The escalation of gerrymandering across our nation is fueling more than just a battle for control of Congress. It is eroding the very foundation of our democracy. The cracks are showing, and the pressure is rising. Every day Americans are no longer just going to work, voting in November and moving on. They’re feeling the weight of the government pressing down in ways they’ve never felt before.
This is a fight for power to the point where control is everything, compromise is weakness and the opposition is treated as the enemy. In that struggle, it’s not one party or the other that loses. It’s the American people.
In the debate over gerrymandering, we can “what about” our way back to Elbridge Gerry himself. Both parties have dirt on their hands when it comes to drawing lines that benefit one side at the expense of another. That’s why Virginia took a different path. We chose reform.
By creating a bipartisan Redistricting Commission (with the Virginia Supreme Court as a failsafe), our commonwealth sought to remove politics from the mapmaking process and restore trust in the fairness of our elections. The goal was simple: to protect the voice of the minority, no matter who holds power.
That commitment matters. In many Northeastern states that lean heavily Democratic, the minority voice is drowned out. In parts of the South and Midwest, it’s Democrats who are silenced by maps drawn for permanent Republican advantage. But Virginia stands apart.
Despite shifts in partisan control, our legislative and congressional maps reflect the makeup of our electorate more closely than nearly any other state. That is what representative government should look like.
Our founders understood that a government “of the people” must be grounded in individual liberty, not mob rule or the tyranny of a ruling class. They believed in balance, a balance that only fair representation can provide.
Yet as states like California and Texas weaponize redistricting in an endless partisan arms race, they forget that the purpose of our Republic is not to ensure one side wins forever, but to ensure the people are heard fairly.
Here in Virginia, we must resist efforts to undo the progress we’ve made. Proposals to amend our constitution in ways that could politicize redistricting again risk dragging our commonwealth into the same bitter mud that has consumed Washington. Such moves would not strengthen democracy; they would fracture it further.
Virginia has an opportunity, rather an obligation, to lead by example. We must show that fairness and restraint are not signs of weakness, but of strength. That our system can protect minority voices while reflecting the will of the people. That our government can rise above partisanship and remain faithful to the ideals that define our Republic.
The balance we’ve built is fragile, but it’s worth protecting. Our citizens deserve better than the power games that have paralyzed much of the country. If we hold fast to the principles that guided our reform, Virginia can once again serve as a light, a commonwealth that reminds the nation what representative government truly means.
Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier County, is the Republican caucus whip in the House of Delegates.
