JONATHAN TURLEY: Virginia’s 'Lobster' district is a gerrymandered Godzilla
"Incredible, unstoppable titan of terror!" Those words advertising the 1954 movie Godzilla could be the billing of a new freakish giant stretching across the sleeping farm fields of Virginia. Now in a court near you is The Lobster, a monster over 100 miles long. The only saving grace is that this creature only devours Republicans, leaving roughly half the state with virtually no representation in Congress.
Virginia was a quiet, pastoral state before the creature’s appearance. It was considered the gold standard among states rejecting gerrymandering, with fairly divided districts in a state divided right down the middle. It then elected a governor, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who assured voters that she was adamantly against gerrymandering and then immediately called for the most radical gerrymandered map in the nation after she was elected.
The mad scientists who created this monster, now called the 7th Congressional District, created other weirdly shaped monstrosities designed to reduce a fairly evenly divided representation in the state to a 10-1 advantage for Democrats.
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While one lower court has struck down the plan, another district judge recently looked at the Lobster and ran for cover. Richmond Circuit Court Judge Tracy Thorne-Begland seems to follow the view of the 2019 Godzilla creators that "sometimes… the only way to heal our wounds is to make peace with the demons who created them."
What is most notable about the opinion is how irrelevant the Virginia constitutional and statutory standards are in the analysis. Among other things, the state law requires districts to be "compact," not crustacean-shaped. The Constitution states districts "shall be composed of contiguous and compact territory and shall be so constituted as to give, as nearly as is practicable, representation in proportion to the population of the district."
Without a suggestion of humor, the court states dryly that the new districts are "undoubtedly less compact than the ones they replace. They are certainly partisan gerrymanders. They displace both representatives and voters into new, oddly shaped districts."
In one of the most bizarre lines, the court declares, "reasonable and objective persons reached different conclusions on the effects of the 2026 maps. The issue of compactness is fairly debatable."
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Fairly debatable on compactness? It is a giant lobster stretching over 100 miles. It is a true "Godzilla!" spotting. But Judge Thorne-Begland just shrugged and walked away.
While the court is not the first to note how these terms are subject to different interpretations, the "subjectivity" cited by the court makes the standard largely meaningless. The compactness requirement has been described as "somewhat abstract" with no "bright line" test. Vesilind v. Va. State Bd. of Elections, 295 Va. 427, 444-45 (2018). However, this approach would effectively remove the language as holding any substantive interpretive meaning.
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Judge Thorne-Begland effectively holds that it is really not his job to fight the Lobster: "This Court knows its role is clear. It is not to assess the wisdom of public policy nor to engage in policy making from the bench."
There are a myriad of problems with the Virginia gerrymandering measure, from the vague language to the special sessions used to craft it. Thorne-Begland, however, shows the same reaction as the Japanese citizens in Tokyo who ran screaming from the creature’s approach as it crushed everything in its path.
It is not clear how the Virginia Supreme Court will rule on the matter. Many of us who have long opposed gerrymandering by both parties hope they will hold the line and reject this effort. It will take considerable courage. These justices rely on a democratically controlled legislature for their positions.
The Supreme Court can do as Judge Thorne-Begland did and just take flight. They can treat the prior standards and procedures as aspirational or irrelevant. Or they can act as a true check on legislative excess and abuse.
In the end, the Japanese horror writers were right about one thing: "Godzilla and Biollante aren’t monsters. It’s the unscrupulous scientists who create them that are monsters."