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On Monday this week \u2014 only six days after Virginia\u2019s gerrymandering referendum \u2014 the Virginia Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the alleged constitutional and statutory offenses Democrats in Virginia\u2019s General Assembly committed in 2025<\/span> in bringing their attempt to amend Virginia\u2019s constitution to get rid of our bipartisan redistricting commission. There is a second case on appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court that addresses Democrats\u2019 alleged 2026<\/span> violations of Virginia\u2019s constitution and laws. Finally, there is a third case, still in trial court in Richmond, addressing whether the Democrats\u2019 proposed new map is so extremely gerrymandered that it violates Virginia\u2019s constitution. If the Virginia Supreme Court throws out the referendum, the map case will be mooted and dismissed.<\/p>\n Recognizing how important it is to have maps in place, the Virginia Supreme Court has moved with a speed I have never before observed. Two days after last week\u2019s referendum, briefs were filed, and four days after that, oral arguments were held. One can only assume that the Court will issue a ruling at a similar pace.<\/p>\n As a 30+ year litigator, it\u2019s important to realize how little you can often glean from oral argument. In Monday\u2019s hearing, only three of the seven justices asked anything, and most of that came from just two: Justices Russell and McCullough. A note on these two: Most people will observe that they are among the more conservative justices. That is true, but both of them also have a rare depth of experience dating back before they became judges, more than a decade ago, in interpreting and litigating Virginia state constitutional issues. There are very few state constitutional experts \u2014 they are both such experts in Virginia.<\/p>\n Notably, current Democrat Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones\u2019 public comments defending the referendum since the three-point win by the \u201cyes\u201d folks have exclusively focused on the importance of the vote. \u201cT<\/span>he people have spoken,\u201d and therefore the court should not invalidate the referendum. No reference to the constitution or laws of Virginia, just raw mobocracy. So, it was almost hilarious to hear the very first question to Jones\u2019 own lawyer<\/i><\/span>, along the lines of \u201ccounsel, does the outcome of last week\u2019s vote have any bearing on the legal issues before us today?\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Answer: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones\u2019 own lawyer gutted his public posturing with his answer to the very first question asked in oral argument. Ouch.<\/p>\n A little election law history in Virginia: the last time the Democrats controlled Virginia\u2019s state House, Senate, and Governorship, they gave Virginia 45-day elections. It is thus ironic that early voting is causing the Democrats\u2019 biggest problems with their bum-rushed attempt to amend Virginia\u2019s constitution to gerrymander the state into oblivion.<\/p>\n To amend Virginia\u2019s constitution, the General Assembly must pass a proposed amendment twice \u2014 once on each side of an intervening election. Simple enough, right? Not when you\u2019re in a race to rewrite maps to \u201cget Trump\u201d in the midterms.<\/p>\n The Democrats didn\u2019t pass their gerrymandering amendment for the first time until Halloween last year \u2014 during the election that gave us Governor Abigail Spanberger. Their problem? Voting began six weeks earlier, on September 19, 2025. Over one million Virginians had already voted by Halloween. The lawyer for the Democrats\u2019 response? Too dang bad. Seriously.\u00a0<\/span>Jones\u2019 lawyer said that early voters vote early at their own risk, basically stating if there\u2019s an October surprise, too bad for you, you shouldn\u2019t have voted early.<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t this the party that raises early voting and mail-in voting to a religious-like level? Aren\u2019t you an automatic racist if you oppose the nobility of early voting?<\/p>\n And now that the 45-day election stands in the way of their power grab, they are throwing those voters under the bus. One of the plaintiffs in the case is a Democrat early voter who strongly supported the bipartisan redistricting amendment that passed just over five years ago by a 2-to-1 margin. Not only that, her own delegate proposed the gerrymandering amendment to undo the bipartisan redistricting. She had no idea they might do this, and if she had known, she would have voted against her delegate.<\/p>\n The Virginia attorney general, who has been spewing pablum about how much he wants to protect voting, doesn\u2019t care about this woman\u2019s vote, nor the other million+ voters in 2025 who voted, having no idea of the power play that was about to be rammed through by the Democrats.<\/p>\n Considering the more lenient approach taken on the other two issues during oral argument \u2014 namely, whether the Democrat-controlled General Assembly could shift the focus of its special session from the state budget to adding a constitutional amendment unexpectedly, and whether Virginia\u2019s law requiring court clerks to post potential constitutional amendments 90 days before an election was violated (which was impossible here since the amendment didn\u2019t exist until near the end of the 2025 election) \u2014 I anticipate that this Court will swiftly declare the referendum unconstitutional.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n