Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed enabling legislation to set the dates for referendums on four congressional amendments on Friday, including the mid-decade redistricting effort.
Democratic leadership in the General Assembly unveiled the long-awaited redrawn congressional maps on Thursday. The proposed map shows 10 Democratic-leaning districts and one district that remains a Republican stronghold.
Spanberger will also need to sign or line-item veto the enabling legislation for the redistricting effort, which lives in the caboose budget bill, HB 29. That bill would appropriate about $5 million to administer the redistricting referendum and to solidify the new map. Spanberger also could opt not to sign the entire budget bill, which would allow the legislation in its entirety to become law after 30 days of its passage by the General Assembly. She did not directly answer when asked by reporters if she plans to sign the legislation.
“My role in this principally has been to make sure that ELECT, our elections commission, can implement a map in the time given. I have conferred with them and they’ve said this is a map that can be implemented so I will leave it to the legislators ultimately to vote on it,” she said. “If they choose to move forward with this one, then I don’t intend to stand in the way of that.”
Spanberger had said she planned to campaign to get out the vote in support of three of the four constitutional amendments, but pointed out that the time constraints surrounding the redistricting effort may preclude any effort for her office to campaign for the fourth. She added that she has not yet talked with incumbent members of Congress on either side of the aisle regarding the proposed map.
“This is the work of the legislature, it’s recognizing that Virginia has the opportunity and the responsibility to be responsive in the face of efforts across the country to change maps,” she said before signing the bill that set the date for the redistricting referendum.
The redistricting referendum is slated to take place April 21, and the remaining three constitutional amendments will go to the voters in November. The map is available on the General Assembly’s Legislative Information Service website under HB 29.
The other three amendments include an effort to enshrine same-sex marriage equality into the constitution, restoration of voting rights to formerly incarcerated people and protecting access to reproductive health care.
New districts shake up the Southwest and Southside
Charlottesville and Roanoke are drawn into the 6th District, along with Lynchburg, Radford and Blacksburg in the new congressional map. The newly drawn 6th District would pit former journalist and bestselling author Beth Macy of Roanoke against former Congressman Tom Perriello of Charlottesville and others in a primary election to determine who will take on Republican incumbent Rep. Ben Cline, of Botetourt County, in November.
Cline said he plans to continue running in the 6th District if voters approve the redistricting effort.
“Gerrymandering is wrong, which is why Virginia voters overwhelmingly decided in 2020 that a non-partisan redistricting process should be used to draw district maps every 10 years. Voters should select their elected officials, not the other way around,” he said in a statement Friday.
Cline added that he felt confident that the voters will reject the redistricting effort.
“I was ready to take on Ben Cline when the district was ruby-red — long before redistricting reared its head. I was fully prepared to fight for Virginians before it was politically convenient to do so, and I’m still ready to fight for the people of my community,” Macy said in a statement Thursday evening.
Perriello said in a statement Thursday evening that he is “fired up” to keep fighting for his hometown.
“I have always stood up to bullies, so that everybody gets a fair shot, and I refuse to let the corruption and cowardice in this Congress stand. District lines may shift, but my values and commitments to working families across Virginia never will,” he said.
The 9th District, represented by Rep. Morgan Griffith of Salem, would likely be the last remaining Republican stronghold. As it is drawn in the prototype, the 9th District runs from Lee County north to Highland County and parts of Augusta County, and east to Henry County, in a sideways “V” shape.
Griffith confirmed that he plans to seek reelection in the newly drawn 9th District, should voters approve the referendum.
“One look at the maps and you see just how outrageously partisan they are. Further, the Democrats shift power away from rural Virginia in favor of Northern Virginia,” he said in a statement.
One of his three Democratic challengers, Joy Powers, said she plans to continue her attempt to unseat the incumbent despite the district remaining solidly Republican.
