OPINION:
In the 2025 Virginia elections, the Democrats won large victories, obtaining a nearly 2-to-1 majority in the House of Delegates and electing Abigail Spanberger as governor.
During the election, Gov. Abigail Spanberger presented herself as a political moderate, although few of the newly elected Democrats in the House of Delegates made any such pretensions.
One of the first things the new Democratic majority has done is attempt to corrupt the election system in our state and lock in a new congressional district map that makes a 10-to-1 election result for the Democrats likely by drawing the district lines to favor their party.
In 2020, the people of Virginia passed a constitutional amendment to establish a bipartisan process to draw congressional district borders and to abolish partisan gerrymandering. The Virginia Supreme Court certified the current district lines in 2021. Virginia’s present members of Congress were elected in the districts drawn through that fair process.
Despite expressing misgivings about this power grab during her election campaign, Ms. Spanberger signed the gerrymander legislation and has announced her intention to vote for the new plan offered by her party.
The new plan presented to the public in this referendum is accompanied by a promise that the new districts will be “temporary” and will be restored to more balanced districts after the 2030 census.
First, I would remind Ms. Spanberger that Virginia governors only get one four-year term. When the political district redrafting is addressed after the 2030 election, she will no longer be governor. She can’t guarantee any future behavior of a future governor or legislature.
Second, the assertion that the dishonorable districts are “temporary” and will be undone in the future goes against all common sense. The Democrats elected under the unfair 2026 plan will be firmly fixed in the new unfair districts that gave them an unfair advantage, likely for three terms. They will never willingly agree to go back to fair districts.
Besides, the plan on the referendum ballot, at its very best, offers to conduct rigged elections in 2026, 2028 and 2030 under these unfair districts. One rigged election is unacceptable. Three rigged elections are a travesty.
The excuse offered by the Democrats for this crooked proposal is that President Trump has encouraged the same bad behavior in Texas, and perhaps other states, to favor Republican candidates. They say their rigged Virginia proposal is needed to level the national congressional playing field.
A closer look shows this to be exaggerated.
Texas proposes to shift possibly five seats to the Republicans, but California plans to shift five seats to the Democrats. Fifteen other states are considering changes to their congressional districts, but outside of Texas and California, we have no idea what they’ll do, if anything.
Disenfranchising Virginia voters to give more congressional seats to the Democrats is not worth the cost of sullying Virginia’s election integrity. The duty of the Democrats in Virginia is not to any other state, nor is it to the Democrats in Congress. It’s to Virginia, which they have taken an oath to serve.
This redistricting initiative violates that oath, and the Virginia voters should denounce it by voting no.
If the Democrats are anxious to engage in this dishonesty, what dishonesty will they engage in the future? Beyond that, why should the people vote and participate in a system when the outcome is already decided by rigged district lines?
Participatory democracy in Virginia itself is at stake in this referendum for each of us and for our children, who we want to cast votes in future elections.
I urge Virginians to hurry to the polls and reject this attempt to corrupt their elections. I ask Virginians to reject the dishonest political ads and skewed ballot language that support this election change, and to vote no in this referendum.
• James S. Gilmore III was the 68th governor of Virginia. He is a former Virginia attorney general and commonwealth’s attorney for Henrico County, Virginia. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from 2019 to 2021.
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