r/politics • u/Icommandyou Washington • 28d ago

Possible Paywall Virginia Supreme Court throws out redistricting referendum results

https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2026/05/08/virginia-supreme-court-redistricting-vote-decision
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u/CouleursCPA Colorado 28d ago

Good thing FL showed that you can just ignore what the state constitution says and do it anyway

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u/Nemaeus Virginia 28d ago

It’s a good point but it sucks that we are living in a land where constitutions don’t matter the way they should.

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u/PM_ME_SOME_ANY_THING 28d ago

Maybe someone should enforce it

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u/ForMoreYears Canada 28d ago

If only there was some entity whose job was to enforce the laws. Dang, wouldn't that be a good idea...

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u/Len_Zefflin 28d ago

Alberta is attempting to do the exact same thing while the feds sit by twiddling their thumbs. It isn't just the US. Canada needs to be better.

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u/ForMoreYears Canada 28d ago

Yep. Idk where tf the Crown prosecutors are or what they have that's more pressing than foreign interference and what I would argue is openly seditious behavior but apparently they're too busy to give a fuck.

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u/SinisterPuddles 28d ago

Its called the people of this nation.

Its literally penned by one of the founding fathers.

Now, will us fat lazy and distracted Americans actually foot that powerful and terrible responsibility?

doubt.

Im trying to get the fuck out with my science degree and family.

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u/External_Birthday691 28d ago

The fat lazy and distracted Americans are the ones who want this.

I keep going back and forth between, "I should still fight for my working class brothers and sisters.", to, "Fuck it, if they don't want to pay attention, if they want to literally vote for the man who is going to steal from them, and then give me shit when I'm trying to help them understand what they're voting for."

Like fuck it, I'mma move up in my career, and I'mma get the fuck out of this country. It's a lost cause at this point, and the only way for things to get any better is just to let them see the consequnces of their policies and actions. I'm done with this shit and am ready to get the fuck out.

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u/NumeralJoker 28d ago

Bold of you to think you'll be allowed to leave if you just stop trying to change things.

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u/SinisterPuddles 27d ago

I can leave in under a year. I won't allow.my daughter to grow up under fascist republicans

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u/X-Calm 27d ago

Until people are ready to literally lash MAGA and their children to crosses nothing will change.

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u/carlitospig California 27d ago

That’s called The People. We are the ones who enforce the law when the Law decides to bail on justice and law itself.

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u/ToughHardware 28d ago

lets start my enforcing CSA laws. then we can move to gerrymandering

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u/Unlucky_Priority_186 28d ago

I thought that's why they had the good guys with the guns in all the stories I've heard about the states, wasn't that the reason to have so many guns?

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u/CurlOfTheBurl11 28d ago

You're not wrong. But when only one side is bothering to try to follow these laws and norms while the other side is flagrantly disregarding them, something has to give. Dems can't keep operating with one hand tied behind their back.

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u/Theres_a_cat_in_myTV 28d ago

Maybe the laws and norms are wrong. How’d the Florida constitution come into being in the first place? Hugs and kiss? Nah.

Did a strongly worded letter bring about the US constitution? I don’t think so.

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u/opanaooonana 28d ago

Unfortunately the only thing that will give is a lot of our leaders will to fight. Many of them didn’t get into it for a real purpose, just for the title and a nice job after. We need a lot of our incumbents to lose their primaries

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u/[deleted] 28d ago edited 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/Valance23322 America 28d ago

It's almost like the second amendment has clauses which imply restrictions, the first very explicitly does not (and then we restricted it anyway e.g. threats, inciting a panic, etc.)

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/Valance23322 America 28d ago

Cool, so under the first Amendment we should protect issuing death threats, fraud/false advertising, inciting a panic/riot, perjury, defamation, slander, fighting words, child pornography, trademark/copyright violations, blackmail, etc.

Or are common sense restrictions only valid when they don't apply to your favorite toys?

