Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fall Out of Virginia Elections. This episode, we will look at what’s next with Virginia redistricting, specifically what’s going to be going on at the Virginia Supreme Court now that the redistricting referendum has passed.
00:13.62
Sam Shirazi
So last episode, we kind of broke down the results of the redistricting referendum. I may talk about that some more down the line. However, I did want to talk about basically the next step in the redistricting referendum.
00:25.34
Sam Shirazi
saga that has gone on in Virginia. And that is the Virginia Supreme court, because while the Republicans put up a good fight, they weren’t able to defeat the referendum at the ballot box. And so before the referendum, they had brought a lot of legal challenges and now they are renewing those legal challenges specifically because the Virginia Supreme court has kicked the can down the road. The Virginia Supreme court said that they were not going to rule before the redistricting referendum, perhaps in their mind, they were,
00:52.00
Sam Shirazi
wondering if this thing won’t pass. And if it didn’t pass, that would bail them out essentially, and they wouldn’t have to rule on the redistricting referendum. However, it did pass. And now the Virginia Supreme Court is in the position where they said that they would rule if it passed and it passed. So now they have to rule.
01:09.15
Sam Shirazi
And I’ll kind of walk you through what happened in the last few days in terms of the legal process and what’s going to be happening going forward. So after the redistricting referendum passed, the Virginia Republicans went back to the judge that had previously ruled for them in Tazewell County. This is a deep red county in Southwest Virginia.
01:29.58
Sam Shirazi
Before the referendum, that had caused a lot of legal questions, which the Virginia Supreme Court eventually just said, we’re going to have the referendum and then we’re gonna figure everything out after the referendum. So long story short, Virginia Republicans go back to the judge in Tazewell County. The judge in Tazewell County, not surprisingly,
01:47.57
Sam Shirazi
ruled completely for the Republicans and basically said the redistricting referendum was not valid and interestingly prevented has placed the injunction telling the Virginia Department of Elections that they essentially cannot certify you a district referendum because it is not a valid referendum.
02:07.11
Sam Shirazi
And obviously, this is going to be appealed. Both the Democrats and Attorney General Jay Jones have said that they are going to fight this and take it to the Virginia Supreme Court. And we all know that the Virginia Supreme Court is ultimately going to make the final call. So none of that was really surprising. You saw some reporting saying, well,
02:24.18
Sam Shirazi
The redistricting referendum has been held to be invalid. We basically knew that judge was going to rule that way. He ruled that way before the referendum. It’s not a huge surprise. And we all knew that essentially the Virginia Supreme Court is going to be the one that is going to make the call because they are the highest court in Virginia. This is a complex issue of Virginia state constitutional law.
02:44.83
Sam Shirazi
And and The next few days are going to be important because on Monday, there will actually be oral arguments on this case. Now, it’s not exactly on the judge’s order that he issued right after redistricting referendum. it’s It’s basically a preexisting case. But I can’t imagine the Virginia Supreme Court is not going to be talking about the merits of the case.
03:03.04
Sam Shirazi
And ultimately, I expect them to just issue a ruling one way or another deciding this case. So there’s a lot of procedural stuff I don’t want to get bogged down in because ultimately, what’s going to happen is the Virginia Supreme court is just going to rule and they’re going say either. Yes. The referendum was valid or no, it wasn’t valid. And they can’t kick the can down in the road anymore. The reason they can’t kick kick the can down anymore is because,
03:25.22
Sam Shirazi
The filing deadline in Virginia for the congressional seats is May 26th. So if you’re a congressional candidate, you have to know which district am I running in because the districts look pretty different. That was the point of redistricting.
03:37.22
Sam Shirazi
So maybe under the old maps, you might run in district A, but under the new maps, you might run in district B. So, you know realistically, the Virginia Supreme Court does not have a whole lot of time. They have to rule by May 26th. And I anticipate that they will rule before that.
