Hi Everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout. This episode we will go over the fun that is Virginia redistricting as it continues to unfold and how there a lot of twists and turns, and different things happening. So I want to cover everything that happened this week wtih redistricting.
And it’s a little bit of deja vu all over again because a couple things happened that were big. First, the court in Tazewell County entered a temporary order to block the referendum from going forward, and we’ll cover that. And then there was some changes made to the map that we’ll talk about specifically in the second district. So this week is like all over again. We are just talking about the same thing, legal challenges to the redistricting. We’re talking about the maps slightly changing. So A lot of stuff still in flux, even though in theory, if everything goes to plan for the Democrats, early voting is supposed to start on March 6th, which is not too far away.
01:00.71
Sam Shirazi
And so obviously there’s a lot going on. And it just kind of goes to show you that I guess nothing’s really finalized until it’s finalized. And we just have to wait and take it one day at a time with the redistricting stuff. So the first thing I’ll talk about is the court order that came out of Tazewell County. So if you remember, there was originally a court order from Tazewell County that seemed to suggest that there were some legal challenges the Democrats had with the referendum.
01:26.03
Sam Shirazi
That lawsuit made all made its way all the way up to the Virginia Supreme Court. The Virginia Supreme Court essentially said, the thing the court ordered was not that specific, so we’re just going to you know punt this to after the referendum.
01:38.82
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, the parties were paying attention to that because very quickly, the Republicans filed another lawsuit in the same county with the same judge.
01:49.77
Sam Shirazi
And this time, they asked for a lot more and they named a lot of defendants other than the local county clerk. They named people like the head of the Department of Elections.
01:59.94
Sam Shirazi
And the goal, really, from the Republican standpoint was this judge already ruled with us. He agrees with us on the law. If you remember my podcast on the Supreme Court ruling, really the issue in the original court order that that got its way up to the Supreme Court was that the order was very narrow. All it ordered was that the Tazewell County clerk with posts, the referendum notices. It didn’t say the referendum can’t go forward.
02:24.33
Sam Shirazi
And the Supreme Court kind of seized on that and says, look, we don’t have to make a decision because this order is so narrow. Well, I think the judge and the parties learned their lesson. And this time the judge made very specific instructions and he made very specific instructions to specific people.
02:39.35
Sam Shirazi
So essentially the Virginia Supreme Court can’t find a procedural way to get out of this. It seems like they will have to rule on it. But before I talk about the Virginia Supreme Court, I wanted to talk about the order the judge issued itself. And I won’t honestly go that much into the legal details because, frankly, it’s pretty much the same arguments that we’ve been talking about. Really what changed in this decision, the most important thing was the actual thing the lower court ordered. And that was the main problem for the Republicans in the last time they went to Supreme Court is the order was too narrow. And so this time the ne the order is a lot more broad and covers a lot more things, but it’s still a temporary order. And we’ll talk about why that’s important.
03:20.82
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so here is what the lower court in Tadswell County ordered. He said, quote, all defendants temporarily restrained in their official capacities from administering, preparing for taking any action to further the procedure of the referendum or other otherwise moving forward with causing an election to be held on the proposed constitutional amendment.
03:43.73
Sam Shirazi
So very broad. And this applied to a bunch of people, including on the Department of Elections. And so essentially what the court is saying is you guys can’t do anything to move the referendum forward.
03:55.79
Sam Shirazi
And I thought it was interesting that. The court went even so far as to say that they can’t prepare for the referendum, which I think is really important because obviously early voting is supposed to spark on March 6th.
04:07.51
Sam Shirazi
So the fact that they can’t even prepare for the the referendum certainly is putting a lot of limits on these people. And I think, again, I think the judge learned his lesson is that you have to be very specific in what you are ordering someone to do.
04:21.27
Sam Shirazi
when you issue this type of order. And you know the other thing I wanted to really flag about this order from the Taswell court was that it’s it’s what’s called a temporary restraining order. So you might commonly hear that as a TRO.
04:35.56
Sam Shirazi
So there are different types of things that courts will issue called equitable relief. So equitable relief is that basically any sort of non-monetary relief. And you can get a TRO, a preliminary injunction, a permanent injunction. So but the TRO, temporary restraining order, as its name implies, is temporary.
