This won’t occur for a couple of months, but its been weighing on my mind today. So once again I will use writing as a cheap form of therapy.
One of the first things done by majority Democrats Wednesday when the Virginia General Assembly began their 2026 session was to pass a Joint Resolution to redraw Virginia’s Congressional Map.
If that seems odd to you, that’s because it is. The Constitution calls for those lines to be redrawn once a decade, immediately after Census numbers are released. Of course, there is nothing in the Constitution that *forbids* a state from re-drawing those lines whenever they want.
That fact has prompted some Republican-led states to redraw their maps in an effort to create as many GOP-majority districts as possible. This is done through the magic of gerrymandering.
I am going to assume that most of you know what this is and how it works. If not, here is a link that explains it fairly succinctly.
These efforts have been encouraged by Republican President Donald Trump to increase the likelihood that Republicans keep their majority in the House of Representatives. Right now that edge is as slender as it can be.
While this is perfectly Constitutional, it is also wrong. This is a naked power grab that is NOT designed to benefit We The People. It is all about political power. Indeed some states (Indiana) with majority Republicans have rightfully told the President to shove off when it comes to this effort.
Ah, but what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right? Democratic-led states then began their own campaign to re-draw lines before the 2026 elections to eliminate the few districts in their states that are GOP-majority.
Funny. I was brought up to believe that two wrongs don’t make a right. I guess these guys didn’t have the advantage I had of good parenting. Oh well.
Here in my home state of Virginia, where Democrats are now firmly in control of the General Assembly and the Governor’s mansion, the Democrats are almost two-thirds of the way through an effort to pass a Constitutional amendment allowing them to re-draw Virginia’s Congressional districts in time for the 2026 midterms. They arranged a special session last fall so they could pass the amendment a first time. During this year’s regular session they are poised to pass it a second time, as is required, before the issue goes to the voters.
But there is another angle here in Virginia. In 2020, Virginia voters overwhelmingly approved a Constitutional amendment to take Congressional redistricting away from the General Assembly. The vote established a redistricting commission whose job it is to redraw those lines in a non-partisan manner. The panel is made up of equal parts Republicans and Democrats. In 2021 they deadlocked, sending the issue to the State Supreme Court. They adopted a map that was actually not too shabby. It was certainly non-partisan, which was precisely the goal of establishing the redistricting commission in the first place.
Former Chatham State Senator Charles Hawkins, one of just a handful of politicians whom I actually respect, told me repeatedly that redistricting was politics at its worst…and it brought out the worst in everyone. He said the process was your classic “smoked-filled room” with backdoor dealings and pitiless grabs at power. He said watching the process was sickening.
And so the good people of the Commonwealth of Virginis grew tired of the once-a-decade bloodsport from two parties who ONLY goal is raw political power. We ended it. Lawmakers proved they were wholly incapable of performing this function in a manner that represented all Virginia, so We The People took that away from them. By a wide margin, I might add.
Now Virginia Democrats want to undo what We The People demanded. And the ONLY reason they want to do it is…wait for it…raw political power. Rank-and-file Virginians will not benefit from this. The only ones who benefit are leaders of one of the two political tribes that exist.
This would be a bad idea even if voters had rejected the redistricting commission. But when you add it in, it turns this in to a naked partisan power grab that cavalierly pisses on the will of the people in order to score temporary political points.
To top it all off there are prominent Virginia Democrats who are BRAGGING about getting a chance to pass a map that creates only one GOP-majority district. The reliably-execrable Sen. Louise Lucas issues seemingly-daily tweets salivating over the prospect of being able to draw a map that offers all of the spoils to her tribe.
Once this fetid pile of dung passes the General Assembly and is duly ratified by the brainless algorithm who now resides in the Governor’s mansion, it will go to We the People in a referendum this spring.
I hope the people of Virginia take this wonderful opportunity to tell partisan hacks that we will NOT let you undo what we did five years ago. You stink. You lost the power to perform this duty because you used it to put party over people for decades. And I will be damned if we are going to put it back into your hands.
It is rare that we get a chance to so clearly repudiate the political class. This is an opportunity to shove their partisan wet dreams back into their collective faces and remind them that they work for us…not the opposite. And they have damned sure never forget it.
Let’s do this.
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