03:51.24
Sam Shirazi
And the thing is, I don’t think they were just sitting around while the redistricting campaign was going on. I think they needed more time to really understand this issue and to be able to come up with a decision that makes sense. However, they didn’t have that right before the redistricting referendum. They felt like they were being kind of rushed into it. So I think now they took this time during the redistricting referendum to try to figure out, okay, what are we going to do with this case? So I don’t think they were just sitting around doing nothing. And I do think this oral argument is going to be important because it kind of shows you know what are they... It could potentially show what they’re thinking, and and they’re going to be asking specific questions to the lawyers.
04:45.04
Sam Shirazi
So we’re going to have the oral arguments in the redistricting case on Monday in the Virginia virginia Supreme Court. I’m sure we’ll get you know some insights into what’s going to happen. And then i expect in May at some point they’re going to issue their final ruling and make a decision one way or another. – so I have had previous episodes where I kind of went really into the weeds about the legal issues. I don’t want to do that this episode because I think there’s a lot and you know I previously talked about it. What I wanted to talk about in this episode was something a little bit different and it’s really the framing of legal issues because I think that’s really important and it’s something that is not often talked about you know even among lawyers. I think it’s really important but lawyers don’t even think about this stuff sometimes.
05:28.52
Sam Shirazi
And what I mean by it is, how do you present an issue? Do you present it big picture or do you present it really into the weeds details? And I think lawyers are known for being sometimes very technical, very in the weeds, you know, quibbling over very minor things. And I think there is obviously that’s important in the law and you want to get the details right.
05:49.60
Sam Shirazi
However, I think some of the best lawyers, the real ability is to make very complicated things actually rather simple and not to overcomplicate things. So what I wanna do with this podcast is to actually make things relatively simple and kind of explain in more layman’s terms,
06:04.98
Sam Shirazi
what are the Democrats’ strongest arguments and what are the Republicans’ strongest arguments and kind of why they might win on either side. And I do think a lot of this comes down to framing and how does the Virginia Supreme Court look at this? Do they look at this more big picture, which is what the Democrats, I think, want them to do, is to look big picture?
06:23.06
Sam Shirazi
Or do they want it, or do the Virginia Supreme Court look at these things more in the weeds, details, which I think is more what the Republicans want to do? And I think this question of framing is really important because when it comes to a legal issue, it’s not just about, the way you approach the facts and the law. It’s really about how you’re thinking about the issue. And, you know, I had mentioned this before. So, uh, I am an attorney and sometimes when I’m grappling with legal issues,
06:49.60
Sam Shirazi
you get kind of bogged down in something, but then you kind of reframe it and you think about the big picture and it kind of changes the way you’re looking at the legal issue. And so I will kind of do that with the redistricting refer referendum. And I’ll start kind of with the democratic case or what the Democrats are essentially trying to tell the Virginia Supreme Court.
07:07.62
Sam Shirazi
And I think it’s really just big picture. Majorities of both the General Assembly and of the Virginia voters passed this thing. So if you think about what happened right before the election, the General Assembly, the Virginia House Delegates, the State Senate, majorities of those bodies passed this redistricting referendum. There was an election.
07:26.98
Sam Shirazi
The Democrats won that election. And then in January, the Democrats once again passed this thing with majorities in the Virginia House of Delegates in the Virginia State Senate. So twice in two different sessions of the Virginia General Assembly, this thing was passed with majorities. And then it was put on the ballot and a majority of Virginians, over 1.5 million Virginians, passed this thing and and voted for this thing. So essentially what the Democrats are arguing is the constitutional requirements have all been met big picture. If you look at the big picture, was passed in one session of the General Assembly. it was passed in another session of the General Assembly. A majority of the voters in Virginia passed this thing. So Virginia Supreme Court, do you really want to come in?
08:05.94
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, from the, from the Virginia Democrats perspective on some, you know, supposed that technicalities throw out this entire process because of, you know, these in the weeds things that the Republicans are raising, is that really what you want to do? And do you think that’s really the best use of the the court’s resources? And do you think that’s makes sense in terms of separations of power? Because in the Virginia constitution, the primary power to pass, uh,
08:32.32
Sam Shirazi
These referendums to change the Virginia Constitution lie with the General Assembly and lie with the people of Virginia. The executive essentially has very little, if basically no power, other than trying to put the referendum on the ballot through so to funding the ballot initiative.
