In the coming months, Virginia’s political landscape will be considerably altered as the House of Delegates and Senate of Virginia take up the decennial task of redistricting. Using figures from the 2010 Census, lawmakers will alter the boundary lines of the state’s 40 Senate and 100 House of Delegate districts with the goal of ensuring equal representation.

Now is the time for the General Assembly to correct a mistake it made 10 years earlier when it created the Gerrymander known as Virginia’s 6th Senate District. Residents of Mathews are all too familiar with this voracious political animal that swallowed up the county a decade ago.

While Mathews is fortunate to be represented in the Senate of Virginia by Dr. Ralph Northam, the district’s current configuration is not fair, either to Northam or his Mathews constituents. Another candidate could easily focus his or her energies on the district’s urban population centers and ignore the needs of this is...