Below is my column in the New York Post on the decision of the Virginia Supreme Court to nullify the result of the recent gerrymandering to eliminate virtually all Republican representatives in the purple state. The reversal of fortunes for the party, however, could lead to an even more dangerous agenda.
Here is the column:
“Eff around and find out”: That taunt from Hakeem Jeffries celebrating Virginia’s gerrymander did not age well.
On Friday, the House minority leader found out that Virginia’s Supreme Court was not quite as gleeful as he about Democrats’ attempt to virtually eliminate Republican representation in the purple state.
The court just cooked the party’s infamous lobster, a district over 100 miles long that was designed to help devour the GOP’s slender majority in the House of Representatives.
It also cooked the ambitions of Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the Democratic establishment, which tossed aside any pretense of principle in a raw political gambit.
The resulting faceplant is nothing short of legendary: Spanberger’s Democrats have succeeded in alienating half of the state.
For the governor, the court’s decision was particularly embarrassing.
Before assuming power, Spanberger denounced gerrymandering as “detrimental to our democracy and weakens the individual voices that form our electorates.”
She ran as a moderate, but Spanberger immediately turned sharply left once in office and called for the most extreme gerrymander in the nation.
The court found that effort was not only unconstitutional, but “wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history.”
It characterized the state’s position as “a story of the tail wagging the dog that has no tail.”
While some of us had previously expressed skepticism over the rushed effort to circumvent the state constitution, the media almost exclusively relied on liberal experts who predicted the new districts would be upheld.
It was a calculated risk for Democrats, who have now burned their bridges with Virginia conservative and Republican voters.
As Winston Churchill said, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
Exhilarating and unforgettable: In a purple state where politicians often require crossover votes to prevail, the redistricting push was not just partisan but personal for voters.
National Democrats will soon “find out” whether Jeffries was right to prematurely celebrate a victory that seemed to secure his anticipated elevation to Speaker of the House.
The party is facing a potentially catastrophic reversal of fortune.
When Democrats declared a gerrymandering war, some of us warned that the party, with its already heavily gerrymandered blue states, had far more to lose than the GOP did.
It was particularly comical when Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey pledged to join the redistricting fray, even though her state is so badly gerrymandered that it’s elected zero Republicans to the House since the 1990s.
Virginia, a state long opposed to gerrymandering, has been considered the fairest state in the country, with a distribution of congressional seats that closely matches its partisan divide.
Once Spanberger sought to eradicate Republican representation, total war broke out — and now red states like Florida and Tennessee have moved forward with their own redistricting.
On top of the fact that GOP states have more room for partisan gerrymandering, the Virginia Supreme Court decision comes on the heels of the US Supreme Court’s ban on racial gerrymandering.
That means a dozen or more Democratic districts could now be deemed unconstitutional — and Louisiana and Mississippi are moving to redistrict in line with the Supreme Court’s decision.
The result could be a dramatic shift in districts favoring the GOP.
To make matters worse for the Democratic Party, a new census in 2030 will correct the mistakes that erroneously awarded them multiple districts after the 2020 census.
Those corrections, and the ongoing exodus from high-tax blue states to booming red ones, could translate into even more congressional gains for the GOP.
That prospect of a political apocalypse has Democratic strategists pushing for radical changes in Washington before it’s too late.
Top priority: packing the Supreme Court as soon as they retake power.
As Virginia has shown, an independent court can unravel the best-laid plans.
Democratic politicians, pundits and professors have been openly pushing for expanding the high court to 13 members with four new liberal additions, in order to rubber-stamp the radical changes needed to keep the party in power.
James Carville recently told Democratic politicians that they have no choice but to pack the court, declaring “F–k it . . . Just do it.”
He suggested, however, that they might not want to tell the voters.
“Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it,” he said. “Just do it.”
Last week, Jeffries declared the Supreme Court “illegitimate” as he blasted its ban on racial gerrymandering.
