Evening star., 1952-03-01
Committees Kill.
Hope Of Virginia
Redistricting
Two Assembly Groups
Act to Reject Bid for
Reupportionment
By Alex R. Preston
Stor Stoff Correspondent


RICHMOND, Mar. l.-House
and Senate committees today
killed northern Virginia's chances
OF obtaining more representation
in the General Assembly.
The Privileges and Elections
Committee of the State Senate to-
day reported two bills which make
virtually no changes in the ap-
portionment of State legislative
districts.
Shortly thereafter the corre-
spending committee of the House
voted. 4-6, to kill two bills carry
ing out a study commissions rec
concentrations.
Only Two State Senators.
At present, Arlington has. one
State Senator and Alexandria,
Fairfax, Falls Church and Prince
William have one. The commits
sion plan called for Arlington to
have one Senator, Alexandria to
have one and Fairfax and Falls
Church, one.
Arlington now has two delegates,
Alexandria has one. and there is
one for Fairfax and Falls Church.
The study commission plan
would have given three delegates
to Arlington and Falls Church, two
to Alexandria and two to Fairfax.
Davis Plea FruitIess.
Before the House committee
acted, Delegate Delamater Davis,
of Norfolk, delivered a strong plea
for the commission plan.
"Since we had our last reap
portionment in 1912" he said.
there has been a tremendous shift
in population. 1t has been clearly
shown to this committee that some
delegates represent $4,000 people
while others represent more than
100000.
If that is representative gov
ernment, then we might as we'll
give up and admit we don't live
In a democracy"
Except for two or three minor
changes in the present legislative
apportionment, the bills approved
by the Senate Committee would
leave existing House and Senate
districts untouched.
Strong Appeals Heard.
Delegates Arnistead Boothe Of
Alexandria and j. Maynard Ma
gruder Of Arlington appeared be-
fore the House committee yes
terday and made strong appeals
for action. Mr.. Boothe warned
that the outcome of this years
senatorial campaign and next
years race for Governor might
be affected by what action is
taken to give the more populous
areas added representation in the
Assembly.
Il say very bluntly and frankly,
as an organization man who comes
from an area where it is not
always easy to carry the organiza-
tion torch, it will help us in my
area to report the commissions
BILL" the Alexandria delegate de-
clared.
"It is conceivable that our fail
ure to act may make the differ
ence in winning or losing the
senatorial and gubernatorial con-
tests in 1852 and 1883"
Bills Quickly Killed.
In an effort to clear it's docket,
the committee killed about a dozen
bills in little more than five min
utes. Two of these were spon-
sored by Delegate Edwin Lynch of
Fairfax.
One Lynch bill would have per-
mitted the holding of presidential
preferential primaries, which
would not have been binding, but
would have determined sentiment.
The other would have pro-
hibited any magisterial district in
a county from being more than
twice as large as the smallest
district. A court-appointed COM
mission now is studying redis-
tricting of Fairfax County mag
isterial districts, and Mr.. Lynch
sought to limit the population
disparity between them. The
committee killed the bill because,
one member said, it might affect
pending litigation in the Fairfax
No,,ofxy Ti1.o.1if ToY1rf