Tag: gerrymandering

Judge Rules Virginia Redistricting Referendum Unconstitutional

A Virginia judge ruled on April 22 that the state’s redistricting referendum approved by voters a day earlier was invalid, nullifying the election results.

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said he would immediately file an appeal.

“Virginia voters have spoken, and an activist judge should not have veto power over the People’s vote,” Jones said in an X post.

Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley entered an injunction blocking certification of the election.

Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said the legal fight was just beginning after language used in the ballot question raised a lot of interest among the opposition.

The question voters faced was the following: “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”

Cuccinelli expects the case to move quickly through the appeals process.

“The ‘yes’ folks probably are going to look back at Tuesday and think that was the easy part because they have so badly violated several constitutional provisions,” Cuccinelli told “The Scott Jennings Show.”

The referendum faces three legal challenges in addition to the one decided on April 22.

“Here’s my prediction, the referendum gets tossed out in May,” Cuccinelli said in an X post.

Three of the lawsuits challenge the referendum on procedural grounds, arguing that Democratic Party lawmakers didn’t follow the law regarding timing requirements and legislative steps when passing the measure to place it on the ballot.

The fourth argument is about how the electoral districts were drawn and challenges the maps on contiguity requirements.

Tens of millions of dollars were spent to pass the redistricting referendum as Democrats across the nation continue their quest to redraw congressional seats in favor of taking back the U.S. House.

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Virginia passes ‘egregiously’ gerrymandered redistricting map favoring Democrats

Virginians voted in favor of Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Democrats’ effort to completely overhaul the commonwealth’s congressional map to favor Democrats, the Associated Press reported Tuesday evening.

The Associated Press called the race in favor of “yes” at 8:50pm eastern time with an estimated 81% of the votes counted. At the time of the call, 50.3% voted in favor of the redistricting effort, while 49.7% voted against.

The AP called “yes” despite the slim margin because the outstanding ballots were in areas breaking hard for “yes.”

While 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans currently represent Virginia in Washington, the new Virginia congressional map will likely give Democrats a 10-1 advantage after the midterms. Democrats will hold this massive advantage despite the fact that Virginia went blue by less than 6% in the 2024 presidential election and voted for Spanberger by 15 points in the 2025 gubernatorial election.

The new congressional map is expected to result in 10 Democrats and one Republican by stretching congressional districts in Northern Virginia and areas of Charlottesville deep into southern and eastern portions of the state that are rural and reliably red.

Even prior to Tuesday night’s election result, voters in Virginia expressed concern with the language on the ballot. The Virginia Supreme Court decided to wait until after the election to hear the case over whether the language was fair. Notably, this is the same court that decided the current map was a fair one to begin with.

A recent poll conducted by Heritage Action found that nearly 50% of voters were confused by the term “restore fairness.”

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Trouble in Virginia: Leftists Pay Canvassers To Gain college student support for Democrat Gerrymandering

According to a recent report at Campus Reform, “Left-wing activists are paying canvassers to promote a Democrat-led redistricting effort on Virginia college students, according to a recent job posting.”

This listing, posted on Indeed, sought applicants for a “Community Canvasser – Vote YES on Redistricting” position.

The goal would be to support a Democrat plot to “support a gerrymandering referendum in the upcoming election.”

The listing read like a typical far-left campaign pitch, saying “With Trump and MAGA-controlled legislatures in other states working to rig congressional maps, Virginians are at risk of having their voices diminished in Washington,” the post claims. “Virginians vote April 21st on a constitutional amendment that gives voters, not politicians, the power to protect fair representation for Virginia.”

As has been reported extensively, this gerrymandering proposal in VA would redraw congressional districts to favor the Dems.

This job mentioned is being pitched by a group known as “The Outreach Team, which advertises itself as “the national engine of campaigners and organizers powering the progressive movement” on its web page. It boasts of its partnerships with a number of prominent left-wing organizations, including Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, and the Biden-Harris campaign.”

In other words, this is a grassroots leftist effort to skew the elections towards the Democrats and put them at an advantage over Republicans.

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Obama Films Desperate Video Pleading with Virginians to Approve Redistricting Referendum That Could Flip Up to Four House Seats to Democrats

Barack Obama released a video on Thursday calling for Virginia voters to approve a constitutional amendment on the April 21 special election ballot that would temporarily suspend the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission and let the Democrat-controlled General Assembly redraw congressional district maps.

The measure, framed by supporters as a response to Republican-led mid-decade redistricting in other states, would allow lawmakers to adopt new congressional maps for the 2026 midterms and beyond, continuing through the 2030 census.

Democrats say the proposed maps could shift Virginia’s current 6-5 Democratic advantage in the U.S. House delegation to as many as 10-1.

In the video, Obama stated:

“By voting yes, you can push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms.”

The former president continued, “By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field. And we’re counting on you.”

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Utah Supreme Court Justice Faces Inquiry for Relationship With Lawyer in Congressional Redistricting Case

Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen is facing an investigation by state leaders after it was revealed that she reportedly had a romantic relationship with the lawyer who helped Democrats redraw the state’s congressional maps, stealing a seat from Republicans. 