08:48.20
Sam Shirazi
And the judiciary does have a role in reviewing the referendum, but there is no... David Pérez, Explicit role for the judiciary in the redistricting referendum process in Virginia. So essentially it’s kind of an argument about this thing was passed you as the court should not come in and overturn the will of the people, the will of the General Assembly. the Virginia Constitution gives these powers to the General Assembly, to the people of Virginia.
09:13.77
Sam Shirazi
these these The body of the Virginia General Assembly passed this thing, the people in Virginia passed this thing. So you as a court, it would essentially be anti-democratic or you’d be an activist court if you came in and essentially on some legal technicalities overturned this thing.
09:28.96
Sam Shirazi
That would be kind of the democratic argument. And again, they’re kind of framing this big picture. If you look at the whole process, It worked. You know, you could quibble here and there. The Democrats should have done this. the Democrats should have done that.
09:51.73
Sam Shirazi
and you will quibble with everything the Democrats did. And if you look at the lower court’s opinion, they kind of have a list of like 10 things the Democrats did wrong. It’s like, you should have done this, you should have done that, you should have done this, you should have done that. So that’s kind of what the lower court is saying. The lower court is saying you messed up a bunch of things in the process. And so, yes, in theory, General Assembly passed this, the voters approved it, but it doesn’t really matter because you didn’t do all the procedural steps you needed to do in order to get this thing passed. And again, I won’t go into the nitty gritty details because there’s a lot of them, but I’ll flag kind of the two big picture issues that I think are the most serious for the Democrats in terms of this redistricting referendum. One of them is that they were passed the the first time the redistricting referendum was passed through the General Assembly. It was right before the election.
10:38.88
Sam Shirazi
I think traditionally in Virginia, these referendums are passed months before the election. And, you know, I’ve talked about in my previous podcast. There is a question about, do you have to post these notices for 90 days before the election?
10:52.38
Sam Shirazi
And I think that’s one of the, essentially the argument that Republicans are making is that this was the first time this was passed, it was too close to the election and there wasn’t an an intervening election in between, or there wasn’t enough notice given give given in in terms of the election happening. And there was already a lot of early voting going on and all these things. So that’s essentially the Republican argument on that point. And I think the other thing that potentially the Republicans could make a point on is the ballot language. There was a lot of you know noise made by the Republicans about the ballot language being unfair. And specifically, it talked about restoring fairness. And I think from the Republicans’ perspective, this is the opposite of restoring fairness. It’s it’s making the maps unfair. From the Democratic perspective, obviously they’re saying it’s not fair that Virginia has to have nonpartisan redistricting while all the Republican states get to have partisan redistricting. So anyways, so essentially what the Virginia Republicans are trying to argue is the process was flawed. The voters weren’t given enough notice before the.
11:52.49
Sam Shirazi
David Baird, Jr.: 2025 Virginia elections and even in the referendum itself, the voters were not given the fair language. And so while yes, this thing was passed with majorities. Baird, It was not done in a clean way. It wasn’t done in a way that was legally sound. And so you should look at the specific things that happened along the way and focus on that. And if you focus on that, you’ll see that the process and the law wasn’t followed.
12:15.52
Sam Shirazi
And so don’t look at the big picture, look at the kind of nitty gritty details. And you know that’s kind of where I think this case is going to go. i expect the Virginia Supreme Court is going to be focusing on the details because they’re a pretty technical court. I think they’re pretty, you know they’re not going to just ignore some of these issues that Republicans are raising.
12:33.63
Sam Shirazi
Having said that, the fact that they’re exploring them or looking at them or thinking about them doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to strike down the referendum. And I do think, you know, we just have to wait and see what, how they’re going to approach this. And I could really see them going either way. a lot of people have said, you know, there’s no way the Virginia Supreme Court is going to overturn the will of the people, they’re not going to overturn a referendum where one point over 1.5 million people voted yes. I think that’s certainly possible. And as I mentioned before, these judges are human beings. so they are thinking about how is this going to look? They’re also thinking about, do I really as a judge want to overturn the will of the people?
