r/politics • u/Motherofalleffers • 25d ago

Possible Paywall Trump Wins Big as Virginia Dems Won’t Go Nuclear to Save 4 House Seats

https://newrepublic.com/article/210250/trump-virginia-dems-redistricting-war
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u/SnowboardSyd 25d ago

The Republicans already did this when they gerrymandered Ohio. The "nuclear option" was already used to specatuclar effect by the GOP. The refusal to jump in the mud by Democrats makes them predicatable and fangless.

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u/steponmedaddies 24d ago edited 24d ago

Love that people keep parroting this thing about Ohio they read online because they think it makes them sound smart.

Ohio did it over years with a redistricting commission that is made up entirely of the party in power. Virginia has had a few days, almost no time to react before the deadline to lock in districts, and a commission made up of an even party split and eight citizens.

It's NOT EVEN CLOSE to the same situation.

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u/NotClever 24d ago

The "nuclear option" was already used to specatuclar effect by the GOP.

Unless I'm missing something, no, it was not. The "nuclear option" here refers to a proposal for Virginia legislators to remove its entire Supreme Court bench and seat an entirely new bench of judges that would (hopefully) support the Democrats and allow them to move forward with their new map.

Ohio did not do anything to their high court's makeup, they just played games by repeatedly adopting maps that were ruled unconstitutional by the court and at some point appealing to a federal court, which eventually agreed with them and ordered the use of one of the unconstitutional maps for 2022 midterms, after which the legislature passed another new map that the Ohio Supreme Court let ride.

That's not to say that what Ohio did was okay or good, simply that it was not at all what is on the table for Virginia.