The 2020 VA Redistricting Amendment Was Fundamentally Flawed, Based on Idealism and Intentional Disinformation Rather than Fact – and Represented Unilateral Disarmament in the Face of the MAGA GOP’s Growing Authoritarian Threat

by Chris Ambrose

Per this article, (Former VA Citizen Redistricting Commissioner James Abrenio Reacts to Texas Republicans’ Extreme Gerrymander Attempt, Says “”If they pass that s*** in TX, I’d be open to [repealing Virginia’s redistricting amendment]”), I’d point out that the Virginia Redistricting Amendment was fundamentally flawed structurally, and that support for it was based on idealism rather than reason.

Structurally, the amendment was guaranteed to fail right out of the gate, because it could never work as a bipartisan commission. In general this was unworkable, but especially in times of high partisanship – when it would be needed the most. It was clear at the time – or should have been – that Republicans were never going to support the process, but instead seek to manipulate it.  As former citizen Redistricting Commissioner James Abrenio pointed out in his interview shortly after the process predictably and spectacularly failed, that is exactly what happened.

At the time, I had conversations with Brian Cannon, the Executive Director of OneVirginia2021, who acknowledged that it was a terrible amendment, but that it was his job to push it. To be clear – Cannon was *paid to put out disinformation* about the amendment in order to convince voters to support it. When people like me pointed out the flaws to him in a way he couldn’t ignore, his disinformation shifted to ‘We know, but OneVirginia2021 is committed to passing another amendment to improve this one.’ In fact, that was clearly untrue, as the day after the amendment was approved, OneVirginia2021 dissolved and left Virginia with this terrible system.

When I say that the amendment was based on “idealism rather than reason,” what I mean is that voters (especially Democrats) had an emotional longing for an ideal system, one where voters chose their legislators rather than the other way around. That ideal, along with the disinformation campaign waged by OneVirginia2021 plus many voters’ hatred for gerrymandering, made people believe that was what they were voting for when, actually, they weren’t.

But the overreliance on idealism went beyond OneVirginia2021’s disinformation campaign, because while voters may have been misled into believing they were getting a good “non-partisan” system in Virginia, the burden was on the voters to understand that they were *unilaterally disarming* when it comes to US House districts – but their idealism got in the way of that realization.

What Virginia did was like passing an amendment that allowed Republican areas of Virginia to redraw their General Assembly districts in a partisan manner, while Democratic areas were required to draw fair districts. We would never have agreed to do that at the state level, of course, and we should never have done so for the federal level.

So what should happen now? While Virginia legislators probably don’t have the stomach for it, ideally they should pass a revised amendment that creates a truly non-partisan commission that only has authority over Virgina General Assembly redistricting, unless and until a non-partisan redistricting regime is adopted at a national level for the US Congress.  That second part is really not necessary, because if federal legislation or a Constitutional amendment were passed reforming the redistricting at the national level, what is done in Virginia would be irrelevant.  But such language would probably be necessary for legislators and voters to support it.  At this point, though, an outright repeal is not possible.

FUN FACT: Had it not been for Virginia and New York changing their redistricting processes for the 2020 redistricting, Democrats would have retained the House in 2022 and again in 2024. Had that happened, the US House today would be following its constitutional duty to act as a check on executive power excesses – and there are a lot of those! – by blocking the Big Ugly Bill, holding oversight hearings and drafting articles of impeachment. Instead, the US House is *not* doing those things, solely because state legislators in Virginia and New York effectively chose to unilaterally disarm in the face of a growing authoritarian threat posed by an obviously authoritarian Republican Party. Huge mistake.