After the Virginia court’s ruling, the frustrated Democratic establishment is ever more likely to echo him — and to go beyond.
Many Democrats are now “all in” with this radical agenda.
With the courts declaring their redistricting efforts unconstitutional, it is the constitutional system itself that will now have to go.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
In order to pack the court, the Democrats would need to control the House, Senate and Presidency and nuke the filibuster. Are you listening John Thune???
John Thune is a Democrat Trojan Horse.
In the decision, the court noted that “…the General Assembly approved by a party-line vote a proposed amendment to the Constitution of Virginia that would temporarily suspend Article II, Section 6-A. In its place, the proposed amendment authorizes the General Assembly to redraw congressional districts outside of the regular decennial-census redistricting as a response to other states that also redistrict outside of decennial-census redistricting or court-ordered redistricting.” The concept to “temporarily suspend” a section of the constitution could only cause James Madison to roll over in his grave (RIP). While it is unfortunate that there was not unanimity on the court, at least a majority of 4 justices revolted against this raw political ploy.
And the answer is:
Shortest Splitline Algorithm!
https://www.caliper.com/glossary/what-is-a-splitline-algorithm.htm
Gerrymandering is illegal back on urff.
Implement contiguous and compact, and representation is for citizens and not visitors. Census must mark citizen. Any blank is noncitizens. HOW SIMPLE
gotta keep cheating alive
1. No, it is not illegal.
2. Representation is for ALL PERSONS, not only citizens. Apportioning only for citizens IS illegal.
3. If you want to change either of these things you’ll have to amend the constitution. Good luck with that.
Shortest Splitline Algorithm!
https://www.caliper.com/glossary/what-is-a-splitline-algorithm.htm
Looks good
Why does ANYONE quote Carnival Communist Clown Carville – or give oxygen and force multiples the Loonie Left. ??
Implement “contiguous and compact”. Voter registration by party isn’t included in many states either.
Virginia also has the most unconstitutional legal requirement called a “Writ of Innocence” – if someone was framed the burden is on the person framed to prove they are innocent. A foreign model of justice, not found in the U.S. Constitution.
B******t. A writ of actual innocence is NOT foreign or unconstitutional. If someone has been convicted of a crime then as a matter of law they are GUILTY. If they want to reverse that the onus is on THEM to prove that the verdict was wrong and they are actually innocent. That’s how it has always been in our system of justice.
Bulldust. A writ of actual innocence is NOT foreign or unconstitutional. If someone has been convicted of a crime then as a matter of law they are GUILTY. If they want to reverse that the onus is on THEM to prove that the verdict was wrong and they are actually innocent. That’s how it has always been in our system of justice.
Is this satire? Tennessee just gerrymandered their state to a 9-0 GOP shutout. Also the D gerrymanders are via elections, and the Rs are by fiat.
Look at Sally pretending Democrats have any high ground. Republican states elected their representatives to their state houses to enact their will – and the legislatures are doing so. Stop gerrymandering Illinois, California, and New England … then get back with me.
“By fiat”? Please explain.
His Maserati is in the shop.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be, let it be.
It depends upon each state’s constitution and laws. Apparently, VA required a referendum. And it wasn’t a valid “election,” which is why the Democrat dominated VA Supreme Court invalidated it.
Presumably, TN’s redistricting remains subject to a judicial challenge to its own Supreme Court.
VA’s constitution requires districts to be drawn up by a bipartisan commission. The Dems tried to amend the constitution to allow them to gerrymander the state until 2031, but they had no time to do it in time to affect this year’s election, so they tried a shortcut hoping the court would accept their theory that it was legal; it didn’t. So the amendment is invalid, the constitution still reads the way it did a few months ago, and therefore the old map drawn up by the commission is still in place.
TN’s constitution has no such requirement. Districts are drawn by the legislature, not by a commission. So there are no grounds to challenge it.