Warner, Kaine respond
Virginia’s two U.S. senators, both Democrats, respond to the redistricting effort:
Sen. Mark Warner: “Virginia is responding to a nationwide effort led by Donald Trump to redraw congressional maps mid-decade, not to reflect voters but to rig elections and shield himself and his allies from accountability. No one wanted to take this step, but with so many states trying to stack the deck, Virginia has a responsibility to act to ensure our voters’ voices aren’t drowned out. While the district maps are up to the General Assembly, and ultimately, Virginia voters, I remain focused on holding this administration accountable at the federal level to ensure our elections remain free and fair.”
A spokesperson for Sen. Tim Kaine: “Senator Kaine is supportive of the redistricting effort as a temporary, emergency step to level the playing field in the face of President Trump’s campaign to rig congressional elections. As a Senator representing a statewide constituency, Kaine doesn’t think it’s his job to intrude upon the drawing of district maps.”
“The proposed redistricting map expands the 9th District into more rural communities across Western Virginia that have been abandoned by their current representative,” Powers said. “That doesn’t scare me; it confirms why I’m in this race.”
Virginia’s 5th District, represented by Rep. John McGuire of Goochland County, includes Campbell County at its westernmost point and curves northward to include some of the suburbs surrounding the city of Richmond as well as part of the city itself.
Democrat Shannon Taylor, commonwealth’s attorney for Henrico County, announced Friday that she plans to run in the newly drawn 5th District if the referendum is approved by voters. She had initially filed to run in the 1st Congressional District against incumbent Republican Rep. Rob Wittman of Westmoreland County.
McGuire’s office declined to comment on the proposed map Friday, or his plans should voters approve the referendum.
“As a prosecutor, I’ve spent my career holding people accountable and keeping my community safe. That mission remains the same,” Taylor said in a statement Friday morning. “Whether it is under the current 1st District lines or newly proposed 5th District lines, I will never stop fighting to lower everyday costs for working families and defend the community I love and have sworn to protect.”
The 4th Congressional District, represented by Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan, will stretch into Southside Virginia under the proposed map. It would include the city of Danville along with Pittsylvania, Halifax and Mecklenburg counties.
Legal questions remain
House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, of Scott County, said that the Republican caucus will continue to disagree with their Democratic colleagues on all four of the constitutional amendments during an impromptu press conference Friday.
“Hopefully the voters will agree with us on it,” he said.
He added that it looks as though Fairfax County will have five congressional districts within its county in the prototype.
“Are we going to Fairfax the rest of Virginia, is that what’s coming? All those folks in Fairfax have a different view than folks in other parts” of the state, he said.
Democratic lawmakers are moving ahead with their redistricting effort despite a ruling in Tazewell County Circuit Court that said the effort was unconstitutional. Democrats have appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Virginia Democrats have called the redistricting effort necessary, after Republican President Donald Trump called on conservative-led states to change their congressional maps in favor of GOP candidates ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
To redraw congressional maps outside of the normal 10-year cycle, Democrats proposed and passed a constitutional amendment that would suspend Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting commission. The General Assembly would go back to the redistricting commission after the 2030 Census to again redraw the commonwealth’s congressional map. The constitutional amendment must go before the voters in a referendum before it is enacted.
If voters approve the effort in a referendum, the new maps will be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 midterm elections.
General Assembly Republicans filed the complaint in Tazewell County in October, seeking a judgment on the constitutionality of the attempt to redraw the state’s congressional maps. Chief Judge Jack Hurley Jr. sided with the Republican lawmakers in a January ruling, in what House of Democrats Speaker Don Scott, of Portsmouth, called “overreach.” That ruling has been appealed by Democratic lawmakers to the Virginia Supreme Court.
“I think we’re going to see the Justice Department come in and take a close look at these lines,” Kilgore, a plaintiff in that complaint, said. “I think the Virginia Supreme Court is going to get this one right, they violated the law, they violated their own rules, so we feel good about it going forward to the Virginia Supreme Court.”