by
Chip
Somodevilla/Getty
Images)
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