Democrats are considering a radical plan to forcibly replace the entire Virginia Supreme Court after Democrat-favorable congressional maps were struck down last week.
A proposal to force out the current court by lowering the mandatory retirement age for justices was considered Friday during a call with House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and top Virginia Democrats, the New York Times reported. The plan would force out all current justices and give the legislature, narrowly controlled by Democrats, the opportunity to pack it with more partisan justices.
A case would then be brought to challenge the creation of Virginia’s so-called independent redistricting commission. If that commission was struck down, Democrats could then draw new election maps to their favor.
The proposal would involve lowering the retirement age from 75 to at least 54, the age of the youngest justice currently on the bench. That plan was openly supported by Democrat state Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a participant in the call.
“Everyone has got to have a strong stomach right now; this is a complete disaster waiting to happen if people are timid,” he told the Times. “We have Republican states ignoring their constitutions and interrupting early voting and ignoring their Supreme Courts all together. We know based on that, Republicans would explore every single option possible to move this forward.”
The map struck down as unconstitutional on Friday was expected to give Democrats a 10-1 advantage in Virginia’s House delegation come November, up from their current 6-5 edge. In a 4-3 decision, Virginia’s Supreme Court ruled that the state’s “violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void.”
Jeffries has suggested appealing to the Supreme Court, though it is unclear on what grounds the nation’s high court would weigh in on.
Voters in Virginia narrowly approved the new gerrymandered maps in April after Democrat-aligned groups spent over $64 million supporting redistricting.
Campaign filings show that Virginians for Fair Elections, the leading Democrat-aligned group backing the gerrymandered map, raised more than $64 million between January and April 2026. That total was more than double the amount raised by Republican-aligned groups opposing redistricting.
Much of the money raised came from House Majority Forward, which contributed nearly $39 million, according to campaign filings. The group describes itself as a “progressive, non-profit organization committed to promoting economic growth and opportunity, social justice, environmental stewardship, and democracy in the United States of America.”
The ruling by the court meant that Republicans appeared to have come out ahead in the nationwide redistricting battle, with states like Tennessee and Florida adopting new maps expected to make their congressional delegations redder.
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