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A top Virginia Democrat appeared to admit that state Democratic lawmakers’ effort to redraw the commonwealth’s congressional map is more about stopping President Donald Trump and his agenda than about ensuring fairness for voters in the Old Dominion.
A referendum drafted by Richmond’s Democratic majority and set to go before voters in April would allow the assembly to redraw Virginia’s congressional map in a way that Richmond Democrats signaled would draw out four of five Republican congressmen and draw the populations of most new districts from dense, left-wing Fairfax County.
In comments to NBC News, Rep. Donald Beyer, an Alexandria-Fairfax Democrat, appeared to admit redistricting’s true purpose while commenting on early voting figures that appeared to lean in the GOP’s favor.
Beyer said the redistricting effort is “not a done deal by any means” and that Democrats need to “effectively make the case that even though this seems unfair in Virginia, it’s totally fair for America, for those of us who believe that taking back the House is the most significant thing we can do to stop Donald Trump.”
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“Don said the quiet part out loud,” Virginia House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, told Fox News Digital on Monday.
“This is manifestly unfair for the Commonwealth of Virginia. We’re a 51-49 state, not a 90-10 state. If they’re willing to silence nearly half the Commonwealth’s voters in the name of ‘fairness,’ what else are they willing to do?” Kilgore said. His legislative seat in the far southwest would sit in the sole Republican-favored congressional district under the new map.
“Last November, Democrats sold Virginians a fake ‘affordability’ agenda that is false, a total hoax, and a con job,” Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, said.
“Now they are back at it, trying to shove another partisan power grab down our throats, this time wrapped in the phony label of ‘fairness,’” he told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital reached out to Beyer for further comment and to Gov. Abigail Spanberger for her take on his admission.
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The text of the amendment facing voters next month asks whether the Constitution of Virginia should be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections.
The tagline “restore fairness” has become a clarion call for critics who claim exactly what Beyer appeared to admit: that the definition of “fairness” used is questionable at best.
“Representative Beyer said the quiet part out loud. This isn’t about fairness, transparency, or representing Virginians,” Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., said. His Shenandoah Valley district stands to be chopped into several Fairfax-connected pieces under the new map.
“It’s about political power and Democrats’ determination to rig the map to ‘take back the House.’ When Democrats admit they’re willing to defend an unfair process in Virginia for the sake of national political power, it exposes exactly what’s driving this effort, and it has nothing to do with the people they’re supposed to represent,” Cline told Fox News Digital.
Five of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts would originate in Arlington or Fairfax counties and encompass meticulously drawn swaths of the state’s conservative interior, including one district ridiculed for resembling a lobster or scorpion, as it begins at the Potomac River and winds southwest through Democratic suburbs before splitting into two halves. One half includes rural Greene, Rockingham, and Augusta counties closer to West Virginia, while the other stretches down the Zachary Taylor Highway into Goochland and Powhatan counties west of Richmond.
In turn, a likely Democrat-majority district would form, narrowly connecting the independent cities of Harrisonburg, Staunton, and Waynesboro within Rockingham and Augusta counties and linking them via conservative areas like Nelson County with Lynchburg and Roanoke far to the south.
Beyer’s current district would likely become the new 8th and stretch down the west bank of the Potomac River through current Rep. Rob Wittman’s, R-Va., rural 1st District in the Northern Neck, collecting nearly a dozen small red counties in the state’s oyster country anchored by the deep-blue city.
The only Republican deemed safe under the map would be Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., in the far southwest, which would become an overwhelmingly Republican seat.
Rep. Jennifer Kiggans’ evenly split Eastern Shore and Hampton Roads district would draw in just enough urban and suburban population to potentially turn blue.
Since early voting began this month, yard signs emblazoned with “VOTE NO” have begun popping up in several red counties threatened by the new map, including Culpeper, Shenandoah, Highland, Orange, and Page, home to Luray Caverns.
“VOTE YES” signs were, in turn, observed in rural Clarke and suburban Prince William counties over the weekend.
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