13:16.28
Sam Shirazi
So I think there is a that is a legitimate argument that just from a practical standpoint, it is going to be very difficult for the Virginia Supreme Court to overturn this thing However, i do think the Virginia Supreme Court is the type of court where if they truly thought that there was a problem with the process and there’s legal issues with what happened, I don’t think that they would just let it go. i think they are you know a court that takes the law seriously, takes the Virginia Constitution seriously. And if they genuinely think there was a problem in the process, they are going to perhaps at at a minimum note that and
13:50.46
Sam Shirazi
you know they They might find a procedural way to get out of it, but I do think they are not the type of court that’s just going to ignore something or roll over and play dead because it’s politically convenient. I do think they’re willing to make difficult decisions. They’ve done it in the past.
14:04.44
Sam Shirazi
One example was in when Governor McAuliffe was governor, he started restoring voting rights to people who were convicted of felonies, and he wanted to kind of do that through a mass process where everyone would get their voting rights back at once. And the Virginia Supreme Court said, you can’t do that. It has to be an and individualized process. And I think that was an indication from the court that they’re not just gonna roll over and let the other branches of government do whatever they want. I mean, they are an,
14:33.18
Sam Shirazi
Jonathan Haidt, independent branch the Virginia government and their job is to put checks and balances on the General Assembly and the executive branch. And so I think Jonathan Haidt, if they’ve truly feel that the process was violated, think they would be willing to strike down the redistricting referendum.
14:49.66
Sam Shirazi
And you know there’s really no way for me to tell you what’s going to happen. I think we just have to wait and see. Unlike elections where I can look at data and I look in my you know try to look in my crystal ball, you know courts are much more unpredictable. And I think it’s really, really hard for me to give you any sort of sense of what’s going to happen. I think we’re just going to have to wait and see. And it’s kind of funny. I think the Democrats are just kind of moving ahead, saying we won, the redistricting referendum is happening, the new maps are happening. And the Virginia Republicans are kind of the opposite. They’re like, no, there’s major legal issues. We think we’re going to win the legal case. we won at the lower court. And they’re kind of operating the assumption that the old maps are going to be in going to be in operation. And, you know, it’s funny, I think they’re asking the members of Congress, what are you going to do? And members of Congress for the Republican side are still saying, essentially, they’re running in their old districts. So one way or another, someone is going to be wrong, either the Democrats
15:44.26
Sam Shirazi
overestimated how strong their legal position is. And that would be a pretty dramatic result if the Virginia Supreme Court strikes down the referendum and says, actually, this whole thing is not going to happen. The other alternative is that the Virginia Supreme Court upholds the new maps, and then the Republicans are in a very difficult spot because They didn’t win at the ballot box. They didn’t win in the courts.
16:04.04
Sam Shirazi
And they’re going to have to deal with these new maps. And I think it’s going to be interesting to see what the incumbent Republican members of Congress do in that situation. So I think we’re just going to have to see what ends up happening. There’s a lot to unpack, no matter what the Virginia Supreme Court ends up ruling. I think the next thing after the Virginia Supreme Court will be the actual primary on August 4th.
16:25.27
Sam Shirazi
And you know we’ll have to see, is it going to be the old maps, it going to be the new maps? I think there’s some interesting dynamics in those primaries if they end up going forward under the new maps. And we’ll talk about that once we get a little bit more clarity, but there’s a lot to kind of still unpack with the redistricting referendum. We got done with the vote, but in some ways that was the most straightforward part because we knew it was either going to pass or it’s not going to pass. Now we’re in this phase where we have to wait on the Virginia Supreme Court and then we’re going to see how did the primary shape up and
16:55.80
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, so lot to still cover in Virginia, even though the redistricting referendum is over and it was super interesting. And I appreciate everyone who’s been giving me some good feedback on some of the comments I made. And and I tried my best with the redistricting referendum to keep people educated.
17:11.95
Sam Shirazi
That’s really my goal. I’m going to try to keep people educated as this process goes through the courts. And then as we go through the primary, still a lot to cover in Virginia. I’ll be there with you as we go through the wild ride that is the Virginia election. So i appreciate everyone who’s been listening. This has been Federal Fallout, and i’ll join you next time.
