Late last week, Virginia Democrats announced a special session in the General Assembly to begin Monday, October 27. Their announced intention is to redraw the lines for the state’s Congressional delegation, starting with the 2026 midterms. Virginia has eleven seats in the US House of Representatives, based on the population of the Old Dominion. Currently, six of those seats are held by Democrats and five by Republicans. It is unclear what such a future redistricting could look like, or if courts will even allow it, but some claim new lines could change the balance to nine to two or even ten to one.
Virginia, as a largely “purple” state, has what many see as a largely fair balance of Congressional representation, six Democrats and five Republicans. However, a lopsided margin of, say, nine to two would in no way represent the state’soverall population.
As Twitter/X user @VA-GOP posted on October 29:
“46% of Virginians voted for Pres. Trump in 2024.
“48% of Virginians voted for Republican House candidates in 2022.
“There have been just 8 years of governing trifectas in VA since 1992 – 4 by Republicans, 4 by Democrats.
“Republicans swept all 3 executive offices in 2022 & won the House.
“In no way is what Democrats are proposing ‘fair.” It’s a blatant power grab.”
The Roanoke Star has reached out after hours to Democrat Delegate Salam “Sam” Rasoul and Republican Senators Chris Head and David Suetterlein for their comments on this situation.
Normally, states redraw their lines every ten years, after the most recent census. But recently, Texas and North Carolina, which both have GOP-led legislatures, have voted to redraw their lines. Many believe the new lines in North Carolina could give Republicans one more seat, and in Texas, several.
Thus, Virginia Democrat leaders claim they are justified, with their control of the General Assembly, to redraw our lines now.
As reported here, on October 28, Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican running for re-election against Jay Jones, who texted his fantasies about murdering a political opponent and his two small children, issued an opinion that the current redistricting effort is illegal. Miyares argues this because the state Constitution requires an intervening election between two General Assembly votes to amend the Constitution. Since the current election has been going on with early voting since September 19, and almost a million Virginians have already cast their ballots, this election is already underway even though “Election Day” is technically November 4.
Moreover, as Governor Youngkin posted here to his official Twitter/X page, in 2020, 65.7% of Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment to put redistricting in the hands of a nonpartisan commission, instead of the traditional way in which the party in power does that unilaterally. That amendment was the majority position in every locality in the state, except for Arlington County.
Since most of Western and Central Virginia is rural and conservative, three Congressional seats, the 9th, 6th, and 5th, occupy much of this region and have Republican Congressmen.
In this area, Democrat strongholds are offset by larger GOP numbers surrounding them. For example, Virginia Tech is in the 9th. Roanoke City is in the 6th. Charlottesville and UVA are in the 5th.
But if redistricting could, say, lump Tech, Roanoke, and Charlottesville into the 5th, that would probably produce a Democrat representative. (See image above.) Moreover, by splitting Democrat-heavy Fairfax among multiple Congressional districts, that could flip two seats in Eastern Virginia currently held by Republicans to Democrat.
Cardinal News reached out to all one hundred members of the House of Delegates for their statement about this sudden redistricting effort. However, no Democrats responded to that request for information, even though they hold the majority and are behind the push.
This unforeseen redistricting push has become a new issue in the campaign that is to endon November 4.
As of late afternoon October 29, the Virginia House of Delegates, on a strict party-line vote, approved their Virginia Redistricting Amendment 51–42. The measure now moves to the Democrat-controlled Senate for consideration. Del. Salam “Sam” Rasoul (D-Roanoke), the only Democrat in Southwest Virginia in the House, voted for the measure.
Want to find your voting place, dates, and hours? Use this state-run, non-partisan website, elections.virginia.gov, to findit.
– Scott Dreyer