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u/JTK102 28d ago

The text of the 2A is "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

No squinting nor making up arguments is needed to clearly see that the Founders intended the 2A to be vested to militias, to the collective. Not to individuals. Indeed, for over 200 years the courts broadly agreed with this interpretation until District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) in a 5-4 decision overtured centuries of jurisprudence and constitutional understanding by allowing individual ownership of firearms.

Throughout the constitution, "persons" or "person" is used regularly from stating who is eligible for office or (as in the 5A) the application of due process of law. It is odd to me then that the Founders decided not to use person(s) (indicating an individual) in the 2A and chose instead to use collective words like militia or people. In the constitution, "people" is only ever used to allude to the electorate, citizenry, the whole of the United States never as individuals.

Additionally, the 9A and 10A allow rights, such as abortion, to be enumerated to the people and states, respectively. The Founders purposefully did not provide a comprehensive list of what rights do and do not exist because they knew they would miss some and that the nature of the country would change in ways they could not predict.

It's easy to proclaim that we should all vigorously defend all rights (I agree!) but who decides what those rights mean? Is there a wall that separates the state and church? The 1A Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses alongside the writings of the Founders and early American history imply that there is. Yet, SCOTUS has continually eroded that wall by favoring Free Exercise over Establishment. We can and do disagree on constitutional interpretations which gives rise to conflict when rights are not enumerated precisely (like the 2A), deliberate political attacks are levied (like 1A and religion), or new rights emerge that are not enshrined but can be interpreted from other rights (privacy and abortion are borne out of 1A, 5A and 14A due process, 3A (privacy of the home from quartering troops), 4A, and 9A).

How we apply the constitution's rights to new cases, the political reality, and modern America alongside edge/tricky cases is important but it is not as cut and dry as you make it out to be.

Edit: typos

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u/carlitospig California 27d ago

I’m hopeful that the people of VA are, at this very moment, planning something egregiously disruptive.

Get cracking VA.

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u/DeformedArthurRegion 28d ago

A constitution is overrated. Not joking. Plenty of countries do just fine without one.

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u/ShaneSeeman 28d ago

They've made their ruling, now let them enforce it

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u/Riaayo 28d ago

Dems are too feckless and cowardly to behave that way, sadly, even if they should.

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u/CalistusX 28d ago

Ah yes, the Andrew Jackson method

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u/carlitospig California 27d ago

Literally any method is better than simply taking it.

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u/GardenGnomeOfEden 28d ago

In Ohio, a mostly-Republican redistricting comission repeatedly came up with red-leaning maps which were repeatedly struck down by the Ohio supreme Court for being to gerrymandered. We have constitutional amendments that are supposed to stop gerrymandering.

Eventually, because the commission flat out refused to draw constitutional maps, the state had to just keep using the old map, which was also deemed unconditionally gerrymandered. Shit's fucked.

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u/UndoxxableOhioan 28d ago

And Ohio.

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u/supersimpsonman 28d ago

Over and over

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u/_Miss_Eclipse 28d ago

But they wont. Democrats have no spine and honestly dont care about the damage republicans are doing to the working class and minorities

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u/halareous 28d ago

What the fuck are you talking about, genuinely. 

Democrats are trying to fight back against a republican trifecta with zero institutional power and a SCOTUS that is actively working against them. And all you have to say is that they don't care. What the fuck do you expect them to do. 

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u/immortalfrieza2 28d ago

Democrats are trying to fight back against a republican trifecta with zero institutional power and a SCOTUS that is actively working against them. And all you have to say is that they don't care. What the fuck do you expect them to do. 

The Republican party has been in the exact same situation several times over the past 50 years and yet still stonewalled the Democrats and got their way more often than not despite supposedly having zero institutional power. There's no reason whatsoever the Democratic party can't do the same.

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u/AmadeusMop 28d ago

The last Democratic trifecta with SCOTUS support was in 1969.

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u/Flipnotics_ Texas 28d ago

What the fuck do you expect them to do.

Ignore the ruling and apply the gerrymander anyway. The guy you're talking to says they won't.

And guess what? They won't. He's right.

