Pandora opened a forbidden box, Greek mythology tells us, and out flew all the evils of the world. Surely one of them must have been the evil of gerrymandering.
The myth of Pandora appeared a long time ago (about eight centuries B.C., if you’re curious), but the current iteration began just this year when Texas, egged on by President Donald Trump, decided to reopen the process of redrawing congressional lines without waiting for the next census.
Texas Republicans figured that with some creative cartography, they could draw five extra Republican-leaning seats to give their party some insurance in next year’s midterm elections, which historically break against the party in power. That prompted California, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, to try to change its process to find five new Democratic seats to counter Texas.
In response, Missouri and North Carolina have followed suit, drawing lines that might pick up one Republican apiece, with Indiana set to join them next month — and the prospect of adding two Republican seats. Now Virginia’s Democratic General Assembly has set in motion a constitutional amendment that, if successful, could net Democrats at least three or even four seats in the Old Dominion. That would be enough to offset Missouri, North Carolina and Indiana, although it could also be enough to trigger other states into doing the same thing.
As Pandora found, once the box is opened, it’s hard to put things back like they were. Texas started this, but who will end this? Probably not Virginia.
At the moment, each party is cheering on its own partisans — yeah, that’s right, you stick it to ’em! Take those seats!
I understand the partisan passions, but let’s take a deep breath and take a look at what’s at stake beyond one party picking up seats and another losing seats.
1. Gerrymandering distorts political power in favor of the majority
As we may find out yet again in next week’s statewide elections, Virginia is a pretty closely divided state. We’ve had six elections for governor this century; in five of them, the winner never took more than 53.9% of the vote (the exception was Bob McDonnell in 2009). In three of those elections, the winner never topped 52%.
The two court-appointed “special masters” who drew the current lines set out to draw congressional districts that were a) geographically logical and b) would likely produce a result close to the state’s overall political balance. That’s why Virginia’s current congressional delegation is 6-5 Democratic.
Democrats who hold a slim majority in the General Assembly that’s pretty reflective of the state’s politics want to create a large majority for their party in the congressional delegation. They could easily draw maps that are 9-2 Democratic or even 10-1. Democrats argue that they’ve been forced into this by Republicans in other states who are doing the same thing there, just in the opposite direction. Indiana, for instance, is currently 7-2 Republican, but the plan is to draw a map that would be 9-0, as if there were no Democrats in the state whatsoever. Virginia Democrats will be forced to leave at least one Republican seat, but only because there’s no way to draw a Democratic seat in Southwest Virginia.
In both states, the majority party essentially wants to disenfranchise the minority party as much as possible. When Pandora opened the box, only Hope remained inside. Gerrymandering, though, is designed to leave one party with no hope of electing representatives. A philosophical question: What happens when one group of voters feels completely unrepresented? Will that ease our current political polarization or simply make it worse? Might it lead to festering frustrations that might get acted out beyond the realm of politics? That’s a question that seems to answer itself.
A side note: Districts by their very definition disenfranchise some voters. Let’s take Virginia’s two most lopsided districts, the 9th in Southwest Virginia, represented by Republican Morgan Griffith, and the 8th in Northern Virginia, represented by Democrat Don Beyer. Griffith won reelection last year with 72.5% of the vote, Beyer with 71.5%. There is simply no way for a Democrat to win in the 9th or a Republican to win in the 8th; not because those districts are gerrymandered (they’re not) but because those communities are simply strongly Republican or strongly Democratic. Still, that means 27.5% of voters in the 9th and 28.5% in the 8th are essentially out of luck, with no hope of ever electing one of their own in that office. That’s why some countries have proportional systems where voters cast ballots for a party “list” and if, say, that party wins 51% of the vote, that party gets 51% of the seats, in order of how its candidates are named on the list. That kind of system would be more reflective of our politics, but that’s not what our founders designed, so here we are.
