Democrats propose purging Virginia Supreme Court so they can force through illegal power-grab



Democrats have been racking up the losses in recent weeks. In hopes of turning around their luck, they're considering the possibility of purging the Virginia Supreme Court and packing it with young yes-men.

Quick background

Following a $60 million Democrat propaganda campaign featuring former President Barack Obama, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, and other radicals, Virginia voted last month to pass a constitutional amendment that would enable the General Assembly to adopt a new gerrymandered map.

Instead of the current map, where Democrats and Republicans control and are positioned to continue controlling six and five districts, respectively, the new map would ensure that 10 out of the state's 11 congressional seats would go to Democrats in the upcoming midterm election.

'The gut-and-pack scheme sets aside any pretense of principle.'

While the Virginia Supreme Court permitted the vote on the amendment to take place, the court made clear in advance that it might ultimately have to "address" questions about the legality of the amendment and the corresponding referendum, which were deemed invalid by a lower court in the case Scott v. McDougle.

The Old Dominion's high court ruined Democrats' weekend on Friday, issuing a 4-3 decision in McDougle declaring the amendment unconstitutional. In the ruling, the court underscored that "the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia" because the first legislative vote on the amendment occurred after voting in the general election for the House of Delegates had already begun.

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Virginia Supreme Court. Mike Kropf-Pool/Getty Images

"In this case, the Commonwealth submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to Virginia voters in an unprecedented manner that violated the intervening-election requirement in Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia," said the court. "This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void."

As the result of ruling, the the 2021-era congressional maps, where Democrats and Republicans enjoyed a 6-5 split, will serve as the governing maps for the 2026 midterm elections.

Nuclear meltdown

Democrats bitterly lashed out at the Virginia Supreme Court over its invalidation of their illegal power-grab.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), for instance, said that the "decision to overturn an entire election is an unprecedented and undemocratic action that cannot stand."

Jeffries promised that Democrats "are exploring all options to overturn this shocking decision."

Virginia Rep. Jennifer McClellan similarly claimed that "all options" are on the table and told "The Hill Sunday," "We’re going to fight every way possible, whether that’s through the courts, whether that’s through legislatures, or whether that’s at the ballot box."

While some state Democrats are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court might hear an appeal and give new life to their illegal gerrymander, others are scheming ways to eliminate key institutional obstacles to similar power-grabs in Virginia.

The steal-power-quick scheme

Democrat lawmakers including Jeffries and U.S. House members from Virginia had a private call on Saturday to discuss ways of forcing through their gerrymander and/or flipping two or three GOP-held seats under the existing map, three participants and two individuals briefed on the matter told the New York Times.

On the call, Democrats raised the possibility of purging the entire Virginia Supreme Court with the aim of handpicking justices who would reinstate their gerrymandered maps.

While Democrats might easily be able to find replacement justices whose loyalty to the ruling party trumps their loyalty to the state and U.S. Constitutions, they first need a way to empty the current bench.

According to the Times, some congressional and state Democrats are considering the possibility of lowering the mandatory retirement age for Virginia Supreme Court justices — an idea proposed in a Friday blog post by Quinn Yeargain, a woke associate law professor at Michigan State University.

"Current law sets the mandatory retirement age at 73: 'Any member who attains 73 years of age shall be retired 20 days after the convening of the next regular session of the General Assembly following his seventy-third birthday,'" wrote Yeargain. "This number is arbitrary. States around the country with similar laws mandate retirement across a wide range of ages. Virginia lawmakers can simply lower theirs. Make it 54 for Supreme Court justices — the age of the youngest justice, Stephen McCullough, who joined the majority opinion — and make it take effect immediately."