04:54.61
Sam Shirazi
And it really is kind of an emergency kind of thing, like something, time is of the essence. The court can’t sit around on this for months. It has to rule quickly. Obviously, from a Republican standpoint, they made the argument, this is very urgent. Early voting is going to start. We need to stop this, nip it in the bud, because it’s illegal. That was a Republican position.
05:13.13
Sam Shirazi
And the the lower court agreed here. But importantly, TROs, I mean, they’re supposed to be temporary. I mean, they’re called temporary restraining orders. This isn’t going to last forever.
05:23.05
Sam Shirazi
And the lower court itself put an end date to this specific TRO, which was March 18th. So this specific order is essentially going to expire on March 18th. Obviously, before then, probably the court will issue what’s called a preliminary injunction or permanent injunction.
05:39.18
Sam Shirazi
But this isn’t supposed to be forever. However, early voting starts March 6th, so obviously it will accomplish much of its goal of maybe stopping a referendum if the the early voting doesn’t start on March 6th. And ultimately what the judge will issue is either a preliminary injunction or a permanent injunction.
05:57.60
Sam Shirazi
So a preliminary injunction is kind of like a TRO, but it’s a little bit more serious, and it usually doesn’t have an expiration date. That’s kind of at the beginning of a case you issue a preliminary injunction. Then at the very end of the case, you can issue a permanent injunction.
06:10.37
Sam Shirazi
often i mean, it’s it’s pretty rare to get a preliminary injunction and not get a permanent injunction eventually. So the real distinction is between a TRO and a preliminary injunction. And this was a TRO.
06:21.62
Sam Shirazi
And I think the legal significance of that in this context is that typically the appellate courts, they tend to review TROs, temporary restraining orders, much more quickly because in theory,
06:34.05
Sam Shirazi
It was usually granted without much argument. There isn’t much time for the lower court to think about this because something is happening that requires immediate attention. And so that will that means it’s going to get appealed really quickly. Attorney General Jay Jones has said he’s going to appeal this.
06:52.84
Sam Shirazi
Some people had even speculated that on Friday we would get some sort of order either from the Intermediary Court of Appeals or even from the Virginia Supreme Court. It doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. This weekend, but perhaps on Monday, we will get an immediate order.
07:07.64
Sam Shirazi
But long story short, I mean, clearly, this is for the time being pause the Democrats plans. But I think this is the type of thing that would certainly be fast tracked by the intermediate court of appeals and potentially just go straight to the Virginia Supreme Court to make the final call.
07:24.74
Sam Shirazi
And I think the Republican strategy here is to just force the Virginia Supreme Court to make a final ruling. I mean, clearly last time the Virginia Supreme Court essentially found a procedural way to avoid ruling before the redistricting referendum and kind of punt the final ruling till after the redistricting referendum.
07:42.05
Sam Shirazi
The Virginia Republicans... are trying to force the issue. They’re basically telling the Supreme Court, we’re not going to let you wait wait it out. You have to decide before the the referendum whether this is legal or not. Now, you could argue that’s going to backfire. You may not want to put the court in that position, but the Virginia Republicans felt like they had no choice.
08:01.28
Sam Shirazi
And the thing is that after this goes up for the appeal, there’s a lot of different ways the Virginia Supreme Court can handle this. They could essentially rule 100% for the Republicans and say, yeah, the lower court’s right, we’re going to keep this temporary restraining order in place. And that might be pretty much be the end of the redistricting referendum if that happens. However, that, you know, it’s it’s risky because I think there’s another alternative where the Supreme Court doesn’t do that and and makes kind of a quick decision to basically stay the lower court order and just say, you know, we’re not taking this right now and just issue a very short order.
08:39.81
Sam Shirazi
There’s something called the shadow docket. So the shadow docket is typically talked about with the US Supreme Court. So what the shadow docket is, is that you know traditionally when you have a case before the Supreme Court, the parties will file briefs, there’ll be an oral argument, there’ll be months of kind of deliberation from the justices, kind of very thoughtful, long process to get to a decision on the merits.
09:00.88
Sam Shirazi
However, in these kind of emergency situations where something has happened or something that requires immediate attention, parties will go to the court and try to get immediate relief. We’ve seen that a lot recently in the last 10 years or so with executive orders being issued and lower courts would issue stays or block the executive order.