2. Gerrymandering leads to few people participating in key elections and to representatives who are further from the political center
When districts are drawn either solidly Democratic or solidly Republican, the general elections become just formalities. The real decisions are made in party nominations, by a much smaller group of voters — typically party activists who tend to be either further left or further right than the general public is. One of the reasons that Washington is so dysfunctional these days is the absence of moderates in both parties who might have more of an interest in compromising on basic things, such as, oh, keeping the government open. Instead, we have a widening chasm between the two parties and, at the moment, a government that’s shut down. Some activists on each side may like what they see as “pure” liberalism or “pure” conservatism, but those wide ideological gaps make governing harder. Representatives in solidly blue or red districts don’t fear the voters; they fear being primaried by some ideological purist on either their left or right.
3. This mid-decade redistricting will undermine trust in the political process
If Texas Republicans had trusted the political process, they’d have trusted in their ability to win elections. Instead, they didn’t, so they had to resort to drawing new lines to essentially rig the outcome in their favor. Democrats are already howling about how Republicans are trying to “steal” an election. Now, Virginia Democrats want to do the same thing, citing the “emergency” of other states forcing their hands. This whole process is only going to sour things, no matter who wins next year. Is this good for democracy? Again, the answer ought to be obvious, but it’s hard to counter the “fight fire with fire” argument. Texas did it, so we have to do it, too, just for a different party.
4. This will be part of Trump’s legacy
Volumes will be written about how Trump changed American politics. This tit-for-tat mid-cycle redistricting will be part of that, and it won’t be a good part. Republicans may well wind up gaining some seats out of this nationally; we’ll just have to see how far this goes. That may be a useful short-term gain for the party, but the poison it injects into the political bloodstream won’t dissipate quickly.
5. Voters have no say in what the lines will look like
Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, and Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, put out separate statements this week in support of the amendment in which they said it would “return power back to the people” (Hashmi) or “return power to Virginians” (Jones).
Balderdash. The “people” have no real say in redistricting; what we’re talking about is returning power to the majority party in the General Assembly — which at the moment just happens to be Democrats.
If this amendment were to pass, “the people” would be nothing more than bystanders; party strategists with computer programs would be the ones drawing the lines, with legislators passing them on party-line votes, which at the moment favor Democrats. Some voters might be perfectly happy with that as long as their party picks up seats, but let’s not pretend “the people” have anything to do with this. They never have in the past, no matter which party was drawing the lines. Redistricting is one of the purest assertions of political power possible; one side can defeat the other with nothing more than lines on a map. Hashmi and Jones ought to dispense with the pretend niceties and just say straight up, this is about sticking it to Republicans because Republicans have been sticking it to Democrats in other states.
6. Voters do have two opportunities to make themselves heard
While voters will have no say in what the lines might look like, they do have two chances to weigh in on whether the lines should change.
The first comes in the current election. This constitutional amendment will need to pass the General Assembly again in 2026. The Senate isn’t up for election, so its vote shouldn’t change. The House is where the action is, because all 100 members are on the ballot this year. If you like the idea of this constitutional amendment, you should vote for a Democrat to ensure another Democratic majority. If you don’t, then you should vote Republican and hope that somewhere a couple Democratic incumbents lose to flip the House. That would kill the amendment from proceeding to the next step.
The second opportunity for voters will come if the amendment makes it to a referendum. This would be a spring referendum, something we’ve never had for a constitutional amendment. Turnout in off-cycle elections is always much lower, so the key here will be which side is more passionate about voting.
There’s actually a third opportunity for voters to weigh in, but it’s complicated; the political equivalent of a trick shot. Hang on for that.
7. Republicans could get saved by something they don’t like — 45 days of early voting
The legal argument that Republicans are advancing is that the state constitution requires a House election in between legislative votes on a constitutional amendment. They argue that this current election doesn’t count as the intervening election because it’s already underway. More than 1 million votes have already been cast. Republicans contend that if Democrats wanted to pass this amendment, they should have held the session before early voting began Sept. 19. The theory on the intervening election rule is that this is a way for voters to weigh in; if they really didn’t like how their delegate voted, they could throw him or her out. Now more than 1 million Virginians have been deprived of that possibility — although one counter-argument is that they deprived themselves. Nobody forced them to vote early. We’ve always had some kind of absentee balloting; now we just have a lot more — and technically, early voting is considered “in-person absentee” voting. Some lawyers will be able to buy a new condo at the beach from these arguments. The legal case is already moving through the court system, starting in Tazewell County, but will no doubt wind up before the Virginia Supreme Court before it’s over.
