Panicked Democrats want to retire the entire Virginia Supreme Court
The Gerrymander Wars of 2026 are almost at an end. Between the federal Supreme Court finally noticing that hey, minority-majority districts are kind of racist, and the Virginia Supreme Court upholding the rules for amending the state constitution, Trump pretty much handed Democrats their bums.
And voters are primarying RINOs for him.
Democrats in Virginia did this to themselves. In order to redistrict this year, they had to change the state constitution holds.
But in Virginia, before a proposed amendment goes to voters, legislators of one session of the General Assembly must approve it, followed by the election of a second legislature, which must approve of it before voters make the final decision. This slows the process by at least a year.
Democrats decided to skip the first two steps and empower themselves to redistrict between Census. Communists are an impatient lot. Haste made waste. Justices upheld the state constitution and they have the final say because the Supreme Court has ruled that their counterparts in the states sole jurisdiction.
There is nothing Democrats can do to gerrymander Virginia. The only way they will pick up 5 congressional seats in Old Dominion is to go out and campaign on something other than Orange Man Bad.
Sombrero Sam is in a panic.
The New York Times reported, “During a private discussion on Saturday that included Democrat House members from Virginia and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, the lawmakers vented anger at their defeat at the Virginia Supreme Court, spoke about a collective determination to flip two or three Republican-held seats under the existing map and discussed a bank-shot proposal to redraw the congressional lines anyway, according to three people who participated in the call and two others who were briefed on it.”
So what is the plan now that they cannot redistrict?
Replace the state Supreme Court, which is appointed by the state legislature, which is controlled by Democrats. NYT reported:
One key to the plan would be having Democrats in Richmond lower the mandatory retirement age for state Supreme Court justices, an idea that began circulating among state lawmakers and members of Congress after a column proposing a version of the idea was published on Friday night in The Downballot, a progressive newsletter.
Governor Spanberger would have to sign off on any legislation that lowered the judicial retirement age. She has not been briefed on the proposal, the people involved in the discussion or briefed on it said. Her spokeswoman, Libby Wiet, declined to comment.
Spanberger will do what Obama tells her to do. That’s how Democrats operate now.
How low will they go? NYT reported:
Ensuring the plan proceeds would involve the General Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, lowering the mandatory retirement age for Virginia’s Supreme Court from 75 to 54, the age of the youngest current justice, or less. Virginia judges are appointed by the General Assembly, where Democrats hold majorities in both chambers and could then fill vacancies on the court with sympathetic Democratic lawyers.
I am no lawyer but I do not see any constitutionality in such a move. The state needs to void the law license of any lawyer involved in such an idiotic scheme.
But Sombrero Sam told NYT, “It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment, and it’s unprecedented in American history as far as we can tell that an actual election has been overturned by a handful of unelected judges. We’re not going to step back, we will continue to fight back.”
Democrats have tried to use unelected federal judges to thwart the president for over a year now. Boo hoo hoo.
This all started with Karl Rove. After Republicans finally took over the Texas legislature in 2003, Rove came up with the brilliant idea to redistrict Texas again instead of continuing for another 8 years the Democrat redistricting that they inherited.
While U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas was the most visible leader, Rove from his perch in the Bush 43 White House was actively involved, providing political pressure, advice, and White House-level support to make the controversial mid-decade redraw happen.
Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, the presiding officer of the state Senate, publicly acknowledged discussing tactics with Rove. This included strategy around overcoming Democratic procedural hurdles such as the two-thirds rule in the Senate. Dewhurst worked to move redistricting forward more easily.
Standing behind DeLay and Rove was George Walker Bush.
Decades later, President Trump dusted off Rove’s plan and got lawmakers in Texas to redistrict—as well as in Florida, Missouri and North Carolina. Florida now is re-redistricting.
Democrats fumed. They were furious. They threatened to redistrict but the trouble was, they already gerrymandered. Massachusetts has 9 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives—all held by Democrats. The last Republican congressman from Massachusetts left Congress 32 years ago.
Well, what do you expect? Massachusetts invented gerrymandering.
After the 1810 Census, the legislature drew a redistricting map that favored the majority party. Critics said it looked like a salamander. Governor Elbridge Gerry didn’t like it but because he felt he should veto only unconstitutional bills, he signed it into law.
Ironically, his action birthed the word Gerrymandering. Adding insult to the wound, he pronounced his name Gary, not Jerry.
Gerry deserves more respect. He signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. He attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia as a Massachusetts delegate and spoke frequently (153 times).
His key arguments against it were the lack of a Bill of Rights, insufficient representation of the people, ambiguous and dangerous powers granted to Congress, the blending of executive and legislative powers, and finally, the potential for judicial oppression and unchecked treaties.
He had valid points. Gerry, George Mason and Edmund Randolph refused to sign the document in protest.
How should congressional districting work? A fellow named Publius asked Grok to draw a map of congressional districts if they were Publius-mandered.
(Grok added a 436th congressman to the map.)
What would the MOST FAIR U.S. House map look like if we followed the Founding Fathers’ Principles?
– Apportion seats strictly by population (census)
– Draw compact, contiguous districts inside each state only
– No partisan data, no racial engineering, no weird shapes
– Prioritize whole counties & communities
RESULT: A clean map with 265-285 R to 150-170 D seats in a 50/50 nation.
Not gerrymandering—just geography.
This is what neutral, compact redistricting naturally produces.
I don’t want Republicans to be fair. Fairs are places with cotton candy, Tilt-a-Whirls and butter sculptures.
I want Republicans to win—and when they win, I want them to do what they are supposed to do—and when they do not, we primary them.
Right now, it looks like Republicans won the Gerrymander Wars. We shall see in November.
In 8 days, we shall see if Kentuckians will primary Thomas Massie.
In the meantime, Sombrero Sam and his Buckaroos will keep us entertained.
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This article first appeared on Don Surber’s Substack. Reprinted here with permission.
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