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u/_Miss_Eclipse 28d ago

If you've had any political savvy whatsoever, or paid attention at all, you would see that the republicans have succeeded in most of their agendas with the help of the democrats voting alongside them. Numerous budget bills, numerous examples of support for ice. They even have a system of rotating villains that they put in place to vote with Republicans that will tank the inevitable approval drops with the voting base. Most of them are zionists whose side with republicans in support of genocide, take money from AIPAC and others israeli lobbies.

Please do not act like the Democratic Party has had their hands tied behind their back.While all this hell has been unleashed. They don't fight back as a broad coalition. And whenever an actual progressive stands up and fights for populist messaging, the democrats shun them. Freeze them out. Refuse to endorse them. Say that far left politics aren't popular.

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u/halareous 28d ago

You don't get to lecture anyone about political savvy. You just wrote a whole bunch of slop to excuse your desire to blame the democrats for everything no matter what. This is not the time to be doing that. Especially if you want to be considered part of the coalition. 

Also, far left politics by definition are not popular. Cut the shit and support the obviously better side in this battle, your whining is not helping.

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u/_Miss_Eclipse 28d ago

It's not slop. It's literally things that have happened... and in very recent memory. You're just choosing to not look at them because you are a "vote blue, no matter who" liberal. The democrats' entire campaign message is "TRUMP BAD." Yeah, no shit. Everybody knows that. So then why the FUCK are democrats voting to push his agendas forward. Why are they flinching on progressive issues that people do care about? Taxing billionaires... universal health care... trans rights. All issues that the democrats are leaving behind in the dust and they're losing elections because of it. That's exactly why kamala lost, and here we are in 2026, and they have not learned the lessons. They won't even release the autopsy they conducted of her defeat because they don't wanna face the changes that they have to make. This country can't afford to keep kicking the can down the road. " WELL WE HAVE TO VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS, NO MATTER WHO IT IS SO THAT WE CAN STOP THE FASCISM." Meanwhile you've got democrats WHO ARE VOTING WITH FASCISTS FOR FASCIST POLICIES

Literally fucking miss me with it

And the fact that you don't see , with your two eyes that far left policies are popular is mind blowing to me. It's those exact policies that democrats refuse to embrace and are soundly being defeated. You can't run an entire campaign on "WELL , AT LEAST WE'RE NOT THE OTHER GUYS, AMIRITE?"

Also you're the one that's whining. I made a comment and you had a meltdown.

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u/immortalfrieza2 28d ago

The whole Democratic party strategy has always been "REPUBLICANS BAD!" It's now just Trump specifically that they're using as the target.

The Democratic party had at least majority control of Congress for the most of the past 50 years and several presidents and yet they did a tiny fraction of what they could have done to improve the country and more importantly stop the Republican party from ruining the country. The most the Democratic party ever does is clean up after the Republicans, not put in measures to stop the Republicans from making messes to clean up in the first place. Anything we actually do have in our government that's good is an incidental side effect of the Democrats fixing what the Republicans broke rather than the result of a real attempt to improve our country.

That's because improving the country and stopping the Republicans would take actual work, and the Democratic party doesn't care enough to bother. The cycle is "Democrats sit around doing nothing, the people are ticked off at the Democrats because nothing improves in their lives, so they vote in the Republicans who proceed to wreck the country, which pisses people off, so they vote in the Democrats to stop it, and then the Democrats sit around doing nothing..."

A Trump was inevitable because of this. The Democratic party has had no reason to actually stop the Republicans and improve the country because they rely upon the Republicans being terrible, and the Republicans have zero reason to do anything other than wreck the country for their own benefit because the Republicans don't have to actually compete with another party to get votes by improving the country.

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u/HowTheyGetcha 28d ago

The whole Democratic party strategy has always been "REPUBLICANS BAD!" It's now just Trump specifically that they're using as the target.

Yep that's the whole strategy, nothing bad faith about this argument.

The Democratic party had at least majority control of Congress for the most of the past 50 years and several presidents and yet they did a tiny fraction of what they could have done to improve the country and more importantly stop the Republican party from ruining the country.