Utah Governor Spencer Cox, Senate President J. Stuart Adams, and Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz are looking into a complaint that was submitted late last year about Hagen’s conduct with the attorney who was arguing the redistricting case before the high court.

“Texts reveal intimate relationship between the Justice and Attorney for the Redistricting case while the case was live. She ruled in their favor,” Hayek wrote. “Utah lost a safe Republican district thanks to the new map. Governor + legislative leaders launching a probe into the cozy “friendship.” Utah never should’ve lost that seat. Judicial swamp just got exposed.”

Here’s more:

The complaint, which was obtained exclusively by KSL through a public records request, came from a Provo-based attorney who said Hagen’s ex-husband told him the justice had exchanged “inappropriate” text messages with David Reymann, one of the attorneys involved in a case about redistricting, which led to Utah getting a new congressional map.

Hagen strongly denies allegations of an inappropriate relationship of any kind. Reymann also called the allegations “false.” He does outside legal work for KSL and as an attorney for the Utah Media Coalition, of which KSL is a member.

The Judicial Conduct Commission conducted a preliminary investigation into the complaint and interviewed Hagen’s ex-husband but ultimately decided not to investigate further. Gov. Spencer Cox, Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz told KSL that’s concerning.

“An initial review by the Judicial Conduct Commission and the court left important questions unresolved,” they said in a joint statement Thursday. “Allegations of this nature, especially involving public officials, must be examined with transparency and accountability to establish the facts and to maintain public confidence.”

They added, “We will move forward with an independent investigation to ensure the facts are fully examined. This process will be conducted objectively and thoroughly, because maintaining trust in our institutions is essential.”

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Analysis: More Than 90 Percent Of Funds Backing Dems’ Gerrymandering Scheme Come From Outside Virginia

Democrats love to complain about big “dark money” donors trying to influence U.S. elections. But if their concerns were actually genuine, where is their outrage about the massive wave of out-of-state money flooding Virginia to pass their deceptively worded gerrymandering amendment?

According to figures compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), the wrongly named “Virginians for Fair Elections” has received nearly $50 million to deceive voters into supporting a legally questionable ballot measure allowing the state’s Democrat-run General Assembly to redraw the commonwealth’s congressional map. The party’s current proposal would gerrymander the state’s U.S. House districts from a six Democrat-five Republican map to a 10 Democrat-one Republican map and effectively disenfranchise millions of rural Virginians in the process.

In the months leading up to the April 21 referendum, Virginians for Fair Elections has deployed dishonest ads characterizing Democrats’ gerrymandering scheme as “fair,” and claiming it’s about protecting “democracy,” a much-needed “emergency,” and “level[ing] the playing field.” But it’s clear after examining the funds being poured into the group, however, that most of its financial support isn’t coming from the Virginians it pretends it’s trying to help, but from leftist organizations based outside the state.

A Federalist analysis of the latest donation figures assembled by the Virginia Public Access Project shows that more than 90 percent of Virginians for Fair Elections’ large contributions come from Democrat-aligned out-of-state groups.

The organization’s largest contributor is none other than the D.C.-based House Majority Forward (HMF), a 501(c)(4) that boasts ties to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrat leadership. According to InfluenceWatch, HMF — which has given $29.3 million to Virginians for Fair Elections — “focuses on climate change, social justice, economics, and democracy, and produces ads in favor of Democratic candidates and opposed to Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.”

The second largest donor ($11.02 million) to Virginians for Fair Elections is The Fairness Project. InfluenceWatch describes the D.C.-based 501(c)(4) as a “labor union-backed advocacy organization that finances and supports state ballot initiative campaigns to promote left-of-center policies such as government-mandated comprehensive paid family and medical leave, Medicaid expansion, and minimum wage increases.”

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SCOTUS Shuts Down New York’s Bid To Redistrict GOP Seat Ahead Of 2026 Midterms

The U.S. Supreme Court shut down a bid by New York courts to redistrict a Republican-controlled congressional seat ahead of the 2026 midterms on Monday.

In its 6-3 ruling, the high court granted an emergency application to temporarily stay (“pause”) a state judge’s efforts to redraw Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ congressional district. Malliotakis has represented New York’s 11th Congressional District since 2021 and won reelection by 28 points during the 2024 election.

As described by The Hill, “A state judge had ordered the boundaries be redrawn after ruling the district dilutes black and Latino voting strength in violation of the state constitution.” The Supreme Court’s Monday order “granted Malliotakis’s emergency application to block that ruling as the litigation proceeds, effectively restoring her existing district lines for the midterms.”

The high court noted that the New York court’s ruling “is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the New York state courts” and the filing of a petition at SCOTUS asking the justices to take up the case. The Supreme Court’s stay will terminate if it declines to hear the case or if it agrees to take up the case and renders a verdict on the matter.

Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied Malliotakis’ request for relief.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito authored a concurring opinion in which he expressed agreement with the court’s decision and blasted the New York judge’s directive “that blatantly discriminates on the basis of race.” He noted how the “New York Supreme Court (that State’s trial-level court) ordered the New York Independent Redistricting Commission to draw a new congressional district for the express purpose of ensuring that ‘minority voters’ are able to elect the candidate of their choice.”

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Judge: Virginia Democrats’ Gerrymandering Ploy Is Illegal And Voided

AVirginia judge has shot down efforts by state Democrats to gerrymander the commonwealth in their party’s favor ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

In his Tuesday decision, Tazewell County Circuit Judge Jack Hurley ruled that Democrat lawmakers unlawfully rushed a constitutional amendment proposal — which would allow them to redraw the state’s congressional map — through the General Assembly. As The Federalist’s Breccan Thies recently reported, Democrats’ proposed map “could nuke up to four Republican-held seats” and create “a potential [congressional] delegation of 10 Democrats and one Republican.”

Under the Virginia Constitution, proposed amendments must first be passed by both chambers of the General Assembly in two consecutive legislative sessions. Should they receive such approval, these measures are then submitted to voters for consideration “not sooner than ninety days after final passage by the General Assembly,” and must receive majority support from the electorate to ratify the state’s founding document.

The Democrat-run General Assembly passed the proposed redistricting amendment in October 2025 and again earlier this month, with the hopes of sending it to voters for approval in an April special election so that the gerrymandered map could be used for the midterms later this year. Critics — which include the lawsuit’s Republican plaintiffs and former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares — argued that the General Assembly’s October passage of the amendment was illegitimate because it occurred during early voting, and therefore, did not comport with the Virginia Constitution’s requirement that there be an intervening general election between the legislature’s twice approval of the resolution.

“Under current Virginia law, the election voting process in Virginia spans 45 days. The closing of the polls on November 4, 2025 will be the culmination of the ongoing election process, which commenced September 19, 2025,” Miyares wrote last year. “Accordingly, because a general election of delegates is already underway, the November 4th culmination of this 2025 election cannot be deemed to be the ‘next general election.’ It is the current general election.”

Hurley agreed with such arguments in his Tuesday ruling. While acknowledging the constitutional requirement raised by plaintiffs and Miyares, the circuit judge noted that in order for him to “find that the election was only on November 4, 2025, those one million Virginia voters” who cast their ballots in the early voting process “would be completely disenfranchised.”

“There is no rational conclusion except that the ELECTION began on the first day of voting (September 19, 2025) and ended on November 4, 2025. Therefore, the Court FINDS that following the October 31, 2025 vote and passage of House Joint Resolution 6007 there HAS NOT BEEN an ensuing election of the House of Delegates, and such ensuing general election CANNOT occur until 2027,” Hurley wrote. “Thus, the action of the General Assembly during its Regular Session 2026 CANNOT meet the second passage required of Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution, which second passage must occur before the same can be submitted to the voters of Virginia for adoption.”

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Virginia Dem Goes Nuclear on Kaine, Warner With Sexually Profane Tirade

A Democratic leader in Virginia launched a public and profane attack on two of her party’s most prominent figures over redistricting plans, as intraparty tensions flare ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, as reported by The Independent Journal Review.

Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas blasted U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner in a series of social media posts Saturday, accusing them of meddling in state-level redistricting and dismissing their input in crude terms.

The outburst followed action by Virginia Senate Democrats, who on Friday approved a proposed constitutional amendment allowing the General Assembly to redraw congressional district maps mid-decade.

The move comes as both parties nationally are positioning themselves for the 2026 midterms, with redistricting increasingly used as a tool to gain or protect control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

After the amendment advanced, Lucas posted an image of a McDonald’s worker asking, “Would you like fries with that?” before turning her attention to Kaine and Warner in a follow-up post.

“I have the utmost respect for Senator Kaine and Senator Warner but we do not need ‘coaching’ on redistricting coming from a cuck chair in the corner,” Lucas wrote.

“How about you all stay focused on the fascist in the White House and let us handle redistricting in Virginia. 10-1.”

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Virginia Democrats Move To Establish Limitless Abortion, Ban Guns, And Gerrymander Districts

The Republican-run government of Virginia has four days left in office, and Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., along with Democrat majorities in the Commonwealth’s legislature, are going to start the ball rolling with expanding abortion, making sure felons can vote, and implementing gun restrictions.

Responsible political leadership in Virginia might be focused on answering things like the housing affordability crisis, which has been made much more acute with the importation of foreigners to the most populous areas of the state.

Democrats coming into power in Virginia will hold a 21-19 majority in the state Senate and a 64-36 majority in the House of Delegates. Their top priorities include four proposed constitutional amendments: To expand abortion even later in the pregnancy and make it impossible to restrict (Virginia already allows most abortion up to 26 weeks — the most permissive in the entire South); to enshrine homosexual unions as a right; to automatically restore voting to felons who have completed their sentences; and to allow for mid-decade congressional redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms, where Democrats could nuke up to four Republican-held seats through gerrymandering.

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