RICHMOND — The Virginia General Assembly gave final approval Friday to a proposed constitutional amendment that would grant lawmakers the power to redraw congressional districts in time for this fall’s midterm elections, probably sending the issue to a statewide referendum sometime this spring.
The state Senate voted along party lines, 21-18, in favor of the amendment, with the Democratic majority pushing it through as Republicans protested that it was an abuse of power (one Republican was absent). The measure cleared the House of Delegates on Wednesday, the opening day of the 2026 General Assembly session — a quick action that underscored the importance of the issue to Democrats.
“None of us wanted to bring this to the floor, but circumstances beyond our borders have made it necessary,” Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) said during debate Friday, alluding to the efforts of President Donald Trump to push other states to create new red-leaning districts, to help Republicans keep their majority in the House of Representatives in elections this fall. States such as Texas and North Carolina have heeded his call, while California has responded by seeking more blue districts and Democrats are pushing Maryland to do the same.
Republicans argued Friday that other states’ actions have nothing to do with Virginia. “The only thing that’s behind this is that you hate the man that’s in the White House and you want to take away his power,” Sen. Christopher T. Head (R-Boutetourt) said.
National Democratic leaders are pushing hard to gain as many Democratic seats as possible in hopes of securing a clear advantage in the midterm elections.
After the state Senate vote Friday, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) called the approved measure “a fair and balanced proposal” that gives power back to voters.
“Democrats will not take our foot off the gas pedal until the nationwide GOP effort to prevent a free and fair election in November has been crushed, Jeffries said in a statement. In Virginia, “the people are now empowered to decide what the congressional map should look like, not Donald Trump and his partisan Republican hacks,” he said.
The redistricting measure was among four proposed constitutional amendments that won approval in the Senate on Friday after passing the House earlier in the week. The others involved enshrining same-sex marriage