The plan, as reportedly laid on Democrats' Saturday call, would consist of multiple steps:

  • In his January ruling in McDougle, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley declared invalid the Virginia constitutional amendment effort to gerrymander the maps because county officials had failed to post notice of it at courthouses and other locations at least three months before the election. Democrats would attempt to use this ruling to invalidate the 2020 constitutional amendment that created Virginia's independent redistricting commission. Democrats, if successful in arguing that insufficient notice was given in the case of the commission-creating amendment, would be able to enact whatever map they wanted.
  • In order to ensure that this subversive plot could proceed, Democrats in the General Assembly would reportedly lower the mandatory retirement age for the Virginia Supreme Court justices to 54, thereby forcing out all current justices. Instead of principled authorities on the bench, the General Assembly would appoint Democrat lawyers to fill the vacancies.

The Times' sources involved with the call said that Spanberger, who would have to sign off on any legislation that lowered the judicial retirement age, had not been briefed on the proposal.

Jeffries' spokesman declined to provide the Times with comment. Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D) similarly declined to provide comment.

U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D), the son of Indian immigrants, said that he was among those on the call supportive of the plan to purge the state's supreme court.

"Everyone has got to have a strong stomach right now; this is a complete disaster waiting to happen if people are timid," said Subramanyam.

By contrast, Ryan McDougle, Republican leader of the Virginia Senate, said, "This is a brazen assault on our democracy.

"In our nation's 250th Anniversary, Democrats knowingly violate the Constitution, ram through deceptive ballot language to deceive and divide voters, then demand the Court not rule until after the vote. These hypocrites now pretend to defend democracy by removing lawfully appointed Supreme Court Justices because they blocked their illegal rewrite of the Constitution."

The Virginia GOP stated, "Those claiming to care about fairness and democracy should respect the rule of law instead of threatening to pack the Supreme Court and nullify the Virginia Constitution."

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley wrote, "The sack-and-pack scheme sets aside any pretense of principle. The Democrats would simply adopt a ridiculously low retirement age for the sole purpose of populating the court with reliable and robotic justices. The fact that an academic and various pundits would expressly float such an idea is another chilling reminder of the growing radicalization on the left."

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Virginia Supreme Court seems skeptical about Democratic gerrymandering



Virginia voted last week in favor of a referendum to adopt a gerrymandered congressional map that would all but guarantee that 10 out of the state's 11 congressional seats go to Democrats in the upcoming midterm election.

There remains a good chance, however, that the new map may not ultimately be adopted.

Background

There are numerous legal battles across Virginia over whether the gerrymandering referendum that passed Tuesday is lawful. One of those battles — Scott v. McDougle — is now before the Virginia Supreme Court.

In October 2025, Republican state lawmakers and members of the Virginia Redistricting Commission filed a lawsuit, claiming that the special session reconvened late last year to consider a constitutional amendment on redistricting was invalid as it was called not by the governor, who holds the exclusive right to do so, but by the speaker of the state House.

The complaint noted further that while the Virginia House of Delegates "has no constitutional authority to propose a plan to redraw or reapportion districts" for the U.S. Congress, as this falls under the purview of the Virginia Redistricting Commission, the state House nevertheless usurped the authority.

To bypass the commission, lawmakers proposed a constitutional amendment to redraw the congressional map. Getting this amendment on the April 21 ballot required the approval of a corresponding resolution in two separate legislative sessions on either side of a state election. Challengers contend that this process was bungled and legally flawed.

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Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), a supporter of the gerrymandering scheme. Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Tazewell County Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr. ruled on Jan. 27 that the proposed constitutional amendment was unlawful, but the Virginia Supreme Court subsequently ruled that Virginians could still vote for it in the statewide April 21 referendum while the case proceeds.

The day after the referendum passed, Hurley blocked the state from certifying the results of the vote, ruling that the legislature's constitutional amendment and the special election on it were invalid.

Skeptical of Democratic plot

On Monday, the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in Scott v. McDougle.

One Virginia justice extracted concessions from the defense at the outset that the "yes" vote in the referendum "doesn't tell us anything" about the merits of the challengers' claims, and that the Virginia General Assembly didn't follow its own procedural rules with regard to the special session during which the new congressional map was passed.

Multiple justices expressed skepticism about the validity of that special session.