09:22.96
Sam Shirazi
And then that would get to the Supreme Court very quickly. the Supreme Court would have to rule pretty quickly. And they would issue with what are called shadow docket rulings. So these are not full rulings on the merits, but essentially quick orders the Supreme Court’s doing. And kind of the criticism of them is that really this is what the case is going to be decided upon. So sure, we could wait six months to see what the Supreme Court’s finally going to do with this. But we all know... If the Supreme Court rules a certain way, it’s almost certainly going rule that way in the future. I think there’s been a few exceptions, but generally whatever happens on the shadow docket ends up usually happening in the final version of the case.
09:56.24
Sam Shirazi
And so there’s this term that has come up called the shadow docket. And, you know, I think the Virginia Supreme Court is going to have to do that whether it wants it or not, because this thing’s going to be decided one way or another. And no matter what the Supreme Court does, like the Supreme Court could ignore it and just do nothing.
10:10.80
Sam Shirazi
which obviously means that the lower court order would happen. The Supreme Court could overturn it. The Supreme Court could affirm it. I mean, no matter what the Supreme Court does, it will have an impact and it’s going to be important. And so we’re we’re kind of seeing this Virginia Supreme Court shadow docket essentially And very clearly, the Republicans wanted it to to go this way because they weren’t satisfied with what the Virginia Supreme Court did the first time.
10:34.58
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, I mentioned the importance of this being a temporary order, temporary restraining order. You know, typically courts are hesitant to give these kinds of TROs. And I think appellate courts are more willing to kind of step in and think through the yeah TRO because the order itself talks about this. TROs are typically supposed to maintain the status quo.
10:55.33
Sam Shirazi
And so I think the question here is what is the status quo? Because the Virginia Supreme Court has said the referendum can happen. So obviously, Virginia Supreme Court is the highest court in Virginia. So you kind of have to listen to them.
11:06.62
Sam Shirazi
So if the Virginia Supreme Court is saying the referendum is happening on April 21st, Isn’t that the status quo? Isn’t that what has to be maintained? Or as the Republicans and the lower court judge are arguing, well, the status quo is no referendum because the referendum is not valid. So it’s going to actually hurt the parties if the referendum goes forward. So we’re going to do the status quo, which is actually no referendum. And I think there’s arguments you could make on either side. I don’t know if that’s ultimately how the Virginia Supreme Court is going to decide it.
11:36.29
Sam Shirazi
I suspect we’re going get a ruling next week because obviously we are coming up on the start of early voting and the Virginia Supreme Court needs to give The party has enough time to kind of get this thing going one way or another. I mean, honestly, if if it’s not going to happen, the Virginia Supreme Court should just say that and save everyone the hassle and the time. If it’s going to happen, the Virginia Supreme Court is going to need to go quickly so that the early voting can start on March sixth. And I guess the last thing I’ll end on the legal side of things is just, you know, to be perfectly honest, the fact that Virginia Republicans are going all in on the legal stuff is telling me, you know, they don’t really want to run this referendum.
12:14.18
Sam Shirazi
They don’t really have a plan. They don’t really have the money. i think they are pretty realistic about where things are right now in terms of the political side of things.
12:25.00
Sam Shirazi
They definitely think if this is going to go down, the only way it’s going to go down is down the legal avenue. And so that’s why they’re spending so much time and money an effort to try to get to go down the legal avenue. And, you know, it was interesting. This lawsuit was actually brought by the National Republicans and a couple of the congressmen and definitely brought a more full throated case against the redistricting referendum.
12:49.31
Sam Shirazi
The original lawsuit was filed all the way back right before the Democrats voted on this. And a lot of that was tied up in like technical stuff in the House of Delegates
13:00.58
Sam Shirazi
It was kind of a different legal issue at that point. The referendum hadn’t been passed. And so that’s part of the reason why the original relief that was granted was so narrow. And so now when you bring this lawsuit, you have a lot more meat to the bones because obviously we’re kind of close to the end of the process.
13:16.84
Sam Shirazi
And so the judge learned the lesson from his previous order and definitely made this one have a lot more teeth. And the Democrats certainly felt it when the issue, when the order came out.
