Virginia’s budget is now more than 60 days late. Millions of taxpayers’ dollars have been wasted and immeasurable political animus has been generated while pursuing a redistricting proposal that was fatally flawed from the start, leaving the General Assembly’s primary responsibility neglected.
While the budget remains neglected, the different legislative avenues pursued by Virginia Democrats to amend the Virginia Constitution tells the story. This November, Virginians will be asked to vote on three constitutional amendments regarding abortion, same-sex unions, and the restoration of voting rights for those convicted of felonies. All three proposed amendments first passed the General Assembly in 2025, passed the General Assembly again in identical form in 2026, and now will be voted on in a November 2026 referendum. Virginia Democrats advanced these three amendments through this process because it was the only way to ensure the amendments were legally sound. It is what our Virginia Constitution requires. Democrats did not want to risk these significant policy proposals by taking a dubious legal shortcut.
In between the two-year process for the three proposed amendments up this November, national Democrats urged Virginia Democrats to ram through a fourth amendment between late October 2025 in the midst of an already ongoing House of Delegates election and a special referendum in April 2026. They ignored warnings and the obvious signs that this “legal shortcut” was a road to nowhere.
On a series of party-line votes, General Assembly Democrats attempted to suspend the Bipartisan Redistricting Commission that was created by 2.8 million voters at the same November 2020 that elected President Joe Biden. Throughout the process, candidate Abigail Spanberger showed well placed apprehension but ultimately relented to national party pressure. On January 27, 2026, a Tazewell Circuit Court ruled the shortcut process illegal, but newly installed Democratic Attorney General Jay Jones immediately appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court and the effort pushed on.
Over the strenuous objections of the Republican legal team, Attorney General Jay Jones’ team successfully argued that the Virginia Supreme Court should delay intervening until after the referendum was completed and “legislative process” had finished based on a 1912 precedent. The Virginia Supreme Court then said, “While we decline to intervene in the legislative process at this juncture based on the principles established in Scott v. James (1912), the Court maintains significant concerns regarding the procedural integrity of the abbreviated amendment process utilized in this instance.”
Despite all the warnings, the Democratic leadership pushed through the legally dubious referendum on April 21, 2026, which asked voters to “temporarily” amend the Constitution to “restore fairness” by suspending the Bipartisan Redistricting Commission. Their Yes position barely squeaked through with 1.4 million fewer voters than the November 2020 election that created the Bipartisan Redistricting Commission. Attorney General Jay Jones’ team then suggested the referendum results cured any errors in the process. It was not surprising the Supreme Court that had “significant concerns” to begin with ultimately did not agree with Attorney General Jay Jones here either.
Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey, who was first appointed to the judicial bench by Governor Mark Warner (D) and later elected to the Virginia Supreme Court with a unanimous, bipartisan vote, addressed the argument that the referendum results should override the fatal constitutional flaws. Justice Kelsey noted that the redistricting proponents “suggest that the intervening referendum of April 21 has rendered any procedural defects in the proposal of this amendment moot, effectively arguing that the voice of the electorate operates as a curative for constitutional non-compliance. We disagree. To hold that a majority vote can validate an unconstitutional process would be to hold that the Constitution is a mere suggestion, subject to suspension by a simple majority at any given moment…. Our Constitution does not merely provide a destination; it provides a map. The requirements of Article XII, Section 1 —specifically the requirement for deliberation across two distinct sessions of the General Assembly with an intervening election—are not ‘technicalities’ to be bypassed in times of perceived urgency. They are structural safeguards designed to prevent the very partisan volatility that has characterized this current effort.”
Now, having taken the unconstitutional shortcut to a dead end, redistricting proponents ask how the Court could “ignore the will of the voters.” Some of these proponents including a U.S. congressman even suggested a new foolish shortcut to their dream: simply dismiss the entire Virginia Supreme Court with a new ex post facto law that throws them all out of office. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed, but the anger continues.
Many of the exact same people decrying the Virginia Supreme Court’s invalidation of the April 2026 redistricting referendum praised the U.S. Supreme Court when it invalidated the November 2006 referendum where 57% of Virginia voters sought to ban same sex unions. A referendum this November seeks to remove the constitutional language banning same sex unions that was placed there twenty years ago, but it has been without effect since 2014 because the U.S. Supreme Court exercised its responsibility of judicial review. Attorney General Jay Jones knows judicial review is a critical part of America’s system of checks and balances but is again allowing partisan impulses to cloud his thinking when he does not like the outcome.
The fact that the proper two-year process is being used for this November’s three proposed amendments is a silent but powerful admission that the redistricting proponents always knew the shortcut would not get to their desired destination. Unfortunately, they are all too happy though to fan the partisan flames of the legislative wreckage in the hopes that it motivates their political base.
With the Virginia redistricting fight over for now, the people of Virginia are still left waiting for the budget that should have passed on March 14. The General Assembly must get back to work and pass a budget that funds local public schools, supports our law enforcement, and provides much-needed tax relief to working Virginians. It is time to escape the hyperpartisan national highway to nowhere and finally work to deliver the budget for the people of Virginia.
Sen. David Suetterlein represents the Roanoke and New River Valleys in the Virginia Senate. He works at MKB, REALTORS and lives in Roanoke with his wife and their children who attend local public schools.
