Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Virginia issued its decision, striking down Virginia Democrats’ attempt to redraw the Commonwealth’s congressional map. Had the map been allowed to stand, Democrats would have been favored to win 10 of the state’s 11 congressional seats in the 2026 midterms, with Republicans favored in just one. This would have represented a massive change from the current, more balanced map, in which six congressional seats are held by Democrats and five by Republicans. That current map far more accurately reflects Virginia’s electorate, where Kamala Harris won 52% to 46% in the 2024 presidential election.

The Democrats were, of course, free to try to execute their power grab if they followed the law. Unlike other states, however, it was not as simple as passing a new law with new maps. Instead, there is the Virginia Constitution with which to contend, namely, amending the Commonwealth’s Constitution to undo what was done in 2020. Then the constitution was amended to reform the redistricting process by creating an independent redistricting commission. The bill for that constitutional amendment, passed by the Virginia legislature with Democratic majorities in both houses, was signed by Democratic Governor Ralph Northam, and Virginia voters overwhelmingly adopted it by 66% to 34%.

Unfortunately for Democrats, the Virginia Supreme Court correctly concluded that the Democrats did not follow the Virginia Constitution’s amendment process. Specifically, the Virginia Constitution requires that any amendment be passed in two separate legislative sessions divided by an intervening election of the House of Delegates. Because the legislature passed its proposed redistricting amendment on October 31, 2025 — after 1.3 million Virginians had already voted during 42 days of early voting — the court determined that the amendment passed during an election, not before one, as the state constitution mandates.

The Virginia Supreme Court’s decision is well-reasoned and grounded in Virginia’s foundational document: the Virginia Constitution. The Court is historically traditionalist, not known for issuing politically motivated or even controversial decisions. Nevertheless, Democrats immediately threw a temper tantrum that would make Veruca Salt look well-behaved in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

And, it didn’t take long for the histrionics. Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor Ghazala Hashmi posted on X that “[t]he Virginia Supreme Court’s decision to block a redistricting referendum that Virginians voted for is part of a broader national assault on our democratic institutions.” Hashmi’s knee-jerk act of name-calling, although predictable, reveals her desire to delegitimize the rule of law, the independent judiciary, and the Virginia Constitution itself.

Then there is Attorney General Jay Jones, perhaps best known for fantasizing about his political opponents and their children being murdered. He accused the Virginia Supreme Court of “silenc[ing] the voices of millions of Virginians” and “fuel[ing] the growing fears across our nation about the state of our democracy.” Jones, supposedly Virginia’s top attorney, went on to claim that the “Republican-led majority of the Supreme Court of Virginia contorted the plain language of the Constitution and Code of Virginia to give it a meaning that was never intended, which allowed them to reach the wrong legal conclusion that fit their political agenda.” Perhaps Jones — whose office will need to appear before those same justices over the next four years — should have read Rule 8.2 of the Virginia Rules of Professional Responsibility, which provides, “[a] lawyer shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge or other judicial officer.”

But Jones wasn’t finished demonstrating why he isn’t qualified to be attorney general. Within hours after the decision, his office filed a motion to delay the Virginia Supreme Court from issuing its mandate. Why? So that he could appeal to the United States Supreme Court, a decision by the Virginia Supreme Court that rested solely on the Virginia Constitution. His appeal was dead on arrival at SCOTUS, and one really must question the competence of an attorney general who files a motion misspelling his own state — “Virgnia” — and then mangles “Senator” into “Sentator.”

Over the weekend, Virginia Democrats’ comedy of errors turned dark and dangerous. It started with a Substack post from Michigan State Law Professor Quinn Yeargain (“They/them/theirs”), who suggested that Virginia Democrats should lower the retirement age for Supreme Court justices from 73 to 54 — a move that would clear out the court and allow the legislature to appoint new justices willing to let the redistricting scheme go forward. This insane proposal would never be taken seriously by respectable lawmakers who value our core foundational principles, such as an independent judiciary. Not so fast. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Democratic House members from Virginia and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries discussed just such a plan to replace the entire Virginia Supreme Court. Suhas Subramanyam, the Democratic Congressman who represents Loudoun County, Virginia, told the New York Times that he would indeed back such a plan.

Yet the Jeffries-Subramanyam plot to end the rule of law and judicial independence in Virginia may be a bridge too far for Virginia’s Democratic state legislators. State Senate Leader Scott Surovell poured cold water on the proposal, calling it extreme and saying he wants to work within the existing legal system. Who knew that Democrats operating within the law would be so novel a concept that it would require such a statement? Unsurprisingly, we have not yet heard from Governor Abigail Spanberger, who has apparently not yet received her badge of courage from the Wizard of Oz.

The scariest thing about the Jeffries-Subramanyam plot is not that it could work — it won’t. It is that Washington’s Democratic Party’s leadership admits publicly their willingness to go to such extreme measures to scrap a state constitution, eviscerate the rule of law, and terminate judicial independence, all in search of a few more congressional seats. One does not need to be Nostradamus to predict what will happen if Democrats gain control of the presidency, the House, and the Senate in 2028. They will immediately scrap the filibuster and ram through new laws granting citizenship to illegal aliens, open the border, raise tax rates to astronomical levels, create a single-payer health care system, mainstream the transgender agenda, and whatever else the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can conjure.

No longer needing the 60-vote threshold, they will effectively shred the Constitution and the checks and balances guaranteed by an independent judiciary by packing the United States Supreme Court with five more Ketanji Brown Jacksons. No longer will laws and lawmakers be limited by the vision of the Founding Fathers or by the guardrails against the tyranny of the majority maintained by our founding document. Instead, the judiciary will become a rubber stamp for far-left legislation, destroying civil liberties, federalism, and the greatest system of governance yet known to man.

There should no longer be any doubt about the left’s assault on America’s values, its institutions, and the United States Constitution. What started as a fringe movement on the Left has now infected the highest levels of Democratic leadership in this country. Benjamin Franklin famously said of our government that it is “[a] republic, if you can keep it.” The battle to keep our republic has become even more urgent and existential after this past weekend in Virginia.

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Ian Prior is senior counsel at America First Legal and former deputy director of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice.

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