To say the last two weeks have not been good for Democrats in the redistricting wars would be an understatement.
The biggie, of course, was the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Louisiana v. Callais case, ruling that congressional redistricting based solely on race is unconstitutional. Democrats called this a “gutting” of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which they have abused over the years to carve out majority-minority districts designed for the express sole purpose of electing other Democrats, including here in North Carolina.
Red states like Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina quickly acted in response, setting the wheels in motion to put new or previously drawn congressional maps in place ahead of the 2026 midterms, maps that effectively eliminate such districts.
Virginia, which Democrats control, also suffered a big setback last week when the state’s Supreme Court ruled that a gerrymandering referendum pushed by Democrats in the fall of 2025 and recently narrowly approved by voters in a special election, violated the state’s constitutional process for getting amendments put on the ballot.
This rendered their proposed 10-1 Democrat-Republican map invalid, returning it to the current 6-5 Democrat-Republican partisan composition.
This has prompted Virginia Democrats to consider desperate measures. One move being considered is genuinely shocking, even for seasoned observers of Virginia politics.
According to a report from The New York Times, absent a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (which would be unlikely since this case centers on the Virginia constitution), “One key to the plan would be having Democrats in Richmond lower the mandatory retirement age for state Supreme Court justices,” a plan that, if seen through, would force out every justice currently sitting on the state Supreme Court, including those who dissented with last week’s ruling.
“Ensuring the plan proceeds would involve the General Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, lowering the mandatory retirement age for Virginia’s Supreme Court from 75 to 54, the age of the youngest current justice, or less,” The Times went on to report, while adding that “Virginia judges are appointed by the General Assembly (which) could then fill vacancies on the court with sympathetic Democratic lawyers.”
That is just 50 shades of crazy, and that’s saying a lot considering much of what the state’s Democrats have proposed since retaking control has ranked right up there on the wildly crazy scale.
But time is not on their side. Virginia’s primary is on Aug. 4, and, according to The Times, Virginia’s Department of Elections commissioner, Steven Koski, indicated last month that “any changes to the maps after Tuesday, May 12, ‘will significantly increase the risk’ of his agency being unable to properly prepare for” the primary.
Needless to say, the dumping of the current Virginia Supreme Court justices seems highly unlikely in that scenario, especially considering that reports are swirling that such an idea has not been as warmly received in certain Democratic circles in the state as one might expect, given what’s at stake.
Still, it will be interesting to see what tricks, if any, they try to pull out of their hats in the coming days as the window closes to be able to pull off what they hope would be a political miracle.
Meanwhile, in other states, like Tennessee, Democrats are preparing to file lawsuits for the map changes that have already been signed into law, ensuring that the summer months are going to be long, hot ones on the political front as we wait and see who ultimately wins the necessary court battles in the nationwide redistricting tug of war.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
