The General Assembly sent the legislation that would establish the April referendum for voters decide if they support Democrats redrawing congressional boundaries this year. This comes as tensions are cooling between House and Senate Democrats as they try to finalize map proposals.
There are many factors at play.
Part of the legislation that Spanberger received today would repeal the requirement — retroactively — that proposed constitutional amendments be posted at circuit courts for 90 days prior to general elections.
With Democrats passing the redistricting amendment just days before the 2025 House elections, that requirement was impossible to meet.
A circuit court judge in Tazewell cited this as one of his reasons for ruling against the Democrats last week. His ruling is being appealed in the Court of Appeals of Virginia.
Attorney General Jay Jones filed a motion Tuesday with the appeals court asking for an emergency motion to intervene in the Tazewell ruling.
10-1 or 9-2
The debate continues over a 10-1 map or a 9-2.
On Wednesday, the tensions appeared to have eased somewhat, but on Tuesday morning, it seemed like a standoff between House and Senate Democrats was inevitable.
The House map would include 9 Democratic districts, 1 competitive district, and 1 Republican district.
The Senate map is closer to a straight-up 10 Democratic and one Republican layout.
House
The House map proposal on Tuesday morning looked like nine Democratic districts, one competitive district, and one Republican district.
The House version would create a new district in Fairfax, which multiple sources believe is being drawn for Del. Dan Helmer. Helmer did not address this directly when asked by Radio IQ on Tuesday.
However, multiple sources have told Virginia Scope that Helmer is planning to run for Congress this year.
Senate
The Senate map on Tuesday included new districts that sources believe would be drawn for Sen. Russet Perry in Northern Virginia and Sen. Lamont Bagby in the Richmond area.
The Senate map would not include any majority-minority districts, but sources tell Virginia Scope that the Senate maps would be safer for Democrats and would break up districts to help more minority candidates run.
The House map would retain the two majority-minority congressional districts.
It is unclear how those two proposals will come together.
Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, has been strictly calling for a 10-1 map.
In a social media post on Tuesday, she claimed to have the votes in support.
“We have a 10-1 map that has secured the 21 votes needed to pass in the Senate,” Lucas wrote. “Other proposals do not have the votes to pass. We have waited to release these maps in order to allow time for feedback- not time for games.”
Later in the day, Lucas hinted at cooperation between both chambers.
“Right now we’ve got folks working on marriaging the maps,” Lucas said during an interview with WVTF. “And so I’m thinking within 48 hours we’ll see a marriaged map.”
Spanberger’s office is involved behind the scenes.
According to multiple sources, Spanberger’s Chief of Staff, Bonnie Krenz-Schnurman, was calling around to Democrats on Monday night to ask whether they would support a 9-2 map.
There is some concern in Spanberger’s administration with the technicalities in drawing a 10-1 map.
Breaking up some Democratic-heavy localities into multiple congressional districts will place significant pressure on registrars across the commonwealth.
This could lead to problems on Election Day if rushed, and it would risk damaging trust in the results.
This will continue to be a developing situation.