By Del. Wren Williams
Virginia voters head to the polls on April 21 to decide whether to amend the state constitution and allow the General Assembly to redraw congressional district lines before the decade is out. The ballot language asks whether Virginians want to “restore fairness” in elections. That framing should tell you everything you need to know about who drafted it — and why a circuit court judge already ruled it misleading.
Let’s be direct about what this referendum actually is. If the amendment passes, House Bill 29 takes effect — a map drawn with a projected partisan split of 10 to 1, with Democrats potentially gaining four additional seats in the U.S. House. Under the current map, Virginia’s delegation stands at six Democrats and five Republicans. The proposed map would eliminate that competitive balance for the remainder of the decade. President Trump received 46 percent of the vote in Virginia in 2024, yet the new map would reduce Republican representation in the congressional delegation to roughly nine percent. Whatever one thinks of partisan balance as an abstraction, that arithmetic is not “fairness” — it is the opposite.
The procedural path here deserves scrutiny too. In January, a Virginia judge ruled the amendment unlawful and blocked it from appearing on the ballot. Democrats appealed, and on February 13, the Virginia Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed — while explicitly reserving judgment on the underlying legal questions until after the election. Among the unresolved issues are whether the legislature lawfully placed the amendment on the ballot and whether the ballot language itself is improperly slanted. Virginia voters are being asked to amend their constitution in a process that the state’s own judiciary has not yet validated. That is an extraordinary ask.
Now consider who is making it. When asked during her 2025 gubernatorial campaign whether she intended to change the maps if elected, the governor’s answer was unambiguous: “Short answer is no. I have no plans to redistrict Virginia.” In 2019, she wrote: “Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority.” Those were her words — in a campaign, and years before, when the partisan advantage ran the other direction. The redistricting effort now underway is the same conduct she condemned then. The only thing that has changed is who benefits.
Accountability has consequences. The governor’s approval rating now stands at 47 percent — lower than the early-term numbers of every Virginia governor since George Allen, and the highest disapproval rating at this stage of a term in more than thirty years. While the governor was not the architect of the redistricting plan — that credit belongs primarily to General Assembly Democrats, particularly Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas — she went along with it and has absorbed the political consequences of a measure that voters widely associate with rank partisanship.
The public’s instincts appear to be correct. A Roanoke College survey found that 62 percent of Virginians support the current system for drawing congressional maps, and 52 percent said they would vote to keep the current process rather than adopt the proposed change. Even among those polled who support the referendum, nearly three in four acknowledged it would primarily help Democrats win more seats. Supporters are not arguing this is fair — they are arguing it is strategically necessary. That is a different case, and Virginians are entitled to evaluate it on those terms.
Virginia built its Redistricting Commission through a deliberate, bipartisan constitutional process that voters approved in 2020. It was designed precisely to insulate map-drawing from the kind of political pressure that produces the current proposal. Dismantling that process mid-decade, through a rushed procedural sprint with unresolved legal questions still pending before the Supreme Court of Virginia, would set a precedent that cuts both ways. The next time a different majority controls Richmond, the lesson will have been learned.
Early in-person voting ends Saturday, April 18, at your local registrar’s office. Election Day is Tuesday, April 21, at your normal polling location. Vote no.
Wren Williams, Virginia Delegate, 47th District
