Virginia Democrats propose replacing the entire Virginia Supreme Court after they ruled against their gerrymandered map.

 

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger. New York Times.

Democrats in Virginia have proposed replacing the entire Virginia Supreme Court after they ruled against their gerrymandered map.  New York Times. Democrats in the state are described as "desperate" after the Virginia Supreme Court overturned their latest gerrymandered map that would give Democrats four new house seats. The scheme would require lowering the retirement age for Supreme Court justices to 54 or younger, which is the age of the youngest member of the court. A new Court could be installed then and they would then rule that the current maps were unconstitutional for the same reason why the gerrymandered districts were. The vote to amend the constitution requires a notice to be placed at courthouses and neither redistricting move did so. However, such a scheme is seen as an extreme longshot, as they only have until May 12th to change the maps in Virginia without it affecting the election. With the Supreme Court of the United States unlikely to intervene, Virginia's current maps will likely remain in place for 2026.

My Comment:

The Virginia gerrymander will go down as one of the biggest own goals in history. The Democrats spent $70 million on the vote, which barely passed at 51%, and considerable political capital on it. Indeed, Governor Spanberger bet her political future on the vote and at this point she's essentially a lame duck. 

I do understand why the Democrats are so desperate. They have pretty convincingly screwed themselves over. Conventional wisdom says that the Democrats are going to win the House in 2026 but the path is extremely narrow. Indeed, some projections have the Republicans at 217 seats that are at least "lean" Republican. If that's the case then they would only have to win one more House district they need to keep control of the house. 

I actually think that this is more likely than the media likes to report. Indeed, the only real issue holding down the Republicans is the Iran conflict and though the conflict drags on without a resolution, I can't imagine it won't be anything but a memory by November. Democrats probably know this, which is why they tried this gerrymander in the first place. 

However, I do have to think that the effort to gerrymander itself has done a lot of damage to the Democrats in general. The maps were so blatantly partisan that even folks supporting the Republican gerrymanders thought it was crazy. The maps were made to dilute the votes of the folks in Western Virginia by forcing tentacle-like districts extending from Washington DC, all the way to the borders with West Virginia. 

This particular plot though, is even more beyond the pale and it's insane to me that it leaked that they were even considering this. Indeed, I almost think the New York Times report was put out to put a kibosh on this effort. Not only does the plan have an almost zero percent chance of working, actually doing it would enrage just about everyone. It would be the most naked partisan powergrab in recent history and would permanently tarnish the Democratic Party. Given that fact and the fact that they only have two days to get new maps in play, I don't think any of this is going to happen. 

I have been wanting to write a post about the vibe shift in the Republican Party, and this is as good as any. Republicans have been stacking up the wins this week and the political headwinds they have been facing seem to have evaporated. Even the groypers/America First/woke right have been put into their place with Vivek Ramaswamy beating Casey Pustch in Ohio. It just seems like a lot of the hope and optimism that was seen on the right during the first year of Trump's term has returned now in his second year.