The Daily Signal - Virginia Power Play: Democrat Speaker Don Scott’s Push to Redraw Congressional Districts Explained

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Why is Speaker of the Virginia House Don Scott trying to call a special session of the Virginia General Assembly? The story is that they are going to try and redistrict the Commonwealth’s 11 Congressional districts. Small problem, that Constitutional Amendment that was passed in 2020 establishing first a ‘bipartisan redistricting commission’ and in the event of that failing (which it did) turning redistricting over to the Virginia Supreme Court to name two special masters that would draw the districts. Virginia Delegate Tom Garret sits down with us to tell us what the long and short term agenda appears to be. Keep Up With The Daily Signal   Sign up for our email newsletters:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.dailysignal.com/email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠     Subscribe to our other shows:    The Tony Kinnett Cast: ⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL2284199939⁠ The Signal Sitdown: ⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL2026390376⁠   Problematic Women:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL7765680741⁠   Victor Davis Hanson: ⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9809784327⁠     Follow The Daily Signal:    X:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://x.com/intent/user?screen_name=DailySignal⁠ Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/thedailysignal/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Facebook:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/TheDailySignalNews/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Truth Social:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://truthsocial.com/@DailySignal⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  YouTube:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. Thanks for listening to this bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. I'm your host, Joe Thomas, Virginia correspondent for The Daily Signal. Before we dive into today's interview, I want to thank you for tuning in today. If you're a first-time listener, The Daily Signal, brings you fact-based reporting and conservative commentary on politics, policy, and culture. And I hope you join our band of regular listeners to our podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and also take a

moment to rate and review us wherever you get your podcast. You can find additional content at DailySignal.com. Now, let's get started with today's conversation right after this. Why are Virginia's slim majority, a one-seat majority for Democrats in both the House and Senate? Why are they doing this? I made it differ. I mean, Illinois Democrats have already done this. That's actually, the left says, oh, well, it started with Texas. No, it started with. with Illinois, right, a state where you have, what, a 10, a plus 10 Democrat, and I don't have these numbers in front of me, but you got a plus 10 Democrat lean, but something like 17 out of 19 seats,

or Democrat seats, right? Virginia, it's got 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans. Some people think we're a purple state. I think we're a blue state. I think we're probably plus five points Democrat reflexively, but we've got six Democrat seats. in five Republican seats, and that actually kind of reflects the breakup of the Commonwealth. And that's somewhat because in 2020, a bipartisan majority of both chambers of the General Assembly voted to allow a referendum on nonpartisan redistricting commission. And I voted against it in the interest of full disclosure, because I said the only thing that matters at that point is who picks the nonpartisan. us and wakewage, nudge. Yeah.

And that's what happened, by the way. Right, because the nonpartisan districts are gerrymandered, too. It's just gerrymandered to the level of plausible deniability. And I would point you to, as we dove deep into the weeds, Juan Pablo Segura was a Republican candidate in a district that's largely Loudoun County and lost in the last cycle. And he lost while winning the entire district minus a panhandle that ran right down I-66 towards. Washington, D.C. And that's because everybody who live right off the interstate tended to vote Democrat, and that panhandle is like a textbook definition of gerrymandering, but it was nonpartisan.

At this point, however, the Democrats have got a couple of things going on. I'll tell you the why, what they're doing if you like. Yeah, we love lies here because it's our stock in through. It's not the lie. There's plenty of those. The Democrats are, my favorite lie off the internet yesterday was. an hour after Glenn Yonkin announced that he was going to, he coordinated with President Trump, declared a state of emergency, he was going to pull down unspent USDA funds to ensure

the three-quarters of a million of Virginians didn't lose their SNAP benefits because the Democrats who have admitted this out loud, wanted the leverage they could garner from a shutdown. An hour after that, Tim Kaine tweeted, now that you care about these people just like I do, Glenn Yonkin, why don't you? You asked the USDA to give these staff benefits to the people. It was an hour after Young and Ardine said he was doing that. And Tim Kane tweeted that so that he could say, look, it was my idea.

And sad tragedy. But, I mean, it was literally like you can check the time of the announcement and the time of Tim Cain's tweet. And an hour after he said, why don't you do this? As if to say it was his idea. But I digress. So we were talking about this mania over redistricting. And again, how this would be completely avoidable if the original.

