Trump Wins Big as Virginia Dems Won’t Go Nuclear to Save 4 House Seats

The state’s Democrats have decided against forcing resignations on the state Supreme Court to preserve their redistricting. Funny how Republicans always find a way, and Democrats don’t.

Top Virginia Democrats have decided against exercising a controversial procedural end run around last week’s state Supreme Court ruling that struck down their redistricting, which wiped away a gain of four House seats, the Democratic leader of the state Senate told The New Republic.

The decision—which nixes a complicated idea, discussed over the weekend by Democrats, to replace the state Supreme Court and get the case reheard—is likely to anger rank-and-file Democrats who had hoped the party would respond aggressively to the ruling, which has made it more likely that Republicans hold the House this fall.

The decision also contrasts sharply with moves undertaken by many GOP state legislatures in the South, who are aggressively gerrymandering their states with wild abandon to erase decades-old majority-majority seats from existence, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key Voting Rights Act protection against racial gerrymanders.

“As a practical matter,” Virginia’s state Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell said in an interview, the move “would not be capable of being implemented” given the “time frame.”

The decision effectively kills off hopes of getting back the four House seats that Democrats had moved into their column by pulling off a victory in last month’s referendum, which redrew the state’s House map. Last week, the state Supreme Court struck down the new map, wiping away that potential four-seat gain.

But over the weekend, many Democrats were heartened by an idea, floated by The Downballot, that could potentially save those four seats. The idea was........

© New Republic