"A Virginia judge struck down the General Assembly's 2001 redistricting plan as unconstitutional today and raised the prospect of political upheaval across the Old Dominion by ordering new House of Delegates elections this year.

Richard C. Pattisall, chief judge of the Salem Circuit Court, invalidated Senate and House districts that were redrawn a year ago by the Republican-controlled legislature, making Virginia's the first state plan to be struck down since the last U.S. Census.

Senators would run from new districts in 2003, when their four-year terms were already set to expire.

In a 51-page ruling, Pattisall focused on what he said were unconstitutional district boundaries and 'racial gerrymandering' in Virginia's vast southeastern corner, a geographically diverse region that includes the old port cities of Norfolk and Newport News, as well as emerging suburbs and more rural, pine-and-peanut communities such as Suffolk.

Pattisall said he agreed with complaints, advanced by Democrats during last year's redistricting session and a June legal challenge, that African Americans were unfairly packed together to confine their voting strength to the smallest possible number of districts.

But whites also found themselves in new legislative districts that had little to do with long-held community interests, Pattisall said.

'The evidence clearly demonstrates that the citizens [of 11 cities and counties], white and black alike, with whom they share common goals, culture, economics, life-styles and associations, have been removed from their communities of interest and placed into districts in which they have little, if any, common interest,' Pattisall said.

Many voters 'are unreasonably burdened in many instances by significant distances and natural geographic barriers, creating a lack of access to one another,' Pattisall added.

The judge used occasionally stinging language in dissecting the GOP-backed plan, saying, 'The court sees before it the unwarranted results of the multi-division of cities and counties' and 'the retreat of the General Assembly from the application of traditional race-neutral redistricting principles.'

In the cities of Newport News and Hampton, where 137,000 of 326,000 residents are black, the legislature 'has dismantled these cohesive communities,' Pattisall said. In Suffolk and Portsmouth, he added, more than 20,000 residents 'have been removed from their communities in utter disregard of traditional redistricting principles.'

Apart from the electoral chaos that Pattisall's ruling could create over the next few months -- with possible primaries, caucuses and mini-conventions in an otherwise quiet year for state politics -- the decision will almost certainly touch off a frenzied round of political jockeying between the major political parties.

The partisan positioning got started late today when Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, the only Republican to hold statewide office in Virginia government, announced that he will appeal Pattisall's ruling immediately. Kilgore apparently issued his announcement before notifying Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) or his senior staffers of the judge's ruling.

Kilgore defended the new legislative boundaries, saying they 'were not drawn with an effort to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race. . . . They were drawn properly with respect to new population data and are constitutionally compact and contiguous.'

Kilgore added that he was 'confident we will win on appeal.'

Warner, who may have the ultimate say on whether Kilgore proceeds with an appeal, issued a brief statement that echoed the judge's ruling, without committing the state to a course of action.

'The fundamental basis of our democracy is the fair apportionment of elected representatives to ensure that the voices of all Virginians are heard,' Warner said. 'I will review this decision carefully . . . and act in the best interests of all Virginians.'

A feud between Warner, who is coming off a legislative session that ended abruptly with the demise of tax referendums he sought, and Kilgore, who is laying the groundwork for a 2005 gubernatorial bid, would be reminiscent of a Democratic family feud in the early 1990s between the governor and attorney general, ostensibly the governor's chief legal adviser.

That quarrel went all the way to the state Supreme Court, which ruled that then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder generally had the legal upper hand over Attorney General Mary Sue Terry in determining which appeals were to be filed by the state government. (Ten years ago, a redistricting plan crafted by a Democratic legislature while Wilder was governor was challenged but ultimately upheld by the courts.)

Beyond the possibility of a Warner-Kilgore political brawl, Democrats tonight were eagerly anticipating a scenario in which majority Republicans would have to defend dozens of House seats against the efforts of Warner, a popular Democratic incumbent, and his proven fundraising prowess.

'It does have the potential for the rearrangement of the composition of the House of Delegates,' said Del. Brian J. Moran (Alexandria), a House Democratic leader.

Ronald A. Klain, a Washington-based lawyer who advised Virginia Democrats on the redistricting case, hailed Pattisall's ruling as 'an extremely well-reasoned opinion. If the state chooses to appeal it, it will stand up on appeal.'

Klain, who was general counsel to the Gore-Lieberman campaign during the Florida recount of the presidential election, coached state Democrats through the Virginia redistricting process, which was among the first in the nation after the 2000 Census.

On the floor of the 100-member House and 40-member Senate, Democrats carefully created a record on which to base a legal challenge, parts of which Pattisall dismissed along the way.

The redistricting plan forced several of the Democratic Party's most seasoned lawmakers into retirement and paved the way for the election of 22 new legislators, giving Republicans 64 seats in the House. Several new districts in booming Northern Virginia swelled that GOP tide.

All members currently serving in the House of Delegates may keep their districts for now, but those political divisions must never be used again, Pattisall said.

The Bush Justice Department reviewed the Virginia plan last year and approved it.

By coincidence, Pattisall's term as a judge is expiring, and he asked the General Assembly to reelect him earlier this year, normally a formality in Richmond. Later in the legislative session, Pattisall, a Democrat, removed his name from consideration for reelection by the Republican majorities." (R.H. Melton, The Washington Post, March 12, 2002)