VA Supreme Court Gives GOP Huge Lead in Redistricting War

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Democracy won and lost in Virginia on Friday when the state Supreme Court ruled that the legislative process used to put a gerrymandered congressional map before voters last month violated the Commonwealth’s constitution and therefore “incurably taints” the outcome of a referendum that likely would have netted Democrats four seats in the House of Representatives in November.

It is a victory that is a lot more bitter than sweet.

For once, a court stopped a partisan gerrymander (albeit on procedural grounds and not because it dilutes the voting power of a group of the state’s citizens). It’s difficult to fault the judges. The process was rushed for reasons we will get to in a minute. And the wording of the question on the ballot, which would have been subjected to another lawsuit, was not nonpartisan.

If we look at Virginia in isolation, it would have been outrageous to redraw the congressional districts of a fairly closely divided state in a way that virtually ensures that it sends 10 members of one party and just one of the other to the House.

In that sense, the 4–3 ruling is a victory for fairness — even keeping in mind that it was the voters who approved the new maps, that the new districts would have only been in place temporarily, and that the referendum was a response to a Republican assault on democracy itself.

However, Virginia cannot be viewed in isolation.

While the justices were deliberating this case, their colleagues on the US Supreme Court gutted what was left of the Voting Rights Act and kicked open the door for red states to disenfranchise millions of Black voters by rigging their maps and ensuring that the next Congress will be less diverse, less Democratic, and less democratic.

And those states wasted no time accepting that invitation.

Several of them are using processes and tactics much more questionable than that employed by Virginia Democrats to engage in previously illegal racial gerrymanders.

This comes on top of the unprecedented mid-decade redistricting efforts in Texas and a couple of other Republican-led states that followed Donald Trump’s call to rig the midterms in favor of the GOP.

Then there is Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) this week signed a gerrymander that is a blatant violation of the state’s constitution.

There is a good chance that most or all of them will get away with it, too, because they can rely on partisan state courts or the six GOP operatives sitting on the bench of the US Supreme Court.

As a result, Republicans could emerge from this redistricting war with a dozen or more ill-gotten seats.

In that sense, the Virginia decision is terrible for democracy, for fairness, and for America.

What is especially galling is that Trump is doing what he accuses his opponents of (without ever providing any evidence): He is trying to steal an election in broad daylight for everyone to see.

“Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia,” the president crowed in a social media post. “The Virginia Supreme Court has just struck down the Democrats’ horrible gerrymander.”

It’s like watching one of those villainous WWE wrestlers celebrate a victory over an opponent who was hit over the head with a chair by the referee.

So, yes, gerrymandering is not good, but it is even worse when only one side does it … especially when that side is the one that wants to dismantle democracy itself.