Virginia residents will get the chance to vote on whether the General Assembly can redraw congressional districts this year before the midterm elections, after a decision by the state Supreme Court on Friday.
The court denied a motion by Republican lawmakers to pause a redistricting referendum as it deliberates the case, the Virginia Mercury reported.
That means an April 21 special election on the referendum can be held, giving state Democratic leaders a big win. The Dem-controlled General Assembly passed — and Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed — legislation recently that calls for a vote on amending the state Constitution to allow the mid-decade redistricting. The redrawing of congressional and legislative boundaries is usually done after the once-every-10-years census.
The Virginia Supreme Court will still get to decide whether the amendment is legal, but it won’t do so before the April 21 election.
The notion of changing congressional boundaries in the Old Dominion has come up as a Democratic response to efforts from President Donald Trump to create more Republican-friendly districts in other states as both parties look to duke it out in November elections that will determine who controls the House of Representatives.
After the constitutional-amendment legislation was approved, a Tazewell County Circuit Court judge ordered legislators to stop the redistricting, arguing it violated the state Constitution. Democratic leaders then appealed that decision, which is why the matter is now before the state’s highest court.
The proposed redrawing of the congressional districts would take Virginia’s 11 districts, now represented by six Democrats and five Republicans, and create a scenario where Democrats would be favored in 10 areas and the GOP in one.
What would that mean for the Fredericksburg area?
Currently, the region is part of the 7th Congressional District, with Rep. Eugene Vindman, a Democrat, serving in his first term.
Under the proposed arrangement, much of the area would move to the 1st District. That’s the territory of Republican Rep. Rob Wittman. He represented part of the Fredericksburg region in the past under old boundaries.
In fact, 65% of the present 7th would move to the 1st, Vindman spokeswoman Claire Hutto said Friday.
In terms of localities, the proposed redistricting would put Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania County and much of Stafford County in the 1st, while part of Stafford and the entire counties of Caroline and King George would be in the 8th District, which is currently represented by Democrat Don Beyer.
Vindman last week announced that he would run for re-election in the 1st, if the new boundaries end up being final.
Shannon Taylor, Henrico County’s commonwealth’s attorney who ran unsuccessfully last year for the Democratic nomination for Virginia attorney general, was slated to run in the 1st District. But Taylor announced recently that she would instead run in the proposed 5th Congressional District, if her party’s new map is approved.
A handful of Republicans, including state Sen. Tara Durant, also have been lining up to potentially square off against Vindman. An effort to reach Durant wasn’t immediately successful last week.
Efforts to reach Wittman and Beyer weren’t successful, either. But it’s hard to say for sure in which districts any hopefuls may run. That’s because U.S. House rules allow candidates to seek a given office even if they don’t live in the district they would represent.
However, to see which district you would live in under the proposed map, you can enter your address into a widget designed by the Virginia Public Access Project, a Richmond-based, nonpartisan and nonprofit political information organization.
The general election is Nov. 3.
