The Legal Fight Over Virginia’s Redistricting Has Just Begun

Now that Virginia’s redistricting amendment has passed, the political campaign is over. The legal fight is just beginning.

The next phase will not be decided at the ballot box. It will be decided in courtrooms across the Commonwealth. The questions ahead are not minor. They go to the timing of implementation, the certification of the results, and ultimately, how the amendment will operate in practice. Those are issues that courts, not legislators or voters, will now have to resolve.

We are already seeing the contours of that fight take shape. A circuit court in Tazewell County has entered an injunction affecting certification of the election. The reaction was immediate. Critics on the Left labeled the ruling political. If the decision had gone the other way, the criticism would have come just as quickly from the Right.

That response tells you everything you need to know about what comes next. In cases with real political consequences, judicial decisions are almost always viewed through a political lens. That is not unique to this case. It is the environment in which judges are now being asked to operate.

Which brings us to a larger point about Virginia’s system of judicial selection.

Judges in Virginia, including the seven justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia, are elected by the General Assembly for fixed terms. Twelve years for the Supreme Court. Eight years for the Court of Appeals and circuit courts. Six years for district courts. Most judges who serve a full career will, at some point, have to return to the same legislative body for reappointment.

None of that means judges are unable to decide cases fairly or independently. Virginia’s judiciary has a long tradition of professionalism and integrity, and that should be acknowledged. But the structure still matters, particularly in cases like this one where the stakes are high and the political consequences are obvious. When continued service ultimately depends on reappointment by elected officials, it creates an environment where judicial independence is not just a matter of reality but also of public confidence.

Other systems approach this differently. The federal judiciary relies on life tenure under Article III of the United States Constitution. Many states use merit selection commissions combined with retention elections. Virginia has chosen a legislative appointment model, and that choice carries consequences. In high-stakes disputes like this redistricting fight, it ensures that judicial decisions will be scrutinized not only for their reasoning, but for what they mean politically.

That is where this case is headed next. The courts will be asked to resolve disputes over certification, implementation, and the legality of how this amendment is applied. Those rulings will shape not just this election cycle, but the political map of Virginia for years to come. They will also, inevitably, draw criticism from one side or the other.

Virginia law does allow for retired judges to be designated to sit in particular cases when needed, but the courts cannot create a separate commission to insulate themselves from political reaction. These cases will be decided within the existing judicial structure, by judges who are doing their jobs under the system we have in place.

The better question is not how to avoid criticism in this case. That is unavoidable. The better question is whether the structure we have chosen best protects public confidence in the judiciary when the stakes are this high. As this litigation moves forward, Virginians are going to see that question play out in real time.

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Timothy V. Anderson is an attorney and a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Anderson graduated from the University of Tampa in 1996 with a Bachelor’s in Economics and received his law degree from the Regent University School of Law in 1999. Anderson is a member of the Virginia, North Carolina, District of Columbia, and Missouri bars and is admitted to the United States Supreme Court, the 4th, 9th and DC Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the District Courts bars in Virginia, the District of Columbia, Eastern North Carolina, Western Missouri, Colorado and the Southern District of Texas.