13:28.58
Sam Shirazi
However, it’s not the end of the day. And I do think ultimately, this is going to be decided by the Virginia Supreme Court. Okay, a lot of legal stuff. So I will move on to more kind of practical political stuff. And I wanted to talk about the second big news event of the week.
13:44.86
Sam Shirazi
which was the changes that were made to the proposed map by the Democrats. And, you know, when the Democrats released their original map, everyone thought, okay, you know, this is it. The Democrats said they’re going to be releasing their map.
13:56.60
Sam Shirazi
And it almost was, but they released a new map on Thursday. And essentially it didn’t make a whole lot of changes, but it did make a couple changes.
14:08.74
Sam Shirazi
big ones that you know I think is worth talking about here. and And just so people have the kind of procedural background on this, essentially the original map was kind of coming out of the House of Delegates. And you can kind of tell that because definitely of the the rumors behind the scenes about which map was working its way through the system, this definitely looked like a map that was more drafted by the House of Delegates.
14:32.96
Sam Shirazi
However, as we all know, a bill has to pass both the House of Delegates and the State Senate. And so the bill moved forward in the House of Delegates, then it went to the State Senate, and the State Senate was able to amend the bill kind of normal legislative sausage making.
14:47.87
Sam Shirazi
And it made not a huge change, but it made a little bit of a change that i do think is important. So essentially what the... Virginia State Senate did was it made the second district bluer. And I think most people thought that the biggest problem with the maps that the Democrats have proposed was that the the second district was not blue enough. And and most people on the Democratic side, obviously the Republicans had a lot of problems with it, but on the Democratic side, I think the biggest issue that people had was that the second district wasn’t bluer. So the second district in the original map was about
15:25.68
Sam Shirazi
plus two Harris district, which is bluer than it was now, but certainly not as blue as it could be. And the new version of the second district in this map is actually a Harris plus five district.
15:38.10
Sam Shirazi
And it did that by making the third district a little less blue, but honestly, it’s still very blue. So the third district in the new map is about a Harris plus 27 district. So it doesn’t you know really affect that much. Still very blue district.
15:52.54
Sam Shirazi
And the changes that were made were kind of interesting. Essentially, they were just precinct swaps in the city of Chesapeake. So Chesapeake is a city in Hampton Roads, a kind of interesting city. Some precincts are pretty red. Some precincts are pretty blue.
16:04.73
Sam Shirazi
So just kind of swapping precincts here and there can actually change the district a lot. And that’s what the Democrats ended up doing. You know, overall, the second district kind of looks the same, but just has those swaps in Chesapeake.
16:18.14
Sam Shirazi
And I also think the other interesting thing was You know, everyone kept thinking, OK, the second district was going to have part of Norfolk because in the old version of the second district, it had part of Norfolk. Elaine Lurie is from Norfolk. So it’s like if going to change the second district, you would think it would include parts of Norfolk.
16:32.57
Sam Shirazi
But that’s not what happened. There was no changes to Norfolk. It was just Chesapeake. So long story short, second district got a little bit bluer. I think for this year, it’s not super important in the sense of, honestly, even the old version that the Democrats originally proposed. I think that was going to flip in 2026, no matter what.
16:51.39
Sam Shirazi
But it certainly makes life easier for the Virginia Democrats, and they may not have to spend as much money to flip the second. And I think what’s really going to be important is 2028 and 2030. So 2028, obviously, could be a more neutral environment. Typically, presidential elections are more neutral.
17:07.47
Sam Shirazi
or more neutral, less drastic as compared to midterms. So I think that’s going to make Democrats’ life easier in 2028. And certainly in 2030, I think that’s the really big deal is 2030. Because 2030, obviously, we could have a Democratic president by then.
17:24.38
Sam Shirazi
the In midterms, the party in the White House typically struggles. so I think the idea behind this new version of the district was potentially Democrats could still win this in 2030, even if there is a pretty good night for the Republicans. Whereas I think the old version of the district, most people thought, you know, if the Republicans have a good night, it’s going to be flipping in 2030. So anyway, some interesting changes in the second district. And and that bill to to pass this new map,
17:52.30
Sam Shirazi
That has passed both the House of Delegates and the State Senate. So now it’s up to Governor Spanberger and all indications are that she’s going to sign it. So the legislative side of things is moving, but we still have to wait on the legal side. I did want to kind of note a couple other things before i sign off for the week. There was a not super surprising development in the 7th Congressional District, and this is the new version of the 7th Congressional District, which is kind of the lobster district that goes from North Arlington, and then part of it goes out into Western Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, and part of it goes down into like the Richmond area.
