Democratic lawyer Marc Elias appears to believe that Democrats do not need to stop at simply sacking and packing the Virginia Supreme Court in response to the adverse ruling on the radical gerrymandering plan. Elias reminded Democrats that they could eliminate the entire Virginia government under the state constitution.
The demand for radical action was prompted by the Virginia justices, including one appointed by then-Democratic governor Mark Warner, who found the Democratic effort unconstitutional. It does not matter that leading Democrats, including Gov. Abigail Spanberger, also believed that the Democrats could be found in violation of the state constitution in pushing forward with the controversial effort to virtually extinguished Republican representation in the purple state.
The adverse decision has resulted in the same demands for radical institutional changes from some of the same voices pledging to pack the United States Supreme Court once they retake power, to guarantee they never lose it again.
Elias responded to the loss by invoking language from Article I of the Virginia Constitution itself:
“whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.”
That is his response to a well-reasoned decision of unconstitutionality of a redistricting plan. We can scrap the entire Virginia government.
It is another example of the “by any means necessary” culture of the left today. There is no institution or value that is sacred. This is why I recently wrote about the rise of “the new Jacobins” in my book Rage and the Republic, lawyers and law professors rationalizing the trashing of the Constitution and our institutions to achieve their political goals.
Elias has long been controversial for his tactics.
It was Elias who was the general counsel to the Clinton presidential campaign when it secretly funded the infamous Steele dossier and pushed the false Alfa Bank conspiracy. (His fellow Perkins Coie partner, Michael Sussmann, was later indicted but acquitted).
Clinton campaign officials denied any involvement in the Steele Dossier. When journalists discovered after the election that the Clinton campaign hid payments for the Steele dossier as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie, they were reportedly stonewalled. The campaign was ultimately sanctioned by the Federal Election Commission for the subterfuge.
New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said at the time that Elias denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman later wrote that “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”
Elias’s group later unsuccessfully led efforts to challenge Democratic electoral losses.
In Maryland, Elias’s team supported another abusive gerrymandering scheme that a court found not only violated Maryland law but the state constitution’s equal protection, free speech and free elections clauses. The court found that the map “subverts the will of those governed.”
One media site accused Elias and his group of “making millions off gerrymandering efforts” while publicly denouncing Republican gerrymandering.
In 2024, Elias’s legal team was also accused of pushing “to bar third-party presidential candidates — including Cornel West — from swing state ballots where they might siphon votes from the Democratic nominee [Kamala Harris].”
Likewise, the New York Times reported that Elias’s firm’s work “on behalf of a Soros-funded PAC in Texas…was opposed by a left-leaning election watchdog as undermining laws intended to limit the influence of major donors.”
His group’s work for New York redistricting was ridiculed as not only ignoring the express will of the voters and also effectively negating the votes of Republican voters.
In 2024, the Chief Judge of the Western District of Wisconsin criticized the Elias Law Group for one of its challenges. Judge James Peterson (an Obama appointee) said that the argument “simply does not make any sense.”
Now, Elias is reminding Virginians that they can respond to an opposing court decision by eliminating some or all of the Virginia state government.
It is the logic of the Jacobin. As discussed in my book, the Framers sought to prevent democracy from becoming mobocracy by rejecting more direct democratic powers. They tried to temper the passions of democracy in moments like this.
There is nothing new about these voices, like that of Elias, in fueling radical impulses. They are the same voices and arguments that have long been heard in this country. We have long rejected them and this year will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Independence. However, as Benjamin Franklin warned us and now Elias has reminded us, we must fight to keep this Republic.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Interesting that the Virginia Democrats and Mr. Elias have forgotten about the redistricting referendum in Virginia from 2020.
Trump arrived in Beijing today.
Xi Jinping couldn’t be bothered to meet him at the airport. He sent his vice president.
Xi couldn’t be bothered to meet Trump at the airport because he understands as well as Trump does that humiliating your underlings is a great way to keep them in check.
Yawn. Just maybe Xi Jinping is worried about the meeting instead.
Was one heck of a greeting!!! Biden never got that kind of reception. IIRC, when Biden went to Saudi Arabia, he was greeted by the mayor of the city.
AI Overview
Under standard Western and U.S. protocol, the President does not greet a visiting head of state at the airport. Instead, the President waits to receive them at the official host residence (such as the White House).