Bill of Rights had been adopted as presented to the states, which included a very, very specific number of people, maxing out at 50,000 people in each congressional district. And I know you'd say 6,000 some odd people in Congress would be an awful lot, but we have an awful lot of people in this country. And I think there's a reason that you're supposed to feel so underrepresented. We're back with a fellow who knows it on both sides. of the Potomac River, now a member of the oldest continuously operating legislative representative body on the planet Earth, the Virginia General Assembly, former member of the U.S. Not to be confused with the oldest profession on the planet Earth.

Well, there's some similarities, I will argue with you. Tom Garrett there. You and PJ O'Rourke would both argue with me. So before we broke, we were discussing, I think I said there's a lot of things to unpack here and you said, well, you're going to have to unpack them after the break. You want the good news first or the bad news, Joe? Let's go with bad news first. The bad news is that this is for all the marbles. This is literally for all the marbles. If they succeed in doing this and I can walk you through, but your readers will fall back to

sleep, sort of the technical why they can't do this, but they're going to try to do it with a straight face anyway. But if they succeed in doing this, it is conceivable that will have 10 Democratic and one Republican because the pundits think that the only part of the state that you can't draw blue is the southwesternmost corner. And what you would have is large chunks of rural real estate radiating inward towards population centers to the north, center, and east. Interesting. And so the Supreme Court ironically just tossed, I believe, some of the Voting Rights Act restrictions

and again essentially said that that which was made to remedy racism had become racist. That does not have the opinion, but that's the truncated version. And so that is even more unfettering as it relates to their ability to govern with absolute power. So a state that's 55-45 or 52-47 is probably more accurate. Democrat-Republican would have 90-plus percent of its congressional districts, Democrat, and they could draw the House of Delegates and Senate to create super majorities of both probably easily. Now that this rubric, Rubicon has been crossed, 70 to 30, there's your fetal override threshold in the House, and maybe 14 to 6. I'm sorry, 34 to 7, or 337 in the Senate, it's too early for me to do math.

So that's the bad days. This is for all the marbles. I could walk you why it's illegal. and why they'll lie to you and tell you it's not. And just a quick, before you get to the good news, let me run down the roster of places. So Louisiana, Republicans are looking to do it. Ohio, Republicans are also looking to redraw their maps.

Utah is doing a public comment session. Kansas, it's a Republicans working on it. The Indiana governor is looking to call a special session on that. Of course, California is doing its prop 50. Missouri is trying to win one more congressional seat by redistricting. Pritzker is saying that he would like to see redistricting to add to, as you mentioned, that incredible super majority of Democrats coming out of Illinois. And so do New York Democrats.

So, you know, is this just one of those gains? Let me insert this, though. Let me insert this. Right. This is the but Trump. But Trump. We don't want to do this but Trump. But the difference between every state you just named in Virginia is we have a constitutional amendment approved by two thirds nearly of Virginia voters to have a nonpartisan redistricting commission.

Right. Which we have a constitutional amendment. And to amend the constitution, the constitution says that you have to have a vote by the general assembly, a subsequent election, another vote by the general assembly, a referendum. And that is the precedent for low these 400 years or what 1619. Yeah, 400 plus years. And so all those states don't even matter

because I'm talking about the law they're breaking is Virginia law. The Constitution that they're violating is the Virginia Constitution. And you made a good argument at the opening the show that they're violating the federal constitution as well. I think that's probably true, but that's not the law that's on point here.

So there's all your bad news. I'll give you the good news. And then I'll tell you why this is all illegal if we have time. Yeah, no. Here's the good news. The only real reason they're doing this now and they're doing this at the speed

they're trying to do it is because while they have outspent us four or five to one, Winsome Sears is not even on TV and the largest media markets in Virginia. It can't afford it. It hasn't been. So Nova gets no Republican TV ads.

