Trump has a bold option to counter Virginia's new gerrymander scheme
If you’re proud of something, you want people to see it. That is why it’s telling that Virginia Democrats are asking Old Dominion residents to vote for a redistricting scheme without allowing their proposed map to be printed on the ballots.
But it’s no wonder: the mid-decade redistricting proposal is an obscene gerrymander that will wipe out all but one GOP-leaning congressional district in the state. And, of course, they claim it’s all done in the name of "democracy."
This dishonest power play seeks to make the congressional representation of a purple state nearly as blue as Massachusetts. It disenfranchises nearly half the Commonwealth (Virginia went 51.8%-46.6% for Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024). The proposed districts are extreme – running from heavily populated blue areas deep into rural red areas. Federal government employees in Arlington and Fairfax will essentially dictate the congressional representation of farmers and shopkeepers up to 100 miles away.
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Local airwaves have been inundated with ads pushing this redistricting scheme as a benevolent attempt to save democracy and "free and fair elections." One ubiquitous ad features former President Barack Obama carrying on his tradition for honesty that was exemplified in his infamous declaration, "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan." Now it’s, "if you like your district, you can keep your district," with the hollow promise of going back to Virginia’s regular redistricting process in 2030.
Materials provided to the grassroots are a bit more transparent than the types of phony appeals to democracy wielded by the former president, governor, and other scheming progressives. Yard signs supporting the initiative are much more clear about the intent of the initiative, urging voters to "fight back" against MAGA.
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It is obvious to anyone paying attention that, rather than an effort to "restore fairness" or "level the playing field," the Virginia gerrymander, or Virgerrymander, is nothing more than an effort to stack the deck in favor of Democrats to weaken President Donald Trump.
So, what can the president and his allies do? Aside from motivating Virginia residents to oppose this power grab, Trump has another tool he can use to "fight back," to borrow the supporters’ phrase. He could fight fire with fire and choose another type of re-Districting.
In 1790, Virginia and Maryland each gave five square miles of land to the Federal government to create a district for a new national capital. That Virginia land remained part of the District of Columbia until 1847 when it was retroceded to the commonwealth. The shameful reason for that retrocession was protecting slavery in Virginia when the District abolished it.
This became moot after the Union defeated the ancestors of this current effort to rig elections and resist the elected federal leadership in the Civil War. Other presidents, including William Howard Taft, have considered retrocession unconstitutional and wanted to reclaim the land for the District, but the Supreme Court has never been asked to weigh in.
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President Trump could issue an executive order declaring the slavery-motivated retrocession unconstitutional, triggering certain legal action, and allowing the courts to finally weigh in on whether the county of Arlington and the city of Alexandria in fact properly belong to the District of Columbia.
This Order would be on better legal footing than many of President Joe Biden’s most egregious orders, such as those imposing an eviction moratorium or forgiving billions in student debt with the stroke of an (auto) pen. As some of the deepest blue areas of the Commonwealth – and the country – and loaded with federal government employees, residents of this region should feel right at home as part of D.C.
In an ad pushing for voters to back her party’s gerrymandering scheme, Spanberger calls this an "extraordinary moment." So it is. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures – measures that, unlike the "Virgerrymander," are legal and ethical.
If Virginia Democrats’ redistricting succeeds, President Trump should re-District Virginia. It will not only neutralize the president’s political opponents’ move to stack Congress against him – thus protecting him from another likely sham impeachment – but, most importantly, it will save a great number of red Virginians from having their votes canceled out by deep blue D.C.-adjacent liberals.