Alternatively:
The Great State of Virginia May Secede
“We, the delegates of the people of Virginia… Do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them, whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will: that therefore no right of any denomination can be cancelled abridged restrained or modified by the Congress by the Senate or House of Representatives acting in any Capacity under the Great Government or by any Officer of the United States.”
– Ratification of the Constitution by the State of Virginia; June 26, 1788.
Virginia did that once before. It didn’t go well.
Was history in school so boring you can’t remember any of it or did your “teachers” decide it wasn’t necessary?
It’s puzzling, but entertaining, to watch these well-known nutjobs like Elias keep failing when they try to destroy our Republic with their self-contradictory attacks on basic democracy.
But they keep getting away with it because they still control most of the media, although even that is also starting to slip away.
And contrary to what they see on their media, things are going very badly for Democrats right now.
– Non-racial gerrymandering is “disappearing” their prized racially-constructed congressional districts.
– Their favorite voting block – illegal aliens – is being deported as fast as possible.
– Once the Strait of Hormuz and Kharg Island are secured, oil/gas prices will fall quickly, just in time for the midterms.
But the real blessing for Republicans are the Far Left Socialists in their Party (AOC, Mamdani, Jeffries, Sanders, Fauxcahontas Warren) who are actually ensuring that the Democrat Party will keep losing popularity and votes.
Democrats are stubbornly and hopelessly on the wrong side of every major 80/20 issue.
Their solution to try and distract voters away from that is to attack Trump, who can’t even run for another term anyway.
That should be the final nail in their self-created “unalive box”.
Democrats are stubbornly and hopelessly on the wrong side of every major 80/20 issue.
Yup. In California a few days ago, a biological male was allowed to compete in a track meet:
Last weekend a a high school meet in Yorba Linda, AB Hernandez, a biological male who switched from volleyball to track and field, and who identifies as female, destroyed all female competitors in jumping events.
https://www.aol.com/articles/california-misses-memo-transgender-athletes-230432314.html
Women and girls train their whole lives for medals and scholarships. They are then deprived of what they worked for by boys who couldn’t quite make it competing against other boys, so they “identify” as girls. And, voilà, the boys dominate and the deserving girls can kiss their opportunities goodbye. Yet, this is what Newsom supports. Leftists are mentally-deranged monsters.
OldManFromKS,
And there are people who cannot seem to grasp how wrong this is and even cheer it on.
Notice how the idea of giving the “trans” people their own category or division never seems to take on.
“… well-known nutjobs like Elias keep failing when they try to destroy our Republic with their self-contradictory attacks on basic democracy.”
His goal isn’t necessarily to convince all Virginians at once, but to induce a few more to distrust the current government and be more open or to support revolution. A revolution which would be led by Marxists, of course.
He’s not a nutjob, he knows what he’s doing, which makes him more dangerous than a nutjob.
Off with their heads!
This is literally what the Nazis did, I have no words. Very concerning, even if it’s just bravado for the sake of distraction. These people are insane.
This piece reads like AI slop and as normal for Turley, ignores all the Republican’s work to shit on the Constitution and democracy.
Name one thing the Republicans have done to “s–t” on the Constitution? Maybe some lib Republicans, but not conservatives. Conservatives are the only ones who protect the Constitution. You slimeballs have gerrymandered every liberal state that there is nothing left to gerrymander. Now, Republicans are doing what the Democrats have started and have done for years, and of course, you slimeballs want to change the rules again. Democrats are the biggest threat to democracy and world peace, period.
Start a war without Congressional approval. Raise and spend money without Congressional approval. Raise taxes without Congressional approval.
1. War Powers Act. You can thank the Democrats for that. They created it and were the primary legislators that passed it.
2. Didn’t happen. There is a transfer provision. But you don’t know that because libereals know-nothing about how the government actually functions.
3. Didn’t happen. SOME of his over-aggressive uses and interpretations of the Tarrif Laws passed by Congress were over-turned. BUT NOT ALL.
But when it comes to history, let’s have some:
Biden cost the US $165 billion as he suspended Student Loan repayments.
Biden cost the US $3 billion by ending welfare work requirements.
Biden cost the US $300 billion when he redid SNAP w/o Congressional Approval.
Biden illegally expanded Obamacare, costing the US $34 billion.
Biden cost the US over $200 billion by illegally expanding Medicaid without Congressional Approval
I could go on for quite some time. And BIden isn’t the only Democrat (or Republican) President to do such things. Yet here you are with your TDS and ignorance thinking you’ve made a point.
