Virginia House again delays action on redistricting plan For the third day in a row, the Virginia House delayed action on the Senate's surprise redistricting bill. The House voted, without discussion, to postpone action on the measure until Tuesday. Diluting Virginia's minority vote Gov. McDonnell and two Republican senators on key committee said Friday they oppose the legislation. Bill would prevent state government from discriminating based on sexual orientation. The bill was passed by a state House committee Friday, and now heads to the state Senate. The chamber is considering legislation that Senate Republicans muscled through Monday that redraws Senate lines across the state. Taking up a bill that called for minor "technical adjustments" to House district boundaries, they amended it on the floor Monday to make changes to the Senate's 40 districts. Republicans have said the new maps would correct gerrymandered districts that Democrats pushed through in 2011 when they controlled the Senate. Democrats said the plan runs afoul of the state constitution, which specifies that redistricting take place after the decennial census in years ending in one. The new map, which would take effect in 2015, creates an additional majority-black district in Southside but disperses the black vote elsewhere, making other districts more heavily Republican. Democrats have said Senate Republicans are trying to "pack and crack" black voting power and are exploiting the absence of a Democratic member on Monday to get the measure through an evenly divided Senate. All eyes have been on House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) and Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R). The speaker and the governor are conflicted about how to get out of a mess that members of their party thrust them into, according to two Republicans and a Democratic senator familiar with their thinking but not authorized to speak publicly on the issue. If McDonnell and Howell kill the map, they could enrage fellow Republicans - a group already wary of their plan to overhaul transportation, which would eliminate the gas tax but raise the sales tax and certain fees to pay for road and rail projects. If they go with it, they risk alienating Democrats and losing their support on the transportation proposal.