The General Assembly has scheduled eight public hearings in advance of the special redistricting session on April 4 to solicit comments on proposed new boundaries for congres-sional and legislative districts.
Both the House of Delegates and Virginia Senate are expected to unveil bills to draw up new districts for the House of Delegates, Senate and Congress before the hearings.
The House and Senate Privileges and Elections committees, which will draw up the plans, will hold the hearings.
The hearing dates are:
Thursday, March 31
Hampton University Student Center ballroom, 7 p.m.
Loudoun County Board room, Leesburg, 7:30 p.m.
Roanoke Higher Education Center, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 2
Augusta County government center, Verona, 10 a.m.
Fairfax County government center, Fairfax, 10:30 a.m.
Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, Abingdon, 2 p.m.
Regional Center for Advanced Technology and Training, Danville, 7 p.m.
Monday, April 4
General Assembly Building, House Room D, 10 a.m.
The special session gets under way at the state Capitol at noon April 4. It is expected to take at least two days.
The pace of redistricting will pick up next week.
•On Tuesday at the Library of Virginia, a reception will be held to display winners of a college student map-drawing contest. Students at 19 colleges and universities have been drawing up redistricting plans that are supposed to be nonpartisan. The reception will get under way at noon.
•On Thursday at noon at the state Capitol, Gov. Bob McDonnell's bipartisan redistricting commission will adopt its own version of a bipartisan plan.
•The Privileges and Elections committees will meet Friday, March 25, at the General Assembly Building to adopt criteria to be used in redistricting.
Redrawing of the lines occurs every 10 years following the census. The assembly is in charge of redistricting. This year the two nonpartisan groups are trying to pressure the legislature to avoid the usual political gerrymandering.
With 8 million people in the state, each of the 40 Senate districts must have roughly 200,000 people. The 100 House districts must have about 80,000. The 11 congressional districts must have about 727,000.
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