You can cover that in your own blog
What work has Republicans done to crap on the Constitution?
Start a war without Congressional approval. Raise and spend money without Congressional approval. Raise taxes without Congressional approval.
Has anyone declared a war?
Looks more like a military operation kinda like the one Obama did.
He is building a new ballroom using private funding and not taxpayers. I call that a good thing.
What taxes?
Bombing Iran and having a blockade is a war, which is nothing like Obama did. But even if Obama did it, that means both engaged in an illegal war and does not make what Trump is doing legal.
You may like that he is using private donations to pay for the ballroom, but it is sill illegal and unconstitutional. No money for the government may be raised or used without Congressional approval. Building a government building requires spending government money. There is no “private slush fund” exception in the Constitution.
Tariffs are taxes.
Eloquent.
You are entitled to your opinion
You are not entitled to your own facts
Proof would help sally.
Which you offered none
Sally, your statement against Turley is a very strong and convincing one. Can you please elaborate on your argument and finish him off once and for all. I’m sure many readers are eagerly waiting for your knockout reply.
Such as? Getting rid of institutional racism enshrined in laws and badly considered judgments?
Hehehehe Turley is just still big mad because Elias correctly identified the Professor as “Mike Lindell with tenure.”
Mike Lindell is a businessman.
PT is a Constitutional lawyer, legal analyst, writer of two best selling books and a professor at law.
So, Elias could not be more wrong. As we have seen, Elias has been wrong on a number of things.
Look at the context:
“ “whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.””
THESE PURPOSES – not your liberal wishes.
These radicals are not members of the Virginia communities. How many of the residents of the Commonwealth want to nuke their entire State government?
It also states a majority of the people, meaning a vote. I would find it hard to believe that the abolishment of their own State Supreme Court would be a winning horse by popular vote.
I so want to see the indictments and convictions of these Clinton/Biden/Obama era corruptocrats. Just to watch their heads explode, it would be delightful and delicious. Please !
In the alternate universe where Republicans control NYC, and Brooklyn’s DA prosecutes Hillary Clinton for falsification of business records (New York Penal Law 175 10) for mislabeling Steele Dossier paymen̈ts on FEC paperwork as “Legal Services,” Marc Elias would be prosecuted as her co-conspirator in violating New York Election Law 17-152, conspiring to win an election (or prevent another’s winning an election) by unlawful means (the falsification). Political organizations like campaigns count as “businesses” for NYPL 175.10.
That would be a just result. Hillary will never be held accountable. Bill will never be on a coin!
I keep getting confused about which party is the threat to democracy. Then the Democrats go and talk about abolishing a duly elected government, or appointing primaries. On those points, I’m also confused about this “No Kings” dorkfest? Are we for democratically elected individuals and following constitutional wording or are we Democrats?
I have come up with an idea to prevent kings. How about this: every four years we have an election to choose a new president. Never been tried, but I bet it will work. Woo-hoo!
OldManFromKS,
Whoa! Radical idea!
Let us know what the state bar associations give Elias and his law firm the John Eastman treatment.
You can criticize the “response” but never forget Trump and MAGA leaders started this mess with a nationwide strategy in states like Texas (documentary: “Deep in the Pockets of Texas”).
Under Article One of the U.S. Constitution, Congress (controlled by Republicans) has the authority “to enforce the U.S. Constitution” at the local, state and federal levels.
So if a local, state or federal government is violating constitutional rights, Congress has a duty to intervene to correct that unconstitutional system or practice.
Congress could enact constitutional voting districts not favoring any one party or any one group. That would reverse the damage done by states like Texas.
Despite a blatant ignorance of the US Constitution and the process of electoral assignment, you may have missed a couple of evidentiary pro-democratic gerrymandering which opened this door preceding Texas. Time to go back and intelligently and logically discourse rather than spout.
1. Illinois
2. Maryland
3. California
4. Connecticut
5. Hawaii
6. Massachusetts
7. New York
8. New Jersey
9. Pennsylvania
You left out New Mexico.
You are missing something. Texas, based on their state Constitution had the right to do what they did. None of the other states did.
In fact, it was California rigging the number of congressional seats by padding the US Census using illegals to cheat Republicans out of 3-4 congressional seats. Texas, as well as other Red States has undergone a large increase in population due to the influx of those fleeing California. So California’s CITIZENRY decreased as Texas’s CITIZENRY increased, and somehow California GAINS seats having lost legal voters, but Texas did not? The redistricting Texas did was to provide the correct representation according to our increased population. It was done legally. California on the other hand bypassed their State Constitution completely in another move to rig California’s map.