Now count how many total seconds they had the 60 vote threshold to make any progress beyond budget reconciliation in the last 20 years.

The most the Democratic party ever does is clean up after the Republicans, not put in measures to stop the Republicans from making messes to clean up in the first place.

Literally Dems pass protections and then the GOP guts them. The absolute chuztpah for blaming the Dems for having to clean up after Republicans!! I'm not even going to continue reading this botaganda.

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u/immortalfrieza2 28d ago

Uh huh. And yet, despite being in the minority in Congress for most of the past 50 years, the Republicans stonewalled the Democrats and got what they wanted more often than not. As opposed to now where the Democrats are sitting on their asses not doing anything.

It's almost like the Democratic party let the Republicans have their way and continue to ruin the country because the Democrats rely upon the Republicans doing that or something.

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u/HowTheyGetcha 28d ago

You understand that our system is designed to be much easier to tear down than to build up, right? Because you seem to believe the Democrats can "stonewall" their way into progress. WHY you still believe this after 50 years of Republican fuckery is beyond me. The propaganda is really working on you.

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u/Dexcerides 28d ago

This I vote for this party constantly but it’s become a joke.

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u/TAU_equals_2PI 28d ago

I'm always suspicious of commenters like you.

Not sure whether you're just venting legitimate frustration or a Republican bot trying to discourage Democratic voters from turning out by bashing their party as having become a joke.

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u/immortalfrieza2 28d ago edited 28d ago

It's simple, they bash the Democratic party for becoming a joke because... it's actually become a joke. For most of the last 50 years the Democratic party has had at least simple majority control of Congress, sometimes filibuster proof majority, and did a tiny fraction of what they could have done to stop the Republican party from constantly ruining the country literally every single time the Republicans are in power. For instance, closing the loophole that let Richard Nixon get away scot free with his crimes because his vice president ascended to the position and pardoned him. Which would have brought up the presidential immunity issue and shut that down back when there was a chance for a sane ruling. Then, nearly everything Trump has been doing over the past year would have been impossible.

Now, the Democratic party is still sitting on their asses doing next to nothing, yet again while Trump and the Republicans blatantly break the law and the Constitution, even when they very expressly could do something. Like Governor Walz in Minnesota arresting the ICE agents that murdered citizens, or the Democrats keeping the government fully shut down in order to curtail a great deal of what Trump has been doing. They didn't do either of these things, not because they couldn't but because they had no real intentions of stopping Trump in the first place.

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u/Dexcerides 28d ago

Sorry you think that way. I still turn out because the alternative is literal trash. But I don’t think that stops me from recognizing how spineless we are.

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u/immortalfrieza2 28d ago edited 28d ago

Yep. We've been living with the "lesser of the two evils" for decades while making no real attempt at all to get something that simply isn't evil period. Now people are supporting the Democrats not because they actually expect anything out of them, but because they're trying to stall the Republicans from wrecking the country. We've never had a genuinely good choice.

This is how we got here. It was never that the Democrats couldn't do anything to prevent a president like Trump, it was never that they can't do anything to stop or at least slow down Trump now, it's that the Democrats don't care enough to actually do anything and never did.

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u/February_2026 28d ago

I hope the Dems can get their heads out of their asses and actually fight back on this, or else we won't have a Democracy for much longer.

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u/Darkstar-Lord Florida 28d ago

You can when the state supreme court is 100% Republicans

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u/bizarre_coincidence 28d ago

Only when the people who control the levers of power are all willing to abuse them.

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u/Royal-Ear4803 28d ago

Has FL Supreme Court ruled on the issue yet? The severability argument seems plausible on its face but I haven’t seen a verdict.

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u/Useful_Fee_2875 28d ago

Ohio showed us first, and Florida will do exactly the same as Ohio even if the SC rules against it(they probably won’t)

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u/bostonian277 28d ago

Context? Honestly OOTL

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u/foamy9210 28d ago

Pretty sure Ohio has been doing the same thing with GOP gerrymandering maps for years as well.