Done. And yet, Jones is done. which is good, right? A.J.'s. Hashby's close to done. And if you think we're getting outspent badly at the top of the ticket, you should look at the House of Delugus races where, for example,

we have a competitive race in Gainesville, Western Prince William, where Greg Gorham last I looked at $24,000 on hand, and Josh Thomas, the Democrat, had $740,000 on hand. Wow. Right? So, yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a, a lot more than four or five to one. And we can still win that seat. So that's the good news. They're doing this because they've done the everything's Trump's fault so long and it hasn't

worked. Their base is depressed and I'll give you my opinion on why. And that is because they murdered Charlie Kirk. They threatened to kill Kim Taylor, who's like Democrat light, right? She's a Republican, but she's the most moderate Republican in the caucus. They threatened to murder her. Somebody's in jail for that right now. They threatened to murder Gary Higgan. These are people you've never heard of, which shows you just how crazy the left has become, right? Like, when you have time to threaten to murder someone running for the House of Delegates, you've gone next level crazy. Oh, sure. I'm up and loud, and they threaten, they threaten to shoot Gary Higgins. I'm running out of Well, and the gubernatorial campaign says there and says, okay. I'm going to finish. I'm going to finish.

I'm going to finish. It's too early, Joe. You get up this early every morning. We got two minutes. So, so your swing voters who tend to. to vote Democrat are starting to wonder, are we the bad guys? And let me just spoiler, they are. And that's why their base is depressed. So they're going to do this to gin up turnout to salvage this election because Spamberger is liable to lose if they don't. So this is more about who occupies the governor's mansion right now than it is about House of Representatives. That's good news because it shows you just how close this is. Don't believe the stupid polls that say Spamberg is up by 12. If she wins by 12, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Well, there's a fellow with a very conveniently named Joe Thomas just wrote a piece in the Daily Signal, published yesterday, pointing out that another tell on that very point is that you wouldn't be bringing Barack Obama to Virginia if you had this in the bag by 10 points. He'd be going to New Jersey where it's a flat foot tie. And so I think both of those things adding together. So you say this is to excite Democrats. This is to, this is something new that they haven't been, you know, born with and bored with and worn out on. This is, this is meant to invigorate their voting base. They're depressed because the true Democrat white sheet's been pulled off. They're depressed because the ones who haven't lost their minds are starting to realize that maybe they are on the wrong side of this.

And so their turnout's been early turnout's been horrible. compared to history. Yeah. And so, but that's the good news, right? They're doing it because we're in this fight. So go give some money to Greg Gorham and give some, give some money to Mike Lamonia down in Chesapeake. The Virginia General Assembly talking about these illegal usurpations, you know,

and it reminds me of the good old days, Tom, the good old days of COVID, where states were just rewriting their election law because somebody told them there was a scary bug going around and that we could keep our state employees in the DMV and the alcoholic beverage stores, but we couldn't have them in the polling places. It sounds like those old days where it's like, you know what, the hell with who votes, we want to be the ones who control, you know, the districts that you vote into. And it would all, you know, if you think about it, there would be no way to gerrymander a congressional map if you had that original. First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. And I'd like to see it brought back personally, and because

there's no way Virginia could gerrymandered districts the way you were saying, or Illinois or Utah, or regardless, Republican or Democrat. Otherwise, Joel writes in from Florida, Jefferson first objected to the Bill of Rights stated they were unnecessary. Well, it just shows that even Thomas Jefferson can be wrong. Just my lifetime, the number of of times that your civil rights have been defended because the Bill of Rights exists still is in the hundreds, Supreme Court rulings that even Democrats had been cowed into admitting, yeah, you know what, that's in the Bill of Rights. We can't really go against it. So anyway, Tom, you were talking about this glory days of this illegal usurpation of our citizens' rights.

talk about why is it patently illegal for what some of these states are trying to do? Well, that's not some of these states. We're talking about Virginia, but Virginia matters to every other state. Because, again, this is quite illegal in Virginia because the nonpartisan redistricting process in Virginia is encoded in the Virginia Constitution. And to amend the Virginia Constitution, you have to have a vote of the majority of the members of the General Assembly of both chambers. and then you have to have a second vote with an intervening election. Now, this is intervening elections, very key here. So their argument is that the November 4th election would be the intervening election.

But when did the November 4th election start, Joe? September 19th, because these crazy Democrats, they're trying to count an election in which and the reason that the Constitution says there should be an intervening election is so the voters have to say on what it is that they're trying to do with the Constitution. Right. But they're counting the ongoing election as an intervening election. Hold it. Hold on. Hold on. Time out. Time out. Let me make sure. Overgo. It's on New York City Public Schools.

