Virginia gerrymandering halted – for now
A Virginia judge on Thursday blocked an April 21 referendum in the state on redrawing the state’s congressional maps, marking the latest legal hurdle in a string of challenges to the Democratic-led initiative.
The Tazewell County Circuit Court ordered a halt to voting after the Republican National Committee and state GOP filed a challenge to the vote. …
It remains unclear how the referendum will proceed, though the state Supreme Court has previously declined to block the vote altogether and a separate case is expected to continue on the merits.
So the fat lady hasn’t even begun to sing on this.
The hearing appears to be scheduled for March 18; that’s why I wrote “for now.”
More here:
In his written ruling, [Judge] Hurley found the plaintiffs have an “extraordinarily high likelihood of success on the merits,” including their claim that the referendum violates the timing requirement of Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution because early voting is set for “sooner than 90 days after” the January passage of House Joint Resolution 4.
Hurley also found the ballot language — particularly the phrase “restore fairness” — is likely misleading and violates the Constitution because it “would lead a voter to believe he or she were doing something unfair by voting against the proposed amendment.”
The order states that “the equities of this case warrant temporary relief ‘for the limited purpose of preserving the status quo between the parties pending a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction.’”
The referendum was scheduled for April 21, with early voting scheduled to start March 6.
Alongside California, Virginia has become one of Democrats’ best opportunities to gain U.S. House seats in the upcoming midterms through redistricting. Under the current map, Democrats hold a narrow 6-5 edge in Virginia’s congressional delegation. The proposed map would boost that advantage to 10-1.
President Donald Trump received 46% of the vote in Virginia in 2024, Republicans note, but they contend the new map would reduce GOP representation to roughly 9% of the delegation.
Is there anything gerrymandering can’t do?
Mrs. Otter and I resided for many years in Brookfield and La Grange Park, just west and a little south of Chicago. We were, incredibly, in Illinois’ 5th Congressional District — which includes distant Lincoln Park. Yes, that Lincoln Park, the Chicago near north neighborhood on the lake. Our congressman was Mike Quigly, a typical blowhard Democrat Irish politician vomited forth by Cook County’s gallactically corrupt Irish political machine. You should see the map of the district. It snakes from east to west through Chicago from the lake all the way out past the city limits and into the collar suburbs, and quite resembles the cartoon of the fabled 19th-century gerrymander monster conceived and drawn c. 1812 by Boston artist Elkanah Tisdale for the Boston Gazette.
See: https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2024/07/gerrymandering-the-origin-story/
Alas for Virginia, being gutted by its northern swamp and adjacent counties. In Fairfax County, a judge just granted a “not guilty by reason of insanity” plea to a man who carefully planned a murder. Soros-funded prosecutor.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/virginia/judge-accepts-insanity-plea-fatal-shooting-ceo-from-fairfax/65-49b003f4-d2b4-4b91-b1e3-e19eba89069b?tbref=hp
The contention they could manufacture a 10 to 1 advantage with Virginia’s electorate is one I would not take seriously.
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You should see the fraudulent ads the Democrats are running in Virginia. What’s distressing in our time is how you have a political party composed of criminals and sociopaths and the electorate just does not notice.
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Please note that it’s not that challenging to contrive a mechanistic set of rules for drawing legislative districts, but doing so would require more tolerance for variations in district population – say a range of 2:1 with most districts within 15% of the mean. You don’t benefit from insisting on strictly equipopulous districts, but that’s what judges have imposed on us.