Defeated Virginia Republicans regroup for last-chance fight to save House majority
Virginia’s redistricting fight is headed to the state's high court Thursday after a red county judge who previously tried to spurn the "yes" camp threw a wrench into the certification process late Wednesday.
The situation sets up a clash between the judge who halted certification and the state Supreme Court, which allowed the referendum to proceed while challenges remained under review.
Virginia Republicans are urging the courts to take up their challenge to the ballot measure, which voters approved 51%-49% and is expected to redraw the state's congressional districts to give Democrats a 10-1 majority in the House delegation.
GOP officials argue the ballot measure process was illegitimate, and pressure is on to save every Republican-held House seat they can with the U.S. midterm elections fast approaching and the Republican majority in Congress hanging by a thread.
"[On Tuesday] Virginians saw exactly what happens when a misleading, rigged question is shoved onto the ballot," state Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, told Fox News Digital. "If this were really about fairness, the advocates wouldn’t have needed to blow $90 million-plus to trick voters. Litigation is still pending with the courts, but the bottom line is clear: Virginians deserve far better."
The Supreme Court of Virginia (SCOVA) in March stayed an earlier injunction from Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr., clearing the way for the referendum to advance while making clear it had not ruled on the merits. Hurley ruled again late Wednesday, declaring the ballot language unconstitutional and blocking certification of the results.
A legislative source told Fox News Digital the SCOVA is not likely to play ball on that matter and instead will continue its own litigation of the cases and potentially rebuke Hurley. Still, certification of the election is now paused despite Thursday's SCOVA filing date.
Shortly after the ruling came down, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, a Democrat who beat GOP incumbent Jason Miyares in November, indicated his office will "immediately file an appeal."
"As I said last night, Virginia voters have spoken, and an activist judge should not have veto power over the people’s vote." Jones said in a statement.
Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) Chairman Jeff Ryer told Fox News Digital in an interview Wednesday the party is directly involved in a case before Richmond City Circuit Court that is also challenging the new maps.
According to an RPV statement, that case is titled RNC v. VA State Board of Elections, and a decision on any injunction blocking the new maps is expected next week.
Koski v. RNC and another case, Scott v. McDougle, challenged the allegedly misleading ballot language and procedures that led up to the map redraw and the election itself.
Reps. Morgan Griffith and Ben Cline, R-Va., joined the RNC in its Koski case, which focuses in part on state law requiring an "intervening election" to be held before a referendum can go to voters and argued that early voting having begun before the referendum drafting process started made the vote "void ab initio."
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McDougle's case argues lawmakers improperly used an old special session called by then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin to push through the referendum, among other procedural violations, a claim that goes to the heart of whether the process itself was constitutional.
Hurley ruled in McDougle’s favor Jan. 27 before SCOVA intervened after a Democrat appeal Feb. 13 to let the election move forward but said it would still review the merits of that case.
Former U.S. Attorney John Fishwick Jr. of the Roanoke-based Western District of Virginia told Fox News Digital the Virginia Supreme Court had issued its postponement hoping that voters would vote "no" and make any necessary legal action moot.
"Now there is white heat on this court, but there are strong arguments that the legislature did not follow its own rules when it passed this proposed amendment," Fishwick said, predicting a "prompt" decision.
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Delegate Wren Williams, R-Stuart, an attorney who had favored allowing counties to decline election preparations until SCOVA stayed Hurley’s ruling, argued the referendum was illegitimate, and the results should be tossed.
"There are huge constitutional issues with this process to begin with," Williams said in an exclusive interview. "There's a 1952 case where Arlington threw out their own referendum. And in this case, people can say the voters decided all they want, but they didn't decide based on the process that we have in the Constitution."
Williams said a short time before Hurley’s ruling that everything is essentially "parked" at SCOVA in Richmond waiting to be consolidated and ruled upon.
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Williams said it was clear the election was made to be more about President Donald Trump than Virginia voters.
That assertion would help the case of U.S. Reps. Rob Wittman, R-Va., and John McGuire, R-Va., whose filing challenging Democrats’ "to restore fairness" language describing the referendum at the ballot box is being heard.
Ryer said Wittman and McGuire’s case has been consolidated into the Koski-RNC case.
Ryer remained optimistic about all cases and pledged that, either way, the RPV will have nominees for all 11 seats, redistricted or not, and called Tuesday’s vote an encouraging sign.
"This is the best performance for anything that's been Republican-aligned in the state since the 2021 election, and I think it does demonstrate that Virginia is still a purple state," Ryer said after the results depicted about a 12-point swing to the right from former Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears’ loss in November.
House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, added that rural Virginia came out strong to try to offset the Washington suburbs.
"We're still fighting. We're still fighting in the courts. We think we're going to win in the courts. The language was so misleading. They didn't follow the statutes they were supposed to follow. There's a lot of missteps that happened during the process. So, we feel comfortable going on to the next phase," he said.
Democrats remained bullish that the election results will stand after Hurley’s ruling and court activity commencing at SCOVA Thursday, with Ready for Hillary founder Adam Parkhomenko saying on X, "Virginia voters spoke. MAGA lost. And now a rogue Republican judge is trying to override the will of the people because they didn’t like the outcome."
If the cases fail, many redistricting opponents still have faith.
Del. Delores Oates, R-Front Royal, said in a statement that the "YES" crew did not get a "mandate" and that the new 10-1 map may also be a sign.
"Isaiah 10:1 [says] woe to those who make unjust laws; to those who issue oppressive decrees."
"Stop looking at Zillow and start planning for November," Oates said. "We stay and we fight for Virginia."
Fox News Digital's Ashley Oliver and Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.