On February 19, Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. issued his second opposition in two months to block Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly from redrawing the state’s eleven Congressional lines in a way to benefit Democrats.
Virginia’s eleven-member Congressional delegation is currently six Democrats to five Republicans. However, Democrat leaders in the General Assembly have trumpeted the new lines as designed to produce ten Democrat seats to only one Republican, with a lone GOP Congressman confined to the far southwest corner of the state.
Judge Hurley’s first order in January ruled the vote on the amendment illegal. As a result, Democrats appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which seemingly delayed a decision until after the proposed voting would be over. (See “State Supreme Court Basically Nullifies 2020 Election, Disenfranchises 2,770,489 Virginia Voters.”)
The case comes from appeals from the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee over the ballot referendum’s timing and phrasing. Specifically, the ballot claims a “yes” vote is to “restore fairness,” even though a “yes” would allow the “Most Aggressive Gerrymander Of Any Other State.”
Tiffany Justice, Executive Vice President for Heritage Action and co-founder of Moms4Liberty, posted this claim to her February 19 Twitter/X page:
“The state Constitution is crystal clear: No proposed amendment can be submitted to voters sooner than 90 DAYS after final passage by the General Assembly (Va. Const. art. XII, § 1).
“Final passage? Jan 16, 2026. That puts the 90-day deadline at April 16.
“But early voting for the April 21 referendum kicks off on MARCH 6—over a MONTH too soon!
“If ballots start rolling in March 6, the amendment’s being ‘submitted’ prematurely, straight-up violating the Constitution. It’s not “90 days before Election Day”—it’s 90 days after passage, period.
“This could blow up the whole thing.”
In contrast, lead Democrats laud the proposed amendment as restoring “fairness” to offset GOP gerrymandering in some GOP-led states like Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri.
Left-leaning RadioIQ/WVTF claimed this on February 18, regarding some minor tweaks in the Democrats’ proposed maps.
Senate President Louise Lucas said new, slightly edited congressional maps her chamber released Wednesday may appear to be about shifting lines in the 757 to be even more favorable for Democrats, but she said it was more of a cleanup.
“That had to do with some of the boundary lines around river streams and stuff like that. I know some people are saying it made the Second Congressional District more Democratic. It may have been by a point or two, but that’s not the real reason we did it,” Lucas told Radio IQ. “They were very minor changes. This was something we had to do for the nation to make sure we safeguard our democracy.”
The State Supreme Court may now need to decide before early voting starts on March 6 if the entire proposed amendment and its timing are legal or not.
Check back here often; this is a developing story.
– Scott Dreyer
