(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . How to Win Virginia’s Redistricting Chess Game: What Democrats Can Learn from Republicans [1] ['View Profile', 'News Corpse', 'Greg Dworkin', 'Belinda Ridgewood'] Date: 2026-05-11 On May 8, four unelected judges wiped out the votes of 1.6 million Virginians. That is the Democratic version of what just happened. The Republican version is that four judges upheld the rule of law against a blatant partisan power grab. Here is how Democrats could start fighting back aggressively and start employing Republican tactics. What Just Happened Virginia Democrats wanted to redraw the state’s congressional map. Under the current map, Democrats hold six of Virginia’s eleven congressional seats. Under the new map, they would have held ten. To change the map, they needed voters to approve a constitutional amendment. Voters did — by 52% to 48% — on April 21. Then the Virginia Supreme Court threw the whole thing out. The reason was procedural, not substantive. Virginia’s constitution requires that any proposed amendment pass the state legislature twice, with a state election sandwiched in between. The idea is to give voters a chance to weigh in before the amendment goes to them directly. Democrats passed it the first time on October 31, 2025 — but early voting for that year’s election had already begun on September 19. The four-justice majority said that meant the sequencing requirement was violated: the first vote came during an election, not before one. The three dissenting justices said this was absurd. Chief Justice Cleo Powell argued that an “election” has always meant Election Day itself — the single Tuesday in November — not the weeks of early voting that precede it. Redefining “election” to include early voting, she warned, creates a legal maze with no clear beginning. The majority disagreed. The new maps are dead. The old maps stand. The Immediate Move: An Appeal Is Already Filed Within hours of the ruling, Democrats asked the Virginia Supreme Court to pause its own decision while they appeal to the United States Supreme Court. That pause request — called a “stay” — has not yet been decided as of this writing. The appeal itself faces long odds. The US Supreme Court has a strong general rule: it does not second-guess state courts on questions of state constitutional law. The Virginia Supreme Court was interpreting Virginia’s constitution. That is normally none of Washington’s business. But Democrats have a genuine federal argument. Their strongest case rests on a doctrine called Purcell v. Gonzalez — a principle that courts should not disrupt elections at the last minute because it confuses voters and undermines confidence in results. Democrats would argue the Virginia Supreme Court didn’t just disrupt an upcoming election; it nullified a completed one — which is arguably the most extreme possible version of last-minute interference. Three million people voted. Their votes were erased after the fact on a procedural technicality they had no power to fix. Whether the current US Supreme Court — six conservatives, three liberals — will be moved by that argument is another question entirely. The Ohio Playbook: Running Out the Clock Here is where the story gets interesting, because there is a precedent for what Democrats might do next — and it was Republicans who set it. In 2022, Ohio’s Supreme Court struck down Republican-drawn congressional maps seven times, ruling each new version unconstitutional. Republicans kept submitting maps and running out the clock. Federal courts refused to intervene, citing the Purcell principle that courts should not scramble election logistics close to election day. The 2022 Ohio elections ultimately proceeded under maps the state’s own Supreme Court had already ruled illegal. Republicans won those seats and held them for the full two-year term. Democrats in Virginia could attempt a version of the same strategy. Here is how it could work. Step 1 — Use the appeal as cover. While the US Supreme Court appeal is pending, Democrats announce they are confident of winning and intend to proceed with the new maps. This is not defiance of a court ruling — it is a statement of legal position while the case is under review. “We believe the Virginia Supreme Court was wrong. A federal appeal is active. We are proceeding in good faith while the nation’s highest court decides.” Step 2 — Pass a new law. If the US Supreme Court declines to intervene, the Democratic-controlled Virginia legislature passes a statute defining “general election” as beginning on Election Day — not during early voting. They make it retroactive to the 2025 election. This directly addresses the exact defect the court identified. It won’t survive legal challenge — the court has already said that statutes cannot override constitutional interpretations — but it doesn’t need to survive. It just needs to create legal ambiguity just long enough to justify proceeding with the new maps while the new round of litigation works its way through the courts. Step 3 — Start the primary. Virginia’s congressional primary is not until August. Democrats begin the election process — candidate filing, ballot design, campaign activity — under the new maps. Once that machinery is in motion, the legal cost of reversing it skyrockets. Courts become extremely reluctant to unscramble an election that is already underway. The Purcell principle, which was used against Democrats when they tried to stop Republicans from redistricting in Texas and Tennessee, now works in their favor. Step 4 — Lose in court, but after November. By the time appeals are exhausted and courts definitively rule the new maps invalid, it is November. The election has happened. Seats have been won. As Ohio demonstrated, there is no mechanism to undo the results. The winners serve their two-year terms. This strategy requires guts. It means a Democratic governor and legislature openly running elections under maps a court has struck down — a dramatic act that Republicans would characterize, not unfairly, as contempt of court. Whether Virginia’s Democratic leadership has the stomach for it is a political judgment, not a legal one. The Longer Game: 2028 Even if 2026 is lost, Democrats are surprisingly well-positioned for 2028 — and the path is cleaner than most people realize. The key is a single calendar fact: Justice Arthur Kelsey, who wrote the majority opinion striking down the referendum, leaves the court in January 2027. Democrats control the Virginia legislature. They will choose his replacement. That flips the court 4-3 in Democrats’ favor. With a friendly court in place, Democrats can restart the constitutional amendment process — this time doing it correctly. They pass the redistricting amendment in early 2027, before early voting begins for that year’s election. The November 2027 Virginia election serves as the clean intervening election the constitution requires. They pass it again in January 2028. It goes to voters in spring 2028. The new 4-3 Democratic court upholds it. New maps take effect for November 2028. There is also a second approach involving a federal angle that could accelerate things. On April 29, 2026 — just ten days before the Virginia Supreme Court ruling — the US Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Louisiana v. Callais that effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act’s protections for minority voters. The six-justice conservative majority ruled that Louisiana’s congressional map, which had been drawn specifically to create a second majority-Black district, was an illegal racial gerrymander. Here is the irony: the maps the Virginia Supreme Court just ordered to stay in place — the 2021 maps — were drawn by court-appointed experts who almost certainly used racial data to comply with that same Voting Rights Act. Under Callais, those maps may themselves now be unconstitutional. Democrats could file a federal lawsuit attacking the current maps as an illegal racial gerrymander, force new maps to be drawn by the legislature, and — under a separate 2019 Supreme Court ruling that says federal courts cannot police partisan gerrymandering — draw those maps as aggressively partisan as they like without fear of a successful legal challenge. In other words: the conservatives’ own legal revolution could end up handing Virginia Democrats the keys to aggressively redistricting. The Bottom Line Virginia Democrats lost a battle last week, but they are not without options. In the short term, a US Supreme Court stay is unlikely but possible — and Virginia’s August primary calendar gives them more time than initially thought to pursue it. The “run out the clock” strategy borrowed from Ohio Republicans is legally audacious but has real-world precedent. And for 2028, the combination of a court flip in January 2027 and a clean procedural do-over gives Democrats a genuinely viable path to the maps they want. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/11/800036271/community/could-this-be-a-solution-for-virginia/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/