One justice said that contrary to the previous expectation in Virginia that the legislature wouldn't sit year-round, the Democratic "interpretation of the special session would allow them to sit in continuous session for the better part of two years."

The same justice appeared receptive to the argument by Thomas McCarthy, attorney arguing for the plaintiffs, that "it's sort of a nonsensical position to say that the special session exists through a regular session" — referencing the overlap of the 2024 special session and the 2025 general session.

The justices also did not appear entirely convinced by Democrats' argument that enough time had passed between when the amendment was first passed and the 2025 state election. The legislature voted on the amendment in October, weeks after early voting for the 2025 election had already begun.

"What is your position — your client's position — regarding a constitutional amendment that is adopted at 6 p.m. on Election Day with an hour left at the polls?" asked one justice. "Is that still the next general election?"

Virginia Solicitor General Tillman Breckenridge responded that the amendment must only be passed before Election Day, rather than on it.

McCarthy argued to the contrary, claiming that for the amendment to have been valid, it should have been passed before the entire voting period, not just before Election Day 2025. A Virginia Supreme Court justice subsequently noted that the amendment process responsible for the passage of the gerrymandering legislation was unprecedented.

Of note, the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond ruled on Sunday in a separate but related case that the Virginia General Assembly did not exceed its authority when passing the amendment on redistricting.

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'Maximum warfare': Democrats celebrate after Virginia decides to disenfranchise GOP voters



Democrats have in recent years likened redistricting efforts to the Holocaust, called them "a threat to democracy," and characterized them as "authoritarian." However, in the lead-up to Virginia's gerrymandering referendum, Democrats adopted a disparate view.

Presented with the opportunity to all but ensure that 10 out of the state's 11 congressional seats go to their comrades, Democrats reconstrued gerrymandering as a noble pursuit — an alleged means to "help level the playing field," a way to "restore fairness," and, in the words of Virginia Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a "response to what we're seeing in other states that have taken extreme measures to undermine democratic norms."

'The result of a process that's unconstitutional and illegal.'

With the help of out-of-state dark money and propagandizing by big-name liberals like former President Barack Obama, Democrats proved victorious on Tuesday in disenfranchising Republican voters in Old Dominion.

The following loaded question appeared on the April 21 ballot: "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?"

With over 97% of the votes counted, the Associated Press reported that 51.5% of the ballots were cast in favor of the proposal and 48.6% were cast in opposition — a difference of just over 88,700 votes.

Election Day votes, a majority of which were "no" votes, reportedly accounted for 55% of the total; early in-person votes accounted for 35% of the total; and mail-in votes accounted for 10% of the total, 72% of which were "yes" votes.

RELATED: How Spanberger managed to hit record-low approval rating in 80 days

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Spanberger stated, "Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they pushed back against a President who claims he is 'entitled' to more Republican seats in Congress."

"As we watched other states go along with those demands without voter input, Virginians refused to let that stand," continued Spanberger, who claimed when running for governor last year that she had no plans to redistrict the state. "We responded the right way: at the ballot box."

In a statement where he ironically criticized "unprecedented gerrymandering," Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D) said that "fairness won. Accountability won. And the Commonwealth that gave America its Constitution has once again reminded the nation what that Constitution is for."

Obama congratulated Virginia, thanking voters "for showing us what it looks like to stand up for our democracy and fight back."

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) excitedly announced that "House Democrats have crushed Donald Trump's national gerrymandering scheme." He added, "Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time."

Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who previously emphasized that the new map was "the result of a process that's unconstitutional and illegal," said in a statement, "Thank you to all the voters who turned out to vote against this egregious power grab. The race was much closer than the left expected because Virginians know a 10-1 map is not Virginia."

"I urge the Virginia Supreme Court to rule against this unconstitutional process that will disenfranchise millions of Virginians," added Youngkin.

There are multiple lawsuits pending before the Virginia Supreme Court regarding the legality of the constitutional amendment. Oral arguments for the cases are tentatively scheduled for Monday.

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