Your joking right I live Ca they are doing the same thing as TN and have you seen the congressional representation in tbe NE. ZERO GOP representation in all of New England even though the GOP gets about 47% of the votes in the NE. So STFU
If you’re referring to those rushed, heavily biased, and lavishly funded “elections” to rewrite state laws and enable redistricting in Virginia and California, then you’re the comedian here, dear Sally.
just cause you make crap up Sal doesn’t make it true. typical ignorant, stupid, lying lefty you are.
Go have a baby!
Hey! Go have a baby!
I know! dems can dish it out but can’t take it. Get used to losing.
I know right? Dems can dish it out but can’t take it. Get used to losing.
No, it’s not satire. Gerrymanders are perfectly constitutional in Tennessee. They’re unconstitutional in Virginia, and the attempt to amend the constitution to permit them for the next three elections was itself unconstitutional.
Also the Tennessee redistricting was not a gerrymander, it was simply reverting to the most natural and normal distribution that would have been made all along had the courts not ILLEGALLY FORCED the legislature to create district that artificially packed black voters in so they could be a majority and elect someone they liked, thus discriminating against all the non-black voters in that district who didn’t get this special treatment. Now that the supreme court has finally said that was illegal, the legislature reversed the error and went to the districts that should always have been in place, without any regard to race.
Professor Turley is a national treasure. With wonderful expositional skills, he weaves a tale that clarifies complex legal issues with colorful anecdotes and entertaining prose.
you got it. amazing man.
The next time you see Trump advise him to go ahead and add 4 more judges before the Democrats do as they have promised. Make that six if Alito and Thomas decide to retire.
It wouldn’t help; the Dems would just add 8 or 10 more.
And by doing it the Rs would have given the Ds permission to do the same, so they would not even be able to object.
Democrats trying to pack the court should lead to civil war. Is that what they want?
If they get control of the Pentagon and the CIA, the answer is yes.
That is exactly what they want.
Yes. That will be the result. And the Dems want to cause that so it starts and they can use ‘rebellion’ as a pretext for seizing permanent power. But we the people will never let them!
What’s the matter with you guys? When Minnesota shut down ICE, it became official.
Genocide of the American people and American culture.
Good to know the enemy.
Sure seems that way.
They clearly have not thought this through.
Bring that civil war to California and take this once-great state back from the unassimilable anti-American “Great Replacement” foreign invaders.
I thought America fought World War Eleven to protect and preserve America, not facilitate a “fundamentally transforming” foreign invasion.
.,,Bring that civil war to California and take this once-great state back from the unassimilable anti-American “Great Replacement” foreign invaders.
I thought America fought World War Eleven to protect and preserve America, not facilitate a “fundamentally transforming” foreign invasion.
Ah, ha!
Bring that civil war to California and take this once-great state back from the unassimilable anti-American “Great Replacement” foreign invaders.
I thought America fought World War Eleven to protect and preserve America, not facilitate a “fundamentally transforming” foreign invasion.
Yea!
Bring that civil war to California and take this once-great state back from the unassimilable anti-American “Great Replacement” foreign invaders.
I thought America fought World War Eleven to protect and preserve America, not facilitate a “fundamentally transforming” foreign invasion.
We are in it now.
Kill the filibuster and Democrats won’t need the courts–any of the courts. The mere threat of court packing will do the trick. The courts will knuckle under, just as they did under FDR. Democrats know that.
My strong advice is to drop the filibuster from 60 votes to 55. A 60-vote threshold is too high; it invites a tyranny of obstructionism, just like what the Democrats are doing to Homeland Security funding. And a 50-vote threshold is too low. Either party could install a tyranny of the majority, and the stated goals of the Democrats pretty much amount to that.
55 votes would put more pressure on the few purple Democrats that are left in the Senate. As it stands, they can use the filibuster as an excuse to avoid votes on controversial but critical issues like funding Homeland Security, healthcare reform, etc.
