Last week, a majority of Virginia’s supreme court voted to overturn a statewide election approving new congressional maps. Technically, voters were asked to vote on a constitutional amendment allowing the state legislature to create new maps in response to Donald Trump asking Texas (and other Republican-controlled state governments) to redraw their maps to dilute Democratic constituencies. The Virginia constitution requires a proposed amendment to pass the state legislature twice — in two different sessions — before appearing on the ballot. At that point, the amendment still requires the support of a majority of voters in a statewide election.
Virginia did each of those things. Virginia’s supreme court spent 30 pages inventing an alternate reading of that process and tossed out the results of the election.
And, like clockwork, Jonathan Turley went to the NY Post to explain why the state court was right. Except… somehow over the course of almost 800 words, he doesn’t ever explain the actual decision.
The court found that effort was not only unconstitutional, but “wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history.”
It characterized the state’s position as “a story of the tail wagging the dog that has no tail.”
While some of us had previously expressed skepticism over the rushed effort to circumvent the state constitution, the media almost exclusively relied on liberal experts who predicted the new districts would be upheld.
Beyond repeating these cutesy turns of phrase, Turley won’t delve any deeper into explaining the opinion. Normally, the role of a legal analyst involves at least a nod to the law, but Turley adopts a post-modern view of legal analysis that skips over such a bummer. In all fairness, to Turley, the Virginia Supreme Court struggled to articulate a coherent theory itself, and the professor may have decided it would be too embarrassing to include the majority’s actual opinion.
The relevant language of Article XII, Section 1 requires amendments be “agreed to by a majority of the members elected to each of the two houses” and then “referred to the General Assembly at its first regular session held after the next general election of members of the House of Delegates.” The Virginia legislature did that. The 2025 session passed the proposal and the 2026 session, seated after a general election, passed it again. Then it went to the voters and the voters approved it.
While the state constitution’s text just provides that amendments have to be popular enough to pass the legislature twice, the court bootstrapped on new reasoning that — because Virginia allows early voting, and because some ballots were cast before the first session formally passed the amendment — the entire next session somehow couldn’t qualify as occurring “after the next general election.” Citing cherry-picked dictionary definitions and tortured analogies about weddings, the majority redefined a straightforward sentence to fit its policy goal.
That’s not how Virginia elections work. Virginia’s early voting laws are predicated on the idea that the election still takes place on election day — voters are merely permitted to cast ballots in advance. This also makes sense in the historical context of the state constitution, as Virginia doesn’t really do lame duck sessions, meaning the framers of the amendment language — who would’ve had no conception of early voting — meant “pass once in one session… then go to the next elected session.” And that’s before getting into the fact that the “next general election” language, on its face, only mandates automatic referral, not place a limit on what makes for what qualifies as a legitimate legislature for putting an amendment on the ballot.
Turley probably didn’t want to get into telling his MAGA audience — an audience that has spent the last decade railing against early voting and voting by mail — that they won this case because the Virginia supreme court ruled that elections don’t happen on election day. Best to hide that ball and make insinuations about why the amendment was struck down.
Once Spanberger sought to eradicate Republican representation, total war broke out — and now red states like Florida and Tennessee have moved forward with their own redistricting.
Of note, Turley’s account never once uses the word “Texas,” the state that started this “total war,” which is like skipping Pearl Harbor to rail against the Doolittle raid. Instead, he cites Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger’s past opposition to gerrymandering as though she signed off on this effort out of nowhere. This frame also allows him to treat Florida and Tennessee as the innocent bystanders, simply left with no choice but to respond to the United States Supreme Court nuking the Voting Rights Act. Surely neither Confederate state would be redrawing maps now but for Virginia!
Put aside Texas… California already became the first to respond to Texas by voting to redistrict without any mention from Turley. What about Virginia riles up Turley’s audience so much more? Especially when Virginia — unlike Texas, Florida, or Tennessee — took the issue to the voters rather than disenfranchising voters in closed sessions. Hard not to think that the hangup flows from conservative rage at Virginia voters themselves. The decision may twist itself into knots attacking the state legislature, but for the NY Post audience, the anger comes from the idea that Virginia’s voters have somehow betrayed its rebel roots. It’s a “great replacement theory” in miniature — a visceral disdain for how those people, however defined, have undermined a Virginia that used to exist.
Preaching to that audience, Turley doesn’t need to get bogged down in goofy procedural minutiae about when an election is not really an election. The hero of his story is a supreme court willing to swoop in and overturn an election… all the audience needs to here about why is that it was “wholly unprecedented.” Bad dictionary definitions and armchair history provides the set dressing for the lawyers, but Turley’s audience not only doesn’t need to hear about all that. Honestly, trying to explain how conservative courts reverse engineer these decisions would risk giving the Post audience an “are we the baddies?” moment.
It’s fitting that Turley pivots his piece toward pearl clutching over growing support for court expansion. Why bother explaining the reasoning of an opinion, when the purpose of the court is romantic countermajoritarianism? The audience doesn’t want “legal analysis” to understand the opinion, they want a morality play confirming that there’s an institution that can stand against the arc of the moral universe.
Earlier: Virginia Supreme Court Overturns Election Because Redistricting Isn’t Legal Unless It Disenfranchises Black Voters
Jonathan Turley Goes Full Tin Foil Hat About Viktor Orban Loss
Jonathan Turley Watches ICE Kill A Woman, Asks Why Democrats Are So Upset
The post Jonathan Turley Defends Virginia Redistricting Opinion By Refusing To Explain It appeared first on Above the Law.
