By Tim Murtaugh
OPINION:
Virginia Democrats, led by Gov. Abigail Spanberger, are nothing if not brazen.
They lied about their “affordability” agenda so they could win the November elections, with campaign promises forgotten as soon as polls closed on Election Day.
Now they are lying about their plan to gerrymander Virginia’s congressional districts so cartoonishly in their favor that they will guarantee themselves federal election victories into the future.
If you live in Virginia, as I do, then you already know that Ms. Spanberger and her Democrats can’t be trusted.
During her campaign, the adoring media portrayed Ms. Spanberger as a moderate who brilliantly remained focused on a message of economic affordability. She never had to reconcile this flimsy premise with her actual record as a member of Congress who cheered and voted for every inflation-causing policy the Biden administration inflicted on the nation.
It was not surprising, then, when she returned to her true form and began governing as a leftist as soon as she took the oath in Richmond.
She immediately restored Virginia to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate cabal that intentionally increases electricity prices in the name of climate ideology. Some estimates say this will cost Virginians up to $500 million per year on their electricity bills, severely undermining the concept of affordability.
Emboldened by her election, Ms. Spanberger’s fellow Democrats in Richmond have engaged in an orgy of legislative excess and proposed raising taxes on retail sales, personal income, gym memberships and dog walking services. The governor, meanwhile, has pointedly refused to rule out signing new tax increases.
So much for affordability.
Now that they have broken the foundational promise to pursue policies that make life more affordable, Virginia Democrats want voters to believe another big lie about representation in Congress.
Simply put, Democrats want to aggressively break the law to redraw and rig congressional maps, with the goal of eliminating the possibility of Republican candidates ever winning in most places.
They have put the scheme on the ballot as a constitutional amendment this April 21, and they are lying to voters about every aspect of it.
Democrats currently hold a 6-5 edge over Republicans in the 11-seat congressional delegation, and their plan is to jack up that imbalance to a 10-1 advantage.
They claim that’s the fairest approach.
States typically redistrict after a census every 10 years, but Virginia Democrats say they must undertake it mid-decade to offset Republicans doing the same in other states. Compared with other situations, the gerrymandered Virginia map is widely panned as the one most at odds with electoral reality.
It ignores basic proportional representation. Even though Democrat Kamala Harris won less than 52% of the 2024 presidential vote in Virginia, her party would control 91% of the congressional seats under this map.
It slices ultraliberal, densely populated Northern Virginia into multiple pieces and combines them with huge tracts of rural conservative areas, awkwardly lumping people with virtually no geographic, cultural or economic similarities into the same congressional districts.
Thankfully, a state judge has blocked the referendum for the moment, ruling that Democrats cut corners and violated procedures to rush it onto the ballot. The case will likely be decided by the Virginia Supreme Court, which will determine whether the referendum proceeds.
We’re at this point because Democrats chose to disregard what Virginians already emphatically said just six years ago when they approved an independent, bipartisan redistricting commission by a referendum vote of 66%. At the time, Democrats, including Ms. Spanberger, strongly supported it.
“Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates,” she posted in 2019 on what is now X. “Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority.”
Sadly, it’s clear that Ms. Spanberger’s desire for unchecked power has overwhelmed any principles she may once have held.
If the referendum does happen, voters will be told yet another lie in the wording of the ballot question itself.
They will be asked whether they want to amend the constitution “to restore fairness” in elections, implying, without evidence or explanation, that something unfair is already happening.
That message, conveniently, is echoed in an ad unveiled by map proponents, which ironically asks people to support “fair elections” and ludicrously claims that suspending the independent process that voters already approved is, in reality, a way to “preserve independent redistricting in the future.”
To be clear here, Virginia Democrats are in the process of stealing four congressional seats and publicly calling it “fair.”
They are lying about the need.
They are lying about the motive.
They are lying about the process.
If you live in Virginia, vote “no” on April 21, and it won’t matter how brazen they are.
• Tim Murtaugh is a Washington Times columnist and founder of Line Drive Public Affairs. He served as a senior adviser on the 2024 Trump campaign and as communications director on the 2020 Trump campaign.