If the GOP can get government working again with 55 reasonable Senate votes, they might see some benefits in the next election, and successful governance would make it harder for Democrats to justify completely eliminating the filibuster. Given the current dysfunction, the filibuster just looks archaic.
We already have no filibuster on court appointments, which was the unfortunate result of willful obstructionism. We might as well shape the trend, or the Democrats will impose their own.
The courts will knuckle under, just as they did under FDR.
They didn’t do that. The “switch in time that saved nine” is a myth. It never happened. The justice who changed his mind and his vote did so before FDR raised the possibility of packing the court. At the time no one had any idea this was on FDR’s mind, so the justice could not have been swayed by that. He simply genuinely changed his mind.
Could SCOTUS assert that they themselves get to decide their need for any additional justices is their determination alone, since packing the court for political motives would undermine the independence of the court and thereby be unconstitutional? Is this possibly why Cavanaugh recently stated they were not overworked?
I believe that responsibility was given to Congress
Yes, as the supreme court took the power to overrule the authority of the other two branches and with no constitutional authority decided the court could play Daddy knows (the constitution) best in Marbury.
They took that power and can rule outside of the people’s will on every topic.
No, they didn’t. Marbury v Madison simply state what the CONSTITUTION EXPLICITLY SAYS, that the judicial power is vested in the courts. The judicial power is the power to say what the law is. That’s just what that term means, and no one has ever disputed it or claimed it means something else.
Trump created the precedent that neither laws nor Constitution matter. Only follow laws and Constitution when you feel like it.
Democrats are simply following the precedent of 34 time convicted felon Trump, but Democrats are actually slightly more law abiding in following Trump’s precedent.
Russia Russia Russia
Peegate Peegate Peegate
Israel Israel Israel
Pallets of money to Iran, death to America..
SPLC
Law abiding ?
Anonymous, you have shit for brains. Just saying.
Stupid
You don’t really believe the 34 felony crap or the Russian agent, or the dressing room shenanigans of Bergdorf that were an episode from a second rate tv series do you? From partisan hacks that ran on “ we gonna get Trump “😂🙃🤣
Give an example of Trump breaking the law? We’re waiting!
That happened a long time before Trump took office. Also, where were you when Biden ignored court after court? Your argument has no credibility
To give the Devil his due, Biden never ignored any court order or decision. And neither has Trump. When the courts told Biden that what he was doing was illegal, he always stopped. And so does Trump, even when the court is wrong; he appeals to the rogue judges’ superiors, who reverse them, but in the meantime he obeys them.
Nonsense.
Are serious? Obama is the one who said if we don’t agree with the law we won’t enforce it.
Wait. That’s what Stinkin’ Linkin said.
Secession is prohibited because secession is not prohibited.
Wait. That’s what Stinkin’ Linkin said.
That’s hilarious! A Democrat wouldn’t know “law abiding” if it bit them in the rear end.
Dems are the very epitome of Isaiah 5:20.
Trump created the precedent that neither laws nor Constitution matter. Only follow laws and Constitution when you feel like it.
That’s just an outright deliberate LIE. Trump’s been far more respectful of the law and the constitution than the Biden or 0bama administrations, and he’s been so in the face of an open insurrection by a bunch of judges who have betrayed their oaths and have been deliberately issuing invalid injunctions in order to obstruct him. He’d be within his rights to say that he was no longer putting up with their ultra vires b******t and would disobey their injunctions, but so far he has patiently jumped through the hoops and in each instance gone to their superiors to get them reversed.
Trump created the precedent that neither laws nor Constitution matter. Only follow laws and Constitution when you feel like it.
That’s just an outright deliberate LIE. Trump’s been far more respectful of the law and the constitution than the Biden or 0bama administrations, and he’s been so in the face of an open insurrection by a bunch of judges who have betrayed their oaths and have been deliberately issuing invalid injunctions in order to obstruct him. He’d be within his rights to say that he was no longer putting up with their ultra vires bulldust and would disobey their injunctions, but so far he has patiently jumped through the hoops and in each instance gone to their superiors to get them reversed.
