This story was updated to clarify the actions of the state Senate.
The Virginia General Assembly kicked off a special session on Monday aimed at redrawing the commonwealth’s Congressional map through a constitutional amendment, but the bill’s text has not yet been made available by Democrats who are championing the effort.
The special session comes on the heels of similar efforts in Texas, California and North Carolina and a handful of other states across the country. The effort began in Texas after President Donald Trump pushed the state’s Republicans to redraw their Congressional maps to create more GOP House seats in an effort to help the party maintain control of the House of Representatives after the midterm elections.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, said on the chamber floor Monday that there was not yet an agreed upon draft of the constitutional amendment.
Del. Rodney Willett, D-Henrico, said he is carrying the redistricting resolution in the House of Delegates and will introduce it on Wednesday. He added that it will not abolish the bipartisan redistricting commission.
“This resolution is not going to abolish the commission that was created through the earlier constitutional amendment,” he said. “We are still going to have the commission, this is going to give us options.”
The resolution will create an option to redraw the map outside of the decennial when there is extenuating circumstance, Willett said.
Del. Marcia Price, D-Newport News, chair of the House Privilege and Elections Committee, pushed back against the characterization by Republicans of the effort as partisan politics.
“This is not a political enterprise, we are current elected officials and we’re going to do our job,” she said.
What happened on the floor on Monday?
Virginia last redrew its congressional map in 2021.
A constitutional amendment must pass the General Assembly twice with an intervening election, before it’s brought before the voters in a referendum. The state’s legislative body will need to pass the legislation by Friday to meet the state’s deadline. Republicans have raised legal questions about whether it’s too late to redraw the maps before the 2026 elections.
The House voted to approve the rule change to allow the General Assembly to take up redistricting during the special session in a 50-42 vote.
In the Senate, an effort to sidestep the required three readings of the rule change and instead immediately take up the motion failed in a 21-17 vote – a supermajority of 31 votes was needed for the motion to pass.
The Senate then adjourned until Tuesday morning to take up the motion on the floor a second time.
‘They’re trying to sneak one past the will of the voters,’ Republicans blast the effort
House of Delegates Republicans held a press conference with the five Republican members of Virginia’s Congressional delegation ahead of the start of the session. Virginia’s Congressional Republicans could see their numbers dwindle should the effort to redraw the state’s districts through a constitutional amendment be successful.
“We’re all here today to pay witness to essentially what is a direct attack on democracy and on voter choice,” said Israel O’Quinn, R-Washington County, deputy leader of the House of Delegates Republican caucus.
Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, posited that the referendum could go to voters between the 2026 General Assembly session and next year’s primary election.
“They’re going to look at having an election with nothing on there except constitutional amendments in April or maybe the first of May, in hopes that people won’t show up, people won’t realize that they’re trying to sneak one past the will of the voters,” he said.
Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt County, said the effort to redistrict Virginia’s maps was due to “strong arming” from the U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, also a Democrat from New York.
“Instead politics has led the day,” Cline said. “It is their motivation, it is what is leading them to travel all across the country to demand these redistrictings.”
Rep. John McGuire, R-Goochland County, called the effort to redraw the maps a “scam” and “election interference” because Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears left the campaign trail to preside over the state Senate with eight days left in the governor’s election.
Earle-Sears is the Republican nominee in the 2025 gubernatorial election. She is facing Democrat former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger in a race that may conclude on Election Day, November 4.