Last week, a majority of Virginia’s supreme court voted to overturn a statewide election approving new congressional maps. Technically, voters were asked to vote on a constitutional amendment allowing the state legislature to create new maps in response to Donald Trump asking Texas (and other Republican-controlled state governments) to redraw their maps to dilute Democratic constituencies. The Virginia constitution requires a proposed amendment to pass the state legislature twice — in two different sessions — before appearing on the ballot. At that point, the amendment still requires the support of a majority of voters in a statewide election.
Virginia did each of those things. Virginia’s supreme court spent 30 pages inventing an alternate reading of that process and tossed out the results of the election.
And, like clockwork, Jonathan Turley went to the NY Post to explain why the state court was right. Except… somehow over the course of almost 800 words, he doesn’t ever explain the actual decision.
The court found that effort was not only unconstitutional, but “wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history.”
It characterized the state’s position as “a story of the tail wagging the dog that has no tail.”
While some of us had previously expressed skepticism over the rushed effort to circumvent the state constitution, the media almost exclusively relied on liberal experts who predicted the new districts would be upheld.
Beyond repeating these cutesy turns of phrase, Turley won’t delve any deeper into explaining the opinion. Normally, the role of a legal analyst involves at least a nod to the law, but Turley adopts a post-modern view of legal analysis that skips over such a bummer. In all fairness, to Turley, the Virginia Supreme Court struggled to articulate a coherent theory itself, and the professor may have decided it would be too embarrassing to include the majority’s actual opinion.
The relevant language of Article XII, Section 1 requires amendments be “agreed to by a majority of the members elected to each of the two houses” and then “referred to the General Assembly at its first regular session held after the next general election of members of the House of Delegates.” The Virginia legislature did that. The 2025 session passed the proposal and the 2026 session, seated after a general election, passed it again. Then it went to the voters and the voters approved it.
While the state constitution’s text just provides that amendments have to be popular enough to pass the legislature twice, the court bootstrapped on new reasoning that — because Virginia allows early voting, and because some ballots were cast before the first session formally passed the amendment — the entire next session somehow couldn’t qualify as occurring “after the next general election.” Citing cherry-picked dictionary definitions and tortured analogies about weddings, the majority redefined a straightforward sentence to fit its policy goal.
That’s not how Virginia elections work. Virginia’s early voting laws are predicated on the idea that the election still takes place on election day — voters are merely permitted to cast ballots in advance. This also makes sense in the historical context of the state constitution, as Virginia doesn’t really do lame duck sessions, meaning the framers of the amendment language — who would’ve had no conception of early voting — meant “pass once in one session… then go to the next elected session.” And that’s before getting into the fact that the “next general election” language, on its face, only mandates automatic referral, not place a limit on what makes for what qualifies as a legitimate legislature for putting an amendment on the ballot.
Turley probably didn’t want to get into telling his MAGA audience — an audience that has spent the last decade railing against early voting and voting by mail — that they won this case because the Virginia supreme court ruled that elections don’t happen on election day. Best to hide that ball and make insinuations about why the amendment was struck down.
Once Spanberger sought to eradicate Republican representation, total war broke out — and now red states like Florida and Tennessee have moved forward with their own redistricting.
Of note, Turley’s account never once uses the word “Texas,” the state that started this “total war,” which is like skipping Pearl Harbor to rail against the Doolittle raid. Instead, he cites Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger’s past opposition to gerrymandering as though she signed off on this effort out of nowhere. This frame also allows him to treat Florida and Tennessee as the innocent bystanders, simply left with no choice but to respond to the United States Supreme Court nuking the Voting Rights Act. Surely neither Confederate state would be redrawing maps now but for Virginia!
Put aside Texas… California already became the first to respond to Texas by voting to redistrict without any mention from Turley. What about Virginia riles up Turley’s audience so much more? Especially when Virginia — unlike Texas, Florida, or Tennessee — took the issue to the voters rather than disenfranchising voters in closed sessions. Hard not to think that the hangup flows from conservative rage at Virginia voters themselves. The decision may twist itself into knots attacking the state legislature, but for the NY Post audience, the anger comes from the idea that Virginia’s voters have somehow betrayed its rebel roots. It’s a “great replacement theory” in miniature — a visceral disdain for how those people, however defined, have undermined a Virginia that used to exist.
Preaching to that audience, Turley doesn’t need to get bogged down in goofy procedural minutiae about when an election is not really an election. The hero of his story is a supreme court willing to swoop in and overturn an election… all the audience needs to here about why is that it was “wholly unprecedented.” Bad dictionary definitions and armchair history provides the set dressing for the lawyers, but Turley’s audience not only doesn’t need to hear about all that. Honestly, trying to explain how conservative courts reverse engineer these decisions would risk giving the Post audience an “are we the baddies?” moment.
It’s fitting that Turley pivots his piece toward pearl clutching over growing support for court expansion. Why bother explaining the reasoning of an opinion, when the purpose of the court is romantic countermajoritarianism? The audience doesn’t want “legal analysis” to understand the opinion, they want a morality play confirming that there’s an institution that can stand against the arc of the moral universe.
Earlier: Virginia Supreme Court Overturns Election Because Redistricting Isn’t Legal Unless It Disenfranchises Black Voters
Jonathan Turley Goes Full Tin Foil Hat About Viktor Orban Loss
Jonathan Turley Watches ICE Kill A Woman, Asks Why Democrats Are So Upset
The post Jonathan Turley Defends Virginia Redistricting Opinion By Refusing To Explain It appeared first on Above the Law.
