Cox said he doesn’t feel the proposal released Monday is perfect, and some redistricting reform advocates quickly identified ways they said it could be improved.

Brian Cannon, executive director of the anti-gerrymandering group OneVirginia2021, called the plan a “step in the right direction,” but said it needs stronger provisions “for full transparency and clear rules prohibiting political gerrymandering.”

“Seats in the General Assembly and in Congress don’t belong to the political parties — they belong to the people,” Cannon said.

Some advocates zeroed in on a provision in Cole’s plan that said the commission must make every effort to “preserve the political parity between the two political parties,” which some saw as language designed to maintain the status quo.

Anna Scholl, executive director of Progress Virginia, said the House GOP proposal “simply replaces one bad system with another.”

“Voters should choose their elected officials, not the other way around. But under this amendment, voters would lose the power of their vote because districts would be required to be drawn to create a certain number of blue districts and a certain number of red ones,” Scholl said.