Virginia Supreme Court Not A Fan Of Redistricting, Democracy
Well, this was a fine fuck you to hit on a Friday morning.
The Supreme Court of Virginia on Friday struck down the redistricting referendum recently approved by the state’s voters that redrew congressional district lines to allow Democrats to (likely) win 10 of the state’s 11 seats in the US House of Representatives in November’s elections. Coming after a week and a half in which other Southern states have been racing each other to roll back the entire Civil Rights Era to favor the side that lost the Civil War, the Virginia court’s ruling was a real kick in the nislekh.
What may be most infuriating is that the court’s reasoning is based on some made-up standard about what constitutes an election that has heretofore not been recognized in either Virginia state or federal law. Making up a standard to benefit Republicans! Who do you think you are, the Supreme Court of the United States?
It’s a technicality, and a very meager one when set against the white-hot rage people are feeling as they watch the Republicans bring back Jim Crow with the enthusiasm of a six-year-old at Disneyworld.
Here is what happened, in a large nutshell. Virginia’s constitution requires the Legislature to pass proposed amendments twice before they go on the ballot. If the amendment is passed during a legislative session, it has to be passed a second time during the legislature’s first session held after the next election. The theory is that voters should get to vote for their representatives based on whether those representatives are for or against the amendment. If your legislator favors an amendment you oppose, you have the chance to vote him out of office before the amendment gets voted on a second time and then goes to the voters to be ratified.
Basically, we Virginians bends over backwards to make amending our constitution truly democratic. We’re very genteel like that.
What happened with the redistricting amendment was this: The Legislature voted on it the first time last Halloween, five days before state elections. But early voting in those elections had started in September. Thus, the court decided, the state Legislature had deprived anyone who voted early (about 1.3 million people) of the opportunity to vote for or against legislators based on their stance on the amendment.
The problem is that the election is, legally, only one day. The law has never before counted early voting as being part of the election, as noted in the dissent:
Under the plain language of the statute, early voting begins “on the forty-fifth day prior to any election and shall continue until 5:00 p.m. on the Saturday immediately preceding the election.” [Emphasis theirs.]
This does not seem complicated. Legislative language can be hard to follow if you’re not a lawyer (or if you are a very dumb lawyer), but “prior to” and “preceding” are clear enough. As the dissent concludes, it is clear that when the Virginia Legislature wrote this statute, it intended early voting to take place before the election did.
Check out this next passage from the dissent, which appears to have been written after the judges all ate gummies together:
[A]pplying the majority’s definition of election to Code § 24.2-701.1(A), creates a causality paradox: an election is a process that begins with early voting, but early voting must precede an election by forty-five days. The majority’s definition creates an infinite voting loop that appears to have no established beginning, only a definitive end: Election Day.
Like, whoa. What even is time? You are blowing our minds, Chief Justice Cleo Powell of the Virginia Supreme Court.
Reaction from Virginian Democrats was mixed. Governor Abigail Spanberger made some anodyne statement about winning the elections in November. Tim Kaine was mad, which was good to see after he was initially opposed to redistricting. Attorney General Jay Jones is asking the US Supreme Court to review the decision. Anyone want to guess how that turns out?
We have not yet seen a statement from Louise Lucas, who might be a tad distracted right now. But we expect her to be extra angry and extra motivated to do something about it.
So now what? Perhaps some of the blue states that have been resisting redistricting will get mad enough to change their minds. It was one thing when it was just Texas redrawing its lines, but it’s another when you watch state after state in the South wasting no time after the Callais decision trying to resegregate.
Some other ideas? There’s always ignoring the state supreme court:
Not a bad idea. What are they going to do, send us to bed without supper?
Multiple states in the last few years have ignored court orders on redistricting. Or they have had a referendum, anti-gerrymandering won, and the Republican-controlled legislatures ignored the results. The only consequence we have seen for those states is that they get exactly what they wanted.
Hey brother, can you spare a donation? We promise not to use it to buy Ripple, we’re way classier than that.
Yes Virginia, there is a Satan clause.
Even if the Supreme Court rules in Virginia’s favor they will make sure they wait until at least one week too late for it to matter just as an additional fuck you.