CHARLESTON (AP) - A Kanawha County lawyer who unsuccessfully challenged West Virginia's redrawn legislative districts has shifted his sights to the state's slightly tweaked congressional map.
Lawyer Thornton Cooper seeks to intervene in the pending federal lawsuit that targets the redistricting for West Virginia's three U.S. House of Representatives seats.
Cooper filed to join the case last week, one day before the state Supreme Court rejected his petitions and others challenging the new maps for the state Senate and House of Delegates. The Nov. 23 ruling allows Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, West Virginia's elections chief, to rely on those maps for the 2012 races.
But with all three U.S. House seats up next year, the Jefferson County Commission has asked the U.S. District Court to scrap the congressional plan. That lawsuit, filed Nov. 4 in Martinsburg, asks a three-judge panel to consider arguments that this plan violates the U.S. and West Virginia constitutions.
Following the 2010 Census results, state legislatures are called on to ensure their districts and that of congressional seats provide equal representation.
The commission alleges state lawmakers missed that goal when they merely moved one county, Mason, from the 2nd to the 3rd district. With Jefferson County part of the 2nd District, the lawsuit said the result dilutes the votes of that district's residents because it exceeds either of the others by at least 4,700 people.
The commission also invokes language in the state constitution that says congressional districts "shall be formed of contiguous counties, and be compact." The 2nd District stretches across West Virginia, from the Ohio River to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Cooper agrees with both arguments, his filing said. But he also questions whether the alternative maps cited by the commission, while providing nearly exact populations for all three districts, represent his interests. One option discussed by lawmakers during an August redistricting session, for instance, would have split his home county of Kanawha between the 1st and 3rd districts. As he had for his failed challenges to legislative redistricting, Cooper has drawn up his own maps for the congressional districts.
Stephen Skinner, a lawyer for the Jefferson County Commission, declined to comment Tuesday on Cooper's bid to intervene. He said he expects the case to advance once state officials respond to it next week.
Besides Tennant, the federal lawsuit also names Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, House Speaker Rick Thompson and Senate President Jeff Kessler as defendants.
"I imagine that once the answers are filed, things should happen pretty quickly," Skinner said.