I very much respect Professor Turley’s writings about the law. Here, I think he’s spot on; it’s scary to contemplate what the Dems will do when/if they retake power. I think he’s right that they’ll throw caution to the wind & go all in.
We talk about Democrats, but sometimes we lose sight of who we’re talking about. They tell us who they are, and we should listen. They want to get rid of the Founding Fathers, Supremacy Clause, Electoral College, Supreme Court, First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Tenth Amendment, American Flag, Jews, Whites, billionaires, educating inner city children, merit-based outcomes, and our sitting President. It’s really that simple.
Stephen B. Benisch, Esq.,
You summed it up quite right.
@Stephen
That is absolutely correct, all of it. 👍🏼 And they would do it in no short order if given the opportunity. Any remaining pretense of the dems being ‘just another American party’ evaporated with the Biden term.
When Biden was in office I thought maybe after his term the Democrats would look at themselves and say ‘ we are behaving like fools,’ but, no, instead they returned to the Borg mothership and plugged themselves in.
You tell us to listen to what Democrats say and then come up with a list you as a Republican made up.
Actually, the VA SC ruled that the Dems did not follow the VA Constitution by passing the 2nd part of the Bill only a week before the election, when advance voting had already been in place many weeks earlier, which caused an estimated 40% of the electorate to be disenfranchised from the result of that bill passing. It was the Process that was ruled unconstitutional.
I can’t disagree. The masks are fully off on the left, and they have already shown there is nothing they won’t do. There was a time I thought of the likes of Pelosi or Carville as being merely hubristic and vile, I think it’s high time to rearrange the letters thusly: E-V-I-L
We deserve sane representation and peaceful lives. Following in the footsteps of totalitarians is not the path there, and the left *are* a that now; DON’T vote blue, no matter who.
Oh, and PS: *Leaves* them with a dangerous agenda? This has been going on forever, and very much in earnest and out in the open since 2008, going full bore since 2020. Glad people are finally waking up. I guess this is how bad it had to get.
James,
I get what you are saying. I will only disagree with you on one point: Not all Democrats are evil. I do not think traditional Democrats like Bill Maher, PT, or my sister are evil. But they do still keep voting Democrat, even though they see how radical their own party has become. My own sister wrote to the DNC and the then Biden campaign if they did not get back to more moderate, traditional, Democrat policies she would vote third party. Shockingly, she did not know much about Harris when she was directed to be Democrat candidate.
Agree with you about sane representation and peaceful lives. But I would only add we also need honest and truthful candidates or representatives. Not another Spanberger who ran as a moderate and went full leftist once in office. I read somewhere someone else was trying to pretend to be a conservative GOP but his social history painted a totally different picture.
Here is a fun one, https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/05/08/commies-grow-bolder-your-stuff-20-hours-total-control-n2202145
@Upstate
Oh, I’m very much referring to dem leadership and its allies, not constituents. There a great many nice people that vote dem and who have just been woefully, absurdly misled, or who simply don’t pay attention to a whole lot, or simply don’t know any better. I think it would be safe to say that most of us that comment here follow politics far more and more deeply than the average voter, and that is not a slight against anyone.
James,
Well said.
My sister, despite being highly educated, she is highly misinformed. She has a subscription to the WaPo.
@Upstate
My brother, too, and he considers himself an independent. But he parrots all the leftist MSM garbage, and has a terminal case of TDS. He’s my brother, I take it in stride. Leftists break up families over this stuff.
All Democrats may not believe they are evil, but the demons that they vote for are. Your “softspeak” does not work on us anymore. There is no compromise with the devil.