Don’t forget Illinois!
In 2011 the State legislature passed the Illinois Voting rights Act codifying race as the primary consideration for drawing congressional and state assembly district lines.
the law states:
“the Illinois Votings Right Act of 2011 ensures redistricting plans are crafted in a way that preserves clusters of minority voters if they are of size or cohesion to exert collective electoral power. The maps signed into law today meet those requirements to adequately preserve minority representation and reflect the diversity of our state.”
This law has been in conflict with the Civil Rights Act since the above state law was passed.
How can they be square with each other as the Civil Rights Act is racially blind, and the Illinois VRA is racially discriminatory?
The Supreme Court ruling now gives us a real chance in Illinois to challenge the unconstitutionality of this law in federal court.
Jeanne Ives, a former Illinois state legislator, with representation by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, is challenging the law as of this week.
This same foundation is also challenging California’s congressional map.
Oh, certainly…but you’d never allow the feds to do the same in states like California, where the Assembly has re-drawn districts to give DEMS 5 more seats!
Another fine example when combined with the 500k+ elected & appointed gov’t officials ‘ruling’ the USA, shows that is predicted final world power, giving humanity notice that God is taking back control of earth(Daniel 2:43-44). V43 predicted America’s melting pot of people will not remain united. When God & Jesus come to earth putting all religions out of business(Revelation 21:22); when Jesus rules(11:15)& God ends death while refurbishing the earth(21:3-5) & will dwell in his new 2.25M square mile paradise(22:1-5) that Jesus gatekeeps(2:7)! Billions resurrected(20:4-6) or born again like Jesus was (1:5)!
How has he not been debarred yet?
Elias should be disbarred.
This is how you get a hot civil war.
That’s what the radical Democrats like Elias want. They’re testing these tactics to see if they can do this at State level, because it’s what they want to do at the national level. The Democrats are burning down Democracy, and burning down our Constitutional form of government. They have unleashed their totalitarian thirst for complete power, enthusiastically embraced admitted Socialists, Marxists, Communists, Islamic Jihadists and Nazis into their ranks. And will use every fascist maneuver they can to attain their goal. They don’t even want to hide it anymore. The question is what and how do we stop this? The Republicans have refused to acknowledge this was coming. We look to our laws and our Constitution as our defense, however these radicalized lunatics do not care about following any of those things, they just burn them down and ram through with a battering ram.
The only things inadequate enough to abolish and eliminate for the public weal are Mac Elias and his band of psychopaths in the DNC, their henchmen brownshirts in SEIU and antifa, and the neurotic white women with Stockholm Syndrone – largely education, environement, HR, and nursing morons and their cuck white boys.
Right off you jump into your partisan rhetorical tricks, Turley. Refresh my memory… was it Elias who said you were Mike Lindell with tenure?…
Quite an accurate and beautiful line.
PT has written two best selling books, get invited to speak at various venues across the country, is sought after for his legal analysis, has appeared on Capital Hill many times providing testimony.
Elias promoted the Russia hoax and by his words and actions is clearly trying to undermine the Constitution and disenfranchise millions of American voters.
It’d be nice if people were disturbed enough at these tactics that they’d show up at the polls and vote against those who are this power hungry. However, I’m not gonna hold my breath. Back in the 1970’s I was assigned to outer level election security for big city pols for their meetings with the minions who were supporting them. Highly disturbing to see first hand the practices being taught to “volunteers” who were being paid for their efforts.
Anonymous, you have wished all along that Trump could be sent to prison based on the false evidence of the RussiaGate hoax. First The New York Times and the Washington Post went along with the Clinton conspiracy but finally even these bastions of freedom had to admit the truth to show some semblance of sanity in an attempt to end tanking of their subscription numbers. You, on the other hand have remained steadfast in your belief in a hoax that has been found to be untrue even by leftist news outlets. No matter how long you continue to believe it the earth is not flat.
In the post-mortem of the 2020 census we learned that four of the five most–unde
Undercounted states were Republican — the biggest undercount was in Texas.
While four of the five most OVERcounted states were Democrat-controlled.
Funny how that worked out.
Says the anonymous tool that reads Turley’s column every day.
……..and that’s all you’ve got.
Surely you jest, that’s like calling Obama a Constitutional Scholar 🤣