Edd Houck runs for reelection-- in Albemarle
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Edd Houck knows to wear an orange tie when he's in Charlottesville-- and he went to grad school at UVA.PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE
Thanks to redistricting, parts of Albemarle currently in the 25th Senate District now represented by Creigh Deeds have moved to the 17th, long held by Spotsylvanian Edd Houck, who announced his reelection bid June 24 in front of the Albemarle County Office Building.
Democrat Houck, 60, is seeking his eighth term in the General Assembly. He's challenged by Republican Bryce Reeves.
The 17th District picks up Woodbrook, Branchlands, Agnor-Hurt, Dunlora, Jack Jouett, Georgetown, Keswick, Stony Point, and Free Bridge precincts.
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6 comments
Strangely, Houck's district doesn't include the entirety of of those precincts. For instance, I live in the Stony Point precinct, as do my in-laws, yet we now have entirely different senators. That's because the new boundaries don't conform to precinct boundaries—district boundaries and precinct boundaries are unrelated. This is going to create some confusion come voting day.
I bet we would not have had the above problem if the boundary's had not been set by the people getting elected who were more worried about getting elected than serving us as is almost always the case
Fred Hudson, 2nd Vice-Chair of the Virginia Democratic Party, discusses redistricting on the locally-produced interview program Politics Matters with host Jan Paynter: http://bit.ly/pm-hudson
What's interesting (or troubling) is that the Charlottesville Metro Area now has a population of a little over 200,000. This almost identical to the population requirement for each senate district. Our metro area, a defined community of interest, could have been one district. It didn't need to be sliced up among four. The same can be said about our new house districts. The metro area is split among at least four or five different districts. Albemarle is split among four alone. Rob Bell's district now snakes from Scottsville to areas close to Harrisonburg in Rockingham. Bell's district was clearly redrawn to address the growth in Fluvanna and Albemarle that is making both of those localities more Democratic. Houck's district was drawn to guarantee his election by taking on precincts in eastern Albemarle and in the urban ring of Albemarle.
The gerrymandering has got to stop. The only way we can end it is by demanding that our legislators do so. I am not sure what the Virginia law is on this topic, but if I remember the Supreme Court precedent correctly, there is nothing unconstitutional about changing legislative districts before a 10 year census. If state law permits it, we should demand that they go back to the drawing boards after the next election and not take partisan factors into account.
Edd Houck has been my senator since I was born in 1985. He never takes my calls or responds to emails or letters with simple requests or questions, and I've tried since high school as part of a project. He claims to be "pro-education" maybe because he's fleeced a salary from the public education system for 30 years, I don't know.
I tried to help with his campaign 4 years ago and when I called the constituent's hotline, they said they were "phoning this one in" and weren't even bothering to set up a campaign office.
When I finally met him at an event last year, I went to shake his hand and introduce myself. His rude wife got in my way and said "the senator is busy talking to an important constituent honey, please send him an email with your question."
THIS is the kind of representation that Charlottesville can expect from Edd Houck. If I were you, I would choose ANYONE BUT HOUCK in the next election no matter what party he/she is in.
http://www.vpap.org/elections/district_redistricting/64 = Ridiculous Houck Bias in redistricting!
Furthermore, I agree with the above posts- the gerrymandering is BLATANT in this case. No matter what side of the aisle you are politically, I hope you'd agree that this losing of 25 strongly Republican precincts and replacing them with 7 Democratic ones just smacks of intentional game playing to protect someone who should be on his way out and must be afraid he can't win fairly.
If he loses this time, that will speak volumes to how much of a failure he's become to us all.