The Virginia ruling is a reminder that the state supreme court really is the last line of defense in our system. The fact that it had to go all the way to the high court just to stop a cartoonishly radical gerrymander in a purple state tells you how far the political class was willing to go.
It will be interesting to see how voters respond: do Virginians show they don’t take kindly to being run out on a rail, or do they hand back power to the very people who tried to engineer their voices away?
And instead of rethinking that overreach, the loudest response from Democrats is to go after the last line of defense itself by talking about packing courts so they never have to hear “no” again.
The Virginia ruling is a reminder that the state supreme court really is the last line of defense in our system. NO IT IS NOT… SCOTUS.
SCOTUS is not the line I was talking about. In Virginia it was the state supreme court that enforced the state constitution and stopped the “lobster” map. SCOTUS closed the federal door on partisan gerrymandering and just narrowed the space for race conscious maps, which is exactly why state courts have become the last functioning check on the worst abuses. If that line goes too, there is nothing left between citizens and whatever maps the majority in the legislature can push through.
One issue I have is whether the VA Supreme Court should have ruled on the constitutionality of the referendum earlier in the litigation when there were issues before them.
VA Democrats asked VASC not to do so. Look for it yourself
CC, the court has to wait until someone sues. Apparently nobody sued before the popular vote, or if someone did sue then the case was not yet “ripe” since no popular vote had yet been taken, ie, the whole dispute would have gone away if the voters voted it down.
The Dems cited a precedent that the courts can’t interfere in a referendum until and unless it passes. Only then can they decide that it shouldn’t have been held.
The Virginia ruling is a reminder that the state supreme court really is the last line of defense in our system. NO IT IS NOT… SCOTUS.
SCOTUS can’t do anything about state issues like this one. Had the VA court upheld the referendum that would have been the end of it. SCOTUS has no jurisdiction.
OLLY,
Well said.
I know if I were a VA resident, I would highly object, and vote accordingly.
Olly, you’re in socal? You’ve gotten the official voter info guide in the mail. 😂 saving it in a hermetically sealed container to be opened ages and ages hence.
Ballot drop boxes opened May 5. On
Pages 13, 25 and 36.
All registered as Democratic, Republican or other. I guess Democrat no longer exists.
What is a “Controller” ?
^^^ Olly in socal, information guide.
The party’s name is “Democratic”, not “Democrat”. We Republicans use “Democrat Party” only because it annoys them so much.
A “controller” is another way to spell comptroller. I trust you know what that is.
The decision was 4-3. That’s scary: 3 “justices” either don’t care about the “law”, the VA “constitution”, were intimidated/coerced, or all three. Doesn’t bode well in the future for VA (cf: Wisconsin)
No, it is not scary. The question was close, and both sides had reasonable arguments. The correct answer was not at all clear; now the VA court has for the first time decided this question, so now we know what the law is in VA. If the same question ever comes up in another state we will still not know the correct answer, because VA precedent is irrelevant in other states.
One-to-One Blockchain/On-Chain voting.
One Citizen-to-One Vote tallied on a Blockchain.
Employ it at the State level, then the National level.
No more Partisan ‘gerrymandering’, District Lines are predicated upon Populous concentration of Votes at the time of the Election (Real-time).
A more responsive system to govern by the will of the People, not the will of Parties.
It is fully capable in the parlance of our time (Today). Ben Franklin would have been for this technological advancement of Our democracy.
Feel free to ask your congressman to propose a constitutional amendment. And good luck with that. It has a snowball’s chance of passing.
Democrats confuse our system of a Constitutional Republic governed by laws with pure, mob-rule democracy. They demand pure democracy when it suits them, and call for ignoring any court ruling that is unfavorable to them. It is a shameful display of power politics over principle. A single-vote majority could take away all rights of the other side, in the system Democrats envision and lust after.
–Even three-term Democrat FDR in his campaign speech referred to the U.S. as a “Republic.”
“The times, they are a’changin’ “