The Daily Signal - NOT TODAY: Virginia Judge Blocks Democrat’s Redistricting Plans | Joe Thomas

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

Thursday, Feb. 19, Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. granted a restraining order sought by the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee along with Congressmen Ben Cline (VA-06) and Morgan Griffith (VA-09). The order prohibits any voting to take place before March 18.  In order to comply with Virginia law, voting of the April 21 deadline needed to begin on March 6.   The request for a restraining order is based on the contention that the Democrat majority in the General Assembly were ramming redistricting-related bills through the legislature.  Hurley ruled in favor of the plaintiffs because he found merit in the argument concerning the ballot question’s language. The judge further sided with Republicans in ruling that the referendum violates the timing requirements set out in the state constitution. 👉For more videos like this, subscribe to The Daily Signal’s YouTube channel and enable notifications to be alerted the second a new video drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In campaigns, as in most public relations, words are your most important weapon. And sometimes the words are designed to make you want to do something. Sometimes they're designed to make you not want to do it. And in the case of redistricting in Virginia, or as the advertisements that $5 million worth of ad blitz money have paid for during Olympic coverage that you may have been watching, you've seen ads that make it seem like Republicans, especially conservatives in Virginia, are in favor of the redistricting amendment that is supposed to come for a vote starting on March 6th. We'll get into whether it will or not in a moment. Their own ad says that the majority in the Virginia House and the governor's office want to temporarily suspend the Virginia Constitution so that they can.

battle the Trump administration. Now, that's important that you think that because that's not how they portray it. And then when Virginia's Republican Party, specifically Ben Klein and Morgan Griffith, congressman from the 6th and 9th districts respectively, file a suit in Taswell Circuit Court and get Judge Hurley to issue a restraining order saying that the votes that have to begin by Virginia, law on March 6th can't begin until at least March 18th so that hearings can take place into whether or not this obfuscation of Virginia's constitution and laws that govern how the Virginia General Assembly and our court systems and our voting systems work can be heard. Their opponents called it lawfare.

They call it law fair because it makes you feel like, oh, that's not something I want to to do. That doesn't sound like the Virginia way. However, when somebody from the Democratic Party uses every legal means possible to get their way, that's just called the Democratic process. And that's where hypocrisy, that's another one of those words, comes into play. Because a democracy protects the voices of a minority, if it's organized as a republic, by making sure that there are laws that make sure that all voices are heard, whether they are in the majority or not. And that's the case of this ruling out of Dazwell Circuit Court. Judge Hurley's ruling is based on a full-faith reading of the Constitution, and in it he says

there is an extraordinary high likelihood of success on the merit. including the claim that the attempt to temporarily suspend the Virginia Constitution violates a clear part of Virginia Code which says that your notification about such an attempt needs to be posted for 90 days prior to the election. Now, what may wind up coming of this before the Supreme Court is going to be the question of when that election is, the proponents of temporarily suspending. the Virginia Constitution, say, the election is just the day we count the votes. Whereas all the courts, including Judge Hurley and Daswell, say, no, if citizen of Virginia

is voting, they consider that the election, so therefore it must be viewed as the election. This is going to continue, but now the judge has put a stay on the beginning of voting, so now, whither or not, the proposed amendment can be. posted for any amount of time, the restraining order has stopped voting from even beginning until after the 45-day window, as prescribed by Virginia law, would have to begin in order to make the April 21st deadline. He'll hear the case by March 18th. Voting was required to begin on March 6th. Is it law fair or is it just the voice of the minority making sure that their legal protection to make sure they're heard is being utilized? They want to make sure that even

though the Republican Party is in the minority right now in the Virginia House, they have their day in court. They can be heard and that their case regarding circumvention of Virginia law, law can be judged by the Virginia Supreme Court. The question of lawfare as a phrase, though, is interesting because law is a weapon. It's a shield. It's a shield against oppressive behavior. When Martin Luther King marched for civil rights with the late Jesse Jackson at his side, they were fighting laws that were in contradiction of the laws of the land.

Somewhere I read, Martin Luther King said in his last speech given to a crowd, somewhere I read of the rights of the citizen to be heard. And so when the opponents of Republican representatives Pline and Griffith rally behind the words lawfare, their design is to make one or two percent of the electorate that might vote for these men, regardless of how their districts are drawn, say, oh, I don't know, I don't want to sue my way to something. The lawsuit is often that suit of armor that the minority needs so that they can defend themselves against tyranny. Even if tyranny doesn't realize it's being tyrannical, even if tyranny He says, we're only going to suspend our constitutional protections for a little while for the

existential threat of a virus or a president we don't like. Be careful with words and be careful how you read words because one group's legal defense fund is another group's lawfare. And it's designed to make you feel like you wouldn't want to be part of that. But pick up your shield. It's what makes a civilized country different than a third world banana republic.