Virginia voters head to the polls on April 21 to decide the future of fair elections in the Commonwealth. On the surface, the Democratic-backed constitutional amendment sounds reasonable: it claims to “restore fairness” to congressional map-drawing. In reality, it is one of the most brazen partisan power grabs in modern American politics — a deliberate attempt to rig the system, silence nearly half the electorate, and shred the independent redistricting process voters approved just six years ago. The scheme is straightforward in its cynicism.

Virginia’s current congressional map, drawn by the independent bipartisan commission created in 2020, produces a 6-5 Democratic-Republican split that roughly mirrors the state’s evenly divided electorate. Democrats now want to scrap that map and replace it with one that would deliver a grotesque 10-1 Democratic Party advantage. Four Republican seats would be effectively erased. This isn’t “fairness.” It’s the elimination of competitive districts in a state where Republicans and independents routinely cast close to half the votes.

The dishonesty begins with the ballot language itself. The question carefully avoids any mention of the actual map voters are being asked to endorse. It is a textbook push poll, written to elicit a predetermined “Yes” without revealing the radical anti-democratic outcome. Early voting is already underway, yet local registrars were instructed not to post pictures of the proposed map. Virginia Democrats, including Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who once falsely cultivated a moderate image and explicitly said that gerrymandering was damaging to our democracy, now champion the effort, pretending that they are protecting democracy.

What makes this especially galling is the hypocrisy. For years, national Democrats and their media allies have portrayed Republicans as the uniquely evil practitioners of gerrymandering. They lecture the country that only the GOP draws “outrageous” maps. Yet the very states they control tell a different story — one of systematic, decades-long exclusion of Republican voters.

Consider the Northeast alone. Massachusetts is home to roughly 35% Republican voters, yet it sends zero Republicans to Congress. Connecticut’s electorate is 42% Republican, with zero seats. Maine (46% Republican), New Hampshire (46%), Rhode Island (42%), and Vermont (32%) all deliver the same result: zero Republican representation. Hawaii (38 % Republican) and Delaware (42% Republican) follow the identical pattern. These are not flukes of geography or turnout.

They are the predictable outcomes of aggressive Democratic map-drawing that packs Republican voters into as few districts as possible or spreads them so thinly they cannot win anywhere. The same story repeats in other states. California, Oregon, Washington, Maryland, New York, and Illinois have all used sophisticated gerrymandering techniques to maximize Democratic seats far beyond what raw vote totals would justify.

Independent analysts consistently rank several of these maps among the most partisan in the nation. Yet when Democrats propose turning Virginia — a genuine swing state — into a 10-1 farce, they suddenly rediscover the language of “fairness.” The mask slipped completely when prominent Democrats stopped pretending. Rep. Donald Beyer admitted the plan “seems unfair in Virginia” but defended it anyway because it serves the national Democratic goal “to stop Donald Trump.”

State Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Dist.18, the plan’s chief architect, was even more direct. Responding to a fellow Democrat who called the scheme “extremely anti-democratic,” she declared that anyone opposing it “doesn’t share our values as Democrats. In other words, the issue was never fairness. It was grabbing political power.

This episode reveals something deeper and more troubling about today’s progressive politics: a willingness to abandon democratic norms the moment they become inconvenient. The 2020 redistricting reform passed with overwhelming bipartisan support precisely because Virginians were tired of politicians choosing their voters instead of the other way around. Democrats now propose suspending that reform for the 2026 midterms, ramming through their gerrymander, and then — they solemnly promise — restoring the independent commission afterward. The idea that newly elected Democrats would voluntarily vote themselves out of safe congressional seats is laughable on its face.

Power seized through procedural chicanery is almost never relinquished. And since Abigail Spanberger lied to Virginians about her not supporting a gerrymandering ploy, we should not believe their claims that this gerrymandering plan is only temporary. A recent Roanoke College poll shows Virginians are not fooled: 62% want to keep the bipartisan commission process. That public skepticism is heartening, but it must translate into action.

The left’s enthusiastic support for this Virginia scheme, despite its obvious hypocrisy and despite the mountain of evidence that one-party Democratic monopolies already exist across much of the country, exposes their true priorities. Principles are flexible; power is not. Moral lectures about democracy are reserved exclusively for Republicans. When Democrats hold the map-drawing pen, different rules apply. Virginia has long prided itself on political maturity and competitive districts that force candidates to appeal beyond their base. Competitive elections produce better policy and more accountable government.

Handing one party a 10-1 lock disenfranchises roughly half the state’s voters, rendering their ballots structurally meaningless in congressional races. It turns representative democracy into a managed and fake democracy — the very outcome the 2020 reform was designed to prevent. On April 21, Virginians have a chance to send a clear message that transcends party labels. Reject the lies. Reject the power grab. Reject the cynical attempt to turn Virginia into just another one-party fiefdom. Vote no on the redistricting amendment and preserve the independent process that puts voters — not politicians — in charge.

The integrity of our elections and the principle of equal representation are worth defending. Virginia’s voters have always risen to that challenge. This April 21 should be no different.

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