Good.
It was a disgraceful power-grab, made worse by deceitful wording that called “fair” a device that was intentionally unfair. I declared the referendum illegal on the basis of its deceptive wording, but that turned out to be a moot point, since the process by which the monstrosity made it to a special election was tainted as well.
The Virginia Supreme Court’s majority opinion is almost contemptuous of what Democrats tried here, and contempt is justified. Fake moderate Democratic Governor Spanberger decided to support an effort to make a 50-50 Democrat-Republican state all Democrat in Congress, and had the gall to allow a referendum on the redistricting call that “restoring fairness.” I’d like that referendum language to be used by Republican as exemplifying this sick party’s anti-democratic delusion: anything that doesn’t advance Leftist agenda items is by definition “unfair”—as well as racist, sexist, cruel and fascist, depending on the issue.
I am also wrestling my typing finger to the floor to avoid posting on Facebook,
“I would expect my various lawyer friends who supported this indefensible measure despite its obvious legal and ethical flaws to admit their betrayal of fellow Virginia citizens, including their friends like me, and apologize or at least wear paper bags over their heads in shame. But I know they won’t, because they made it quite clear that they felt distorting Virginia’s election results and disenfranchising Republicans and conservatives is justified because they hate the elected President of the United States. That attitude was and is disgusting, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves.What happened to you?”
Ethics Alarms 
Yes, the VA redistricting proposal was ruled unconstitutional because of violating procedures specified in Virginia’s constitution. But the wording of the ballot proposal, as you said, should have also defeated the outcome. For those who didn’t see it…. “Question: 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?” “Restore fairness” is not a fact, but an opinion….a partisan opinion that should be reserved for partisan brochures and ads, NOT the official ballot!
A Dem election volunteer, handing out sample ballots in Alexandria, swore to me that “restore fairness” was NOT on the ballot…..until I took her sample ballot and pointed to those very words. She obviously hadn’t read was she was putting in voters’ hands. Sigh.
I am certain that the wording would have gotten the results struck down too, but the issue was moot because that wasn’t necessary.
The dissent seems pretty strong. I’d have rather the court(s) had focused on the ridiculously vague language of the referendum and thrown the whole thing out. The language problem seems like a slam dunk.
Moot issue, if the thing was on the ballot improperly. The majority brushed aside the dissents decisively.
No commentary on the 4 to 3 decision on a purely procedural issue with the process that was not followed? That is almost scarier than the ballot measure as an indicator of the possible future of other such issues in Virginia.
Maybe it is a purely procedural issue but it’s an important procedural issue. This isn’t just the passing of a law, it’s an amendment to the State Constitution.
And in this case, the procedure is purposefully designed to allow the electorate the chance to vote out State Delegates who voted for an (unpopular) amendment, making the intervening election also serve as a referendum vote on the amendment. That’s why there is a special procedure and required timing for such things.
But this time around, the Dems passed the first passing of the amendment 4 days before the election with a 40-45 day early voting period. In doing so, they (and I think deliberately) made it impossible for VA voters to vote with the implied referendum in mind because, as has been widely reported, “over one million votes had already been cast” plus 4 days is not enough to do the required publications about the newly-passed amendment (90 days is required).
There were at least 5 different ways in which this whole amendment process was in violation of the VA Constitution, and only one of them would have been sufficient to strike it down.
So to imply that this was struck down on a technicality is a mischaracterization. There were plenty of reasons for the Court to strike this down and that just happened to be the one they picked, leaving themselves free to ignore the others in a legal sense.
–Dwayne
I was unclear, I was pointing out that 3 justices disagreed with the procedural failures. They were basically voting on party versus the law/constitution
I saw where the proposal’s supporters are vowing to appeal this to the US Supreme Court.
Ha! Good luck with that, I seriously doubt they’d get the four votes to accept the appeal.
I was relieved to see that at least some of the Virginia Supreme Court still have some regard for their state’s constitution. As opposed to Wisconsin, whose justices seem to have traded in the law for purely partisan decisions.