ABSTRACT
In this lamentable political history the Commonwealth of Virginia has often played a leading role that has been well documented. Practically every major disfranchising device known to voting rights scholars has been employed at one time or another in Virginia to keep blacks from voting or achieving elective office. Under 1991 standards of vote dilution, every past assembly of the Virginia legislature would be viewed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and federal courts in 1991 as an unenforceable racial gerrymander. At the grass-roots level of local government, African Americans in Virginia are still widely victimized by vote diluting at-large election systems. African Americans entered the senate redistricting session with two solid majority-minority districts, one in Richmond and another in Norfolk. Unquestionably, one of the most consequential changes in the redistricting battlefield in 1991 was the presence of century high levels of partisan competition within the Virginia General Assembly, especially within the house of delegates.
