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Virginia is voting on redrawing their congressional districts today. Here is the Wikipedia entry.
The main highlight is that it would change Virginia from 6-5 democrat-republican split to a 10-1 split. It is being sold by Democrats as an effort to counter Republican gerrymandering in other states. It is being panned by Republicans as unfair representation, and an election map that looks like Fairfax county (rich county in northern Virginia) gets to elect about half of the state's representatives.
I'm a Virginia resident. So I've been getting lots of mailers about the issue and simple vote "yes" or "no" signs are everywhere.
I'm very frustrated with the whole thing. First for Trump kicking off this fight. Second with the Democrats in Virginia that have made a ridiculously bullshit map. I still have yet to hear anyone from the "yes" side explain how this is good for Virginia other than "fight Trump". I even read one article that had a title implying it would be about voters not feeling represented, and it turns out the content of the article was about democratic leaders addressing the democrat voters in the now single solitary red district. No content about how Republican voters might feel in the 10 other districts.
If this level of bullshit is on the table I feel like other proposals that get shot down for being "crazy" in normal times might end up back on the table. Like a bunch of Virginia counties seceding and joining West Virginia. Or the right to giant congress
I'm particularly peeved by the complete abdication of the courts, here. Partisan gerrymander is, ultimately, legal; it's not their place to complain that a lobster district looks too goofy.
But Virginia does, specifically, have a lot of process requirements, some statutory and some constitutional, for that constrain this redistricting amendment. Some of those constraints are matters of opinion:
That's a pretty hefty thumb on the scale, in my opinion, but I'm sure some others would disagree (in the distance, Mark Elias and Darwin sneeze). Other components, however, are straightforward math, such as whether 90 days occurred between the amendment being announced and the voting, or whether an election of the house of representatives had occurred in between. There is no universe where the law complied with those mechanisms; proof against is available with the use of a calendar alone.
Now, the courts could have stepped in. And, indeed, a lower court did. The state supreme court stepped in and said that the amendment process could continue, and only after the vote is complete would they review the constitutionality and legality of the amendment process.
There's some funny potential situations. If I trusted the Virginia Supreme Court, it'd be a really funny as a parallel to the old California Prop 8 were massive amounts of manpower and capital and political force applied to a constitutional amendment that never went into effect, but I don't. I'm very skeptical that the people who wouldn't put the brakes on a blatantly illegal process two months ago will do so now that millions of Virginians have put their names on it, and unless the amendment vote is still getting tabulated in six months, I don't even know that they could. It'd be funny to watch another cycle of everyone calling for other people to start de-escalating first, except we already saw several Red Tribe states pull back from less-extreme gerrymandering and I can't argue for them ever doing it again if this sticks.
The people could react. Everyone pretended that they were appalled by Jay Jones (for almost a whole month!), and Spanberger's claimed moderation immediately turned into a giant illegal gun grab and tax heist, and okay, I can't keep a straight face. The DC blob is blue, deep blue, and self-destructively blue, not just in the sense of having politics different than mine, but willing to melt down everything for that political flag. If the constitutional amendment was titled "Flip Republicans The Bird" and its actual text delivered a warm steaming pile of dogshit to the mailbox of every yes voter on a daily basis, it'd still beat 40%. The best case scenario is a staggeringly close loss that kinda embarrasses Spanberger and Obama, and the most optimistic Red Tribers are more praying that it's just a close win rather than a 5%+ one.
It could end up a stupidmander, which would be the funniest of all possibilities, but that depends on people reacting after the vote. Gfl.
But this whole combination -- the blatant manipulation of rules and expertise for their benefit, the complete disavowal of others as ever getting a voice in policy, and the sheer self-dealing and corruption -- is just the nature of politics, today. I'd like to say the Blue Tribe is worse about it, but if that's the case, it's just because the Red Tribe has taken the stupid party hat (cfe Texas).
California?
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I'm frustrated that you think Trump started this. All of the Dem redistricting proposals are in response to Texas redistricting, which is a legally mandated response to a 2024 5th Circuit ruling saying "no, you cant have racially discriminatory districts", which is generally a thing democrats claim to oppose, except when it helps them.
The fundamental truth is that currently the DNC is the overwhelming beneficiary of gerrymandering efforts, and the push in Virginia about the 759th finger on a very crowded scale.
There were lots of articles saying that Trump said Republicans were "entitled" to 5 more districts in Texas. Which is why I blamed him in the first place. Your comment got me to go research it more.
I place less blame on Trump now. This seems like a fight the Democrats were itching for and they picked up on a minor interview thing.
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Prior to Rucho v Common Cause in 2019, this level of extreme Partisan gerrymandering would have been presumed illegal. It was only a matter of time before the requisite shameless met with opportunity.
Maybe we will finally get another constitutional amendment out of this.
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This is not a coincidence because nothing is ever a coincidence.
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Redistricting is retarded. Look at Louisiana. First the legislature draws up a map with 5 non-black majorities and 1 black majority. This is challenged in court and found to violate the VRA so they go back and draw up a new map with 2 black majority districts (Louisiana is 1/3 black). Another group of 'non-African-American voters' challenges the new map for being racially gerrymandered and a federal panel agrees, so now they might have to change the map again pending SCOTUS decision.
Redistricting changes that would significantly shift the results (based on the most recent election) should just not be allowed. Why can every other country make this work?
The VRA and related court precedent demands a mutually-contradictory set of requirements on drawing districts. That Gordion knot is maybe going to be (partially?) untied by the current Louisiana case.
Although my personal thinking is that eliminating geographic districting in favor of something more like slate-of-candidates parliamentary systems is probably the cleanest of the available options. None are perfect, though.
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Wow. I never knew there were originally 12 amendments in the bill of rights. I feel ashamed of my civics education.
Also, I'm fully convinced. Let's complete the Bill of Rights.
Despite sharing it and finding it interesting I'm against it. I think the actual result of this would be to weaken congress and strengthen the president/bureaucracy/supreme court/main parties. Congress is already weak enough.
It would be more difficult to gerrymander all of these districts.
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The most gerrymandered states are all Democratic. VRA throughout the South has given Democrats dozens of extra congressional seats. This was the original basis of the fight, Texas had explicitly gerrymandered minority-majority seats that caused DOJ to send Texas a letter. But this in turn was a response to a 2024 5th Circuit decicision about the VRA. Which, ultimately, yes, this is about the midterms, which ultimately is about the question of who gets to govern the country. Which is the only fight anyone is picking at all.
I feel as though being annoyed at Trump for starting a fight over political power is like being annoyed at Steph Curry for starting a 3-point shooting war.
The more notable story is that after Democrats have already gerrymandered half a dozen states and Republican states have a lot of slack they could pick up to fight back, the 2025-2026 redistricting wars will either end neutral or with a Democratic win. Well I feel confident that if we had 1,000 Trumps instead of 1,000 generic GOP party apparatchiks that would not be the case.
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