8. Republicans have a curious scenario by which they might be able to stop this — by electing a Democratic lieutenant governor
This is the third opportunity to stop the amendment that I referenced earlier. It’s a little convoluted, so hang on tight. If Hashmi wins her bid for lieutenant governor, she’d have to give up her state Senate seat that covers parts of Richmond and Chesterfield County. That would trigger a special election, likely in early January. This is a Democratic-leaning seat, so whoever the Democratic candidate is will be favored. If that candidate wins, Democrats would maintain their 21-19 edge in the state Senate. However, if a Republican were to win, that would put the Senate into a 20-20 tie — and it’s unclear whether a future Lt. Gov. Hashmi could break a tie vote on the constitutional amendment. Former Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a Republican, said he concluded he was not eligible to break ties on constitutional amendments because the constitution refers to a vote by “members” of the state Senate, and the lieutenant governor isn’t a member. However, he noted that this has never been tested in court. Republicans could argue that one way to stop this is to elect Hashmi as lieutenant governor and then make a high-dollar push to win that special election. If she were to rule differently from Bolling and conclude that she could break a tie on a constitutional amendment, then that could go to court.
I wouldn’t advise anyone on either side to vote based on this scenario — vote for whoever you were planning to in the lieutenant governor’s race — but the scenario does exist.
9. The 2026 election calendar remains a challenge for Democrats
Democrats have a clear path to pull this off, but it will throw a lot of congressional campaigns on both sides into confusion. The deadline for nominating candidates for the November 2026 midterms is June 16. Early voting for that would begin in early May — that’s about the time we’re talking about a referendum, and then, if it passes, a legislative session to pass new lines. The deadline for getting certified for those primaries is even earlier, before we know anything. There’s talk that the parties would simply forgo primaries in 2026 and revert to a party-run nominating process that doesn’t involve early voting and all the other paperwork. That means fewer voters than usual will be involved in making those nomination decisions.
It also means there are a lot of candidates right now who have announced, and are out raising money, who have no idea what district they might be in. So far, eight Democrats have announced to run against Republican Rob Wittman in the 1st District, but, depending on how new lines are drawn, some or even all of those eight candidates might wind up in districts with Democratic incumbents — possibly Jennifer McClellan of Richmond or Bobby Scott of Newport News. Those eight candidates could all be campaigning for naught. Who wants to give money to a candidate who might find they need to drop out if they get drawn into the “wrong” district?
There are also the uncertainties of the court system and however long it takes for all the various legal challenges to play out. Democrats know the schedule they want, but nobody knows the schedule they’re going to get.
10. There will be no constitutional fix to gerrymandering
Some say what we need is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would require each state to have some nonpartisan way to draw district lines. They’re right. This will also never happen. That would require three-fourths of the states to ratify such an amendment. Look at how hard it was to get just one state legislature — ours — to approve an amendment to the state constitution to set up a commission. It required an almost harmonic convergence of events to persuade legislators to give voters a chance to take the job away from them.
There is no way to get 38 state legislatures to agree to give up their power. Remember that in “The Lord of the Rings,” not even the simple, good-hearted hobbit Frodo wanted to part with the One Ring of power. That may have been fiction, but J.R.R. Tolkien was writing about a basic truth: Those with power don’t want to relinquish it. The power to draw district lines is an intoxicating power indeed, as we’re now finding out yet again in one state after another, including our own.
Where the candidates stand
All six candidates for statewide office, and many candidates for the House of Delegates and local offices, have responded to our issues questionnaire. You can see their answers on our Voter Guide.
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