For a Democratic point of view, see the contrasting opinion piece by Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Richmond
In 1857, Justice Benjamin Curtis dissented from the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision with a warning that should haunt every elected official in Virginia today:
“When a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean.”
That is exactly what is happening in the commonwealth of Virginia right now.
In 2020, Virginia voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment creating a bipartisan Redistricting Commission — deliberately removing the power to draw electoral maps from the legislature and placing it in the hands of an independent body. It was a landmark reform. Voters of both parties supported it because they understood a basic truth: politicians should not choose their voters.
Four years later, the Democratic majority in the General Assembly decided they wanted that power back.
Through House Joint Resolution 4, they are pushing a constitutional amendment to let the General Assembly redraw Virginia’s congressional districts outside the normal decennial redistricting cycle. The stated justification is that other states have redrawn their maps. The real purpose is to gerrymander Virginia’s congressional map from the current 6-5 Democratic advantage to as many as 10 of 11 seats — just in time for the 2026 midterm elections.
But the legal problems with this effort go far beyond its partisan aims.
Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. struck down the amendment on three independent grounds: the General Assembly failed to follow its own procedural rules for adding the measure to a special session; the first legislative vote did not occur before voters began casting ballots in the 2025 general election, meaning it cannot count as a valid first passage under the two-step amendment process; and the state failed to publish the amendment three months before the election, as required by law.
Judge Hurley ruled the amendment invalid and void.
And yet, a special election is scheduled for April 21.
The Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to hear Democrats’ appeal — but set a briefing schedule that won’t conclude until April 23, two days after voters go to the polls. The court will decide whether this amendment is legal only after Virginians have already cast their ballots on it.
Think about what that means. Virginia voters are being asked to show up to a statewide special election to vote on a constitutional amendment that a court has already found to be illegal, while the state’s highest court has not yet decided whether the lower court was right. If the Supreme Court ultimately upholds Judge Hurley’s ruling, the entire election will have been for nothing — a waste of taxpayer money and public trust. If the court reverses, it will have allowed a constitutionally defective process to stand because the political calendar demanded it.
Either outcome is corrosive to the rule of law.
The Virginia Constitution is not a document of convenience. Article XII, Section 1 prescribes a deliberate process for amending it — passage by two successive General Assemblies with an intervening election, publication requirements and a ninety-day waiting period before submission to voters. These safeguards exist precisely to prevent what is happening now: a legislative majority ramming through a structural change to serve its immediate political interests.
This matters far beyond Virginia. Across the country, both parties have engaged in redistricting fights. But what Virginia Democrats are attempting is something different. They are not merely drawing favorable maps. They are rewriting the state constitution to undo a reform that the people themselves enacted, overriding a court that found their process unlawful and rushing a vote before the state’s highest court can weigh in.
If this succeeds, it will stand as a blueprint for any legislative majority, in any state, to amend away any constitutional restraint that becomes politically inconvenient. The redistricting commission that Virginians voted for will be meaningless. And Justice Curtis’s warning will have come true: we will no longer have a constitution — just the will of whoever holds power at the moment.
Virginians deserve better. The constitution they voted to amend in 2020 deserves to be respected. And the courts deserve the time to do their work before voters are asked to speak on a question that may already be settled.
I urge my fellow Virginians to pay close attention to what is happening — and to remember that the rules matter most when the people in power would prefer to ignore them.
Delegate Wren Williams represents the 47th District in the Virginia House of Delegates, which includes Patrick County. He is an attorney in Stuart and a Republican.