LOCAL

West Virginia redistricting forum set for Monday at Shepherd University

Matthew Umstead

matthewu@herald-mail.com

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. — A free public event on how political district lines are drawn in West Virginia will be held at 7 p.m. Monday night in the auditorium of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education at Shepherd University.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Trump, Speaker Pro Tempore of the House of Delegates John Overington and West Virginia University law professor Robert M. Bastress Jr. are slated to make presentations at the forum, according to a news release by the League of Women Voters of Jefferson County.

Bastress and the lawmakers are expected to discuss how state-level redistricting has been approached in the past and how those processes have changed over time, as well as the issues that will affect future redistricting decisions, according to organizers.

A question-and-answer session will follow the presentations.

The forum comes after West Virginia lawmakers approved legislation in March to eliminate multimember delegate districts, which have been used to elect a portion of the 100-member House over the years.

There are currently 67 House of Delegate districts and 17 Senate districts in West Virginia, but the passage of the legislation is expected to result in the creation of 100, single-member House districts following the U.S. census in 2020.

The event is part of the ongoing Civic Education and Participation Series that was launched in fall 2017. Previous events have focused on election security, voter-registration policies in West Virginia, the duties of local elected officials and issues relating to civic engagement and representative government.

The series was developed through the cooperative efforts of the Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education, Shepherd University’s Lifelong Learning Program, the Jefferson County Branch of the NAACP, the Republican Party of Jefferson County, the Libertarian Party of West Virginia and the Mountain Party and the Jefferson County League of Women Voters.