’s ballot, the landmark commission will include eight citizen members and eight state lawmakers.

Lawmakers on the commission will review applications for the public seats. That commission includes two Democratic and Republican members selected by the House of Delegates, and two from each party selected by the Senate. (These lawmaking members are set to be announced this week, according to the Washington Post.)

After review, the citizen nominees will be sent to the panel of retired circuit court judges overseeing the application process for approval. The panel plans to make their final selection for citizen members by Jan. 15, in hopes of the commission beginning its work by Feb. 1.

To apply, individuals must be a Virginia resident who has been a registered voter for the past three years and voted in two of the last three elections. Residents who have run or held political office, worked for a campaign or political official, or who have been a registered lobbyist in the past five years are not permitted to participate, nor are any of their close relatives. The commission says this stipulation aims to decrease the potential for partisanship.

While the application will ask questions about educational and employment backgrounds, there are no official requirements. The panel of judges decided last week to broaden questions about education in order to prevent the exclusion of individuals based on their educational background.

Applications are available on the commonwealth’s Division of Legislative Services’ website.

Original:

Voters in Virginia roundly approved a constitutional amendment to give a bipartisan commission of citizens and lawmakers the power to draw voting districts, rather than leaving the important and often controversial once-a-decade task to lawmakers alone.

The vote ends a convoluted two-year battle in which Republicans who once opposed the amendment joined its proponents, and Democrats who once championed the amendment urged their supporters to vote no.

Ultimately, voters ignored Democratic leaders’ pleas, and with nearly all the ballots counted Wednesday, some 66% of voters said yes to the amendment.

The amendment creates a commission of eight lawmakers and eight citizens to redraw Virginia’s voting districts, both for congressional seats and the state legislature. The commission would take over the work that previously fell to lawmakers in a process that frequently triggered lawsuits; last year, a federal court ordered that several Republican-drawn districts be changed due to racial gerrymandering. This year’s vote held paramount importance because Virginia will redraw its maps next year using the results of the U.S. Census, and the new maps will stand for a decade.

Initially, most Democrats pushed for a redistricting amendment to take district drawing out of the hands of Republicans, who held power in the General Assembly. The proposed change to the Virginia Constitution passed with support from both parties in 2019 but still needed to pass the legislature once more and earn voter approval.

But earlier this year, after Democrats took control of both chambers of the General Assembly, Democratic leaders in the legislature and state party announced the opposed the amendment. On its sample ballot, the state Democratic party told voters to vote no. House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) said she opposed the amendment, and so did Del. Marcus Simon (D-Falls Church), who had supported the measure in 2019.

Simon said he became convinced the amendment would not create a truly independent process, especially since lawmakers would still sit on it. “When we took the majority in 2020, that created more options for us to do redistricting reform than we had when Republicans were in charge,” he told WAMU/DCist.

On Wednesday, he said he was disappointed with the result.

“I think voters were confused,” he said. “I think they probably went with their gut which is, ‘Hey, this sounds good. This sounds like the kind of reform we need, so I’m going to vote for it.'”

Republicans, who had initially been wary of redistricting by commission, celebrated the amendment’s passage. “Proud that it looks like Virginia voters approved Amendment 1 to end gerrymandering by a wide margin, lots of votes to still be counted!” wrote Del. Jason Miyares (R-Virginia Beach).

Political scientist Jennifer Nicoll Victor at George Mason University said voters might have missed the subtleties of the campaign.

“Democrats have been sending a strong message about the state needing redistricting reform for many years, and the party’s rather last-minute opposition to the ballot measure provided an inconsistent message to voters,” she wrote WAMU/DCist in an email. “In addition, many voters, regardless of party affiliation, may see the prospect of incremental improvement as preferable to the status quo.”

Some Democrats never wavered on the issue, including several members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. Del. Lashrecse Aird (D-Petersburg) maintained that the amendment did not ensure diverse voices would be on the redistricting commission. Aird helped found a new political action committee to fight the amendment, called Fair Districts, a political action committee that raised $72,000. After the amendment passed, Fair Districts announced it would keep fighting to respect Virginia’s diversity and ensure the commission’s true independence.

“The people who pushed Amendment 1 know of its flaws — and it is now incumbent upon them to seek real solutions to fix those flaws,” Fair Districts wrote.

This new PAC had almost the same name as a committee that aimed to pass the legislation: Fair Maps VA, founded by longtime redistricting reform advocate Brian Cannon. His group raised about $2.2 million, including more than $1 million from the Denver-based non-partisan group Unite America. Along with his campaign co-chairs, Cannon released a joint statement of approval on Wednesday.

“From the start, this movement has been about putting the voices of citizens above politicians and political parties. Today, Virginia voters spoke loud and clear,” they wrote.

With the amendment’s passage, Simon said the next step is to pass enabling legislation in the state budget, which Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam is currently reviewing. Simon said he and other Democrats would attempt to improve upon the amendment by incorporating language from a bill that passed this year to require districts be drawn in a way that does not dilute minority populations’ voting power.

“I don’t know that we have a lot of teeth to enforce that,” he said. “But I think the best we can do is legislate it and say, ‘Hey, this is the criteria you all are required to use and expect them to just follow the law.'”