18:29.61
Sam Shirazi
And the reason I call it as a lobster district is if you look on it on a map, like it kind of looks like a lobster, and everyone calls it the lobster district. So this is kind of the open seat if the maps go through. There is no incumbent that’s going to be claiming it, but it’s a pretty blue seat.
18:44.19
Sam Shirazi
And so the expectation is that maybe more people will be running. But the person who went announced this week was Delegate Dan Helmer. Obviously, he has run for Congress twice before.
18:55.17
Sam Shirazi
I think there’s a sense that he was interested in running again for Congress. And you know some people speculate that this district was drawn specifically for him. And so I think he’s definitely going to have probably an advantage in this race. And I would call him the front runner right now, although we’ll just have to wait and see who else runs. Currently, the other person running He is a former prosecutor who worked under Jack Smith.
19:18.79
Sam Shirazi
His name is JP Cooney. So he is also running. I could see some other people potentially jumping into the race. We’ll have to see. Or it’s also possible that Delegate Helmer essentially clears the field and it won’t be that competitive at the end of the day. And he might be able to kind of coast his way to the nomination.
19:35.99
Sam Shirazi
We’ll have to wait and see. That’s all going to happen after the... Legal stuff has to play out after the referendum. So definitely not guaranteed any of that. And we’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.
A couple other pieces of things I wanted to talk about. So it was announced that Governor Spanberger would be giving the Democratic response to the State of the Union. I think that’s, it’ll be interesting to to see. I think in recent years, there has been kind of the sense that the response to the State of Union is kind of a thankless job.
20:07.39
Sam Shirazi
And at certain times, people have even been mocked for various reasons. But i think I do think there have been times where it has been well received. A couple examples are when Governor McConnell in 2009 gave the response to the State of Union, and he actually gave that in the Virginia House of Delegates. And I think that was overall pretty well received at the time.
20:30.64
Sam Shirazi
The last Democrat, Virginia Democrat, to give the response to the State of the Union was in 2007. That was Jim Webb right after he got elected. And again, I think that was generally well received.
20:42.86
Sam Shirazi
And also in 2018, Delegate Elizabeth Guzman, she gave the Democratic response in Spanish to the State of the Union that year. And Delegate Guzman is back in the House of Delegates now. And so, you know, I think overall, it certainly lifts your national profile. I do think...
21:01.62
Sam Shirazi
It’s a risk and reward. You will get a lot of eyes on you and it’ll it’ll raise your profile, but there’s also a risk that if something goes wrong, then maybe it won’t go so well for you. So pressure’s on, I guess, for Governor Spanberger, but she certainly fought a good campaign last year and made it out with a big 15-point victory, so she knows what it’s like to be under pressure. So we’ll just have to wait and see how that goes. And one last thing to note, which is a sad piece of news, is that the delegate from Virginia Beach has passed away.
21:36.86
Sam Shirazi
That’s Delegate Barry Knight. I just want to send condolences to his family and friends and colleagues. He had been on the House of Delegates for a while and I know was respected on both sides of the aisle. So sad news whenever he someone passes away, especially one person who’s given good chunk of their life to public service. So wishing Delegate Knight family and friends and colleagues the best in this difficult time.
22:04.66
Sam Shirazi
So, yeah, I mean, other than that, not a whole lot else. I’m kind of kidding because obviously very, very busy. And and I was thinking about it as I started the podcast at the top of the hour. I talked about the fact that this is still called the 2025 Virginia elections federal fallout. And i may change that title at some point. I don’t know. We’re still living in the shadow of the 2025 Virginia elections in many ways.
22:29.82
Sam Shirazi
However, obviously things are are moving forward. Very, very busy, time in Virginia politics. It seems like there’s never a dull moment. I’m hoping finally we will get some clarity in the next couple of weeks. Is this referendum actually going to happen? And once it happens, that’ll be certainly fun to cover. So a lot going on. I will try to do my best to keep everyone updated. And I appreciate everyone who’s been listening. This has been Federal Fallout and I’ll join you next time.