So they're trying to amend the Virginia Constitution in a way that says the vote that I already cast in Virginia without knowing that this was going to be on the ballot is somehow on the ballot. I argue with that. Holy crap. Correct. That's the reason number one is illegal. That's the reason number one, it's illegal. In fact, the majority of the Virginia election will be over with by the time we gavel in on Monday. The majority of it. It's not even less than halfway done. So that's the reason number one is illegal. So their intervening election would be this one, but I would argue that it can't be this one because this election had started weeks and weeks, literally weeks and weeks or four weeks before more than that before they even said hey this is what we're going to do so that's the reason number one reason number two we're still sitting in a special session of the general assembly which is how they can do this they say but if you look to article four section six of the virginia constitution it says how you convene a special session of the general assembly

and there are two ways of the special session of the general assembly can be convened either a two-third majority of members of both chambers which we don't have right the democrats don't have that is 5149 and 2119 or the governor can convene a special session so we're sitting special session one of twenty twenty twenty four still from last year democrats have to wait twenty twenty four special session one this goes back to may of twenty twenty four holy cow understand when the governor convenes a special session of the general assembly the governor is mandated by law to give a reason for the the proclamation of a special session. Okay. So I'm looking at Governor Glenn Youngton's convening

of the special session we're in and it says, and I quote, for the purpose of completion of the 24 to 26 biennial budget and amendments to the 22 to 24 biennial budget. That is the scope of the special session. So that's reason number two that they're breaking the law. The governor convenes the special session, not the House or the Senate,

and they could, but they could, but they would do a two-third majority, which they didn't have. So the governor convenes this special session. He was required to go reason. The reason was to work on the budget. And this has absolutely nothing to do with the budget. So that's reason number two, this is illegal. But wait, there's more.

Reason number three that this is illegal is that Virginia Constitution, like the U.S. Constitution, outwines the concept of separation of powers. And so with the concept of separation of powers, there are a role for the executive and the legislative branch, the role of the executive branches to convene the special session for a specific purpose. in this instance because that's who convened it. And the legislative branch is essentially usurped executive branch authority in order to use a special session executable in the manner that it was only by the executive branch to advance

entirely unrelated agendas. So that's reason number three. I know we're running out of time. But, yeah, but I mean, this is par for the course here. They're breaking the law. This is why I brought up the COVID voting rights changes is that many of these legislative bodies in Wisconsin, I think, just did it. and said, go ahead, do something about it to us.

And so the Pennsylvania didn't even change the law. The courts just refused to enforce it. It's even worse if you were talking about violation of separation of powers. So, you know, is there a fix to these usurpations? You know, real quick, we've got about a minute and a half here. So, you know, is there a fix to this? Yes, yes, yes. I started to say this before the last break.

I was begging people to come down to do fundraisers for House Delegates, candidates. If we get 50 seats in the House, we stop the worst pro-murder bill in the history of the planet in the form of H.J.1, the abortion until birth bill in Virginia. If we get 50 seats in the House, we stop this. If we get 50 seats in the house, this doesn't happen again for at least the next two years and probably for the next four. And then we'll get another redistrict according the Constitution. So the way to fix this, isn't Donald Trump coming in and doing a fundraiser? It isn't Mike Johnson coming in and doing a fundraiser who said he wouldn't then changed his mind. I hope you don't lose a seat because of that.

It's you. It's you listening, getting to your friends and saying, go vote. And I hate saying this because I've never felt this way before. Go vote a straight Republican ticket because the guy you might not vote for because he didn't get to the same church as you, at least isn't going to vote to murder living children via dismemberment. The way to fix this isn't Donald Trump. It isn't Mike Johnson. It isn't Terry Kilgore. It's you.

It's you. Isaiah chapter 8 verse 6, I believe it is, get out and vote and support these House candidates. One seat flipped in our favor, and we end all of this. And I think that translates everywhere. Chicago and Los Angeles and Sacramento and all the places they're hearing you, Tom, is that this is what we have to do. We have to stop the craziness because we're allowing 20% of our population in some of these voter turn out numbers to dictate to the other 80. You have a good morning, sir.

Thank you for the good news, bad news, and you have a blessed morning. Thank you for all the fish. So does everybody turn in my line on me? That'll do it for today's show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new episodes from The Daily Signal. Every weekday, you can catch top news in 10 to keep up with the day's top headlines in just 10 minutes, and every weekday afternoon catch Victor Davis-Hansson's thoughtful analysis for The Daily Signal. If you like what you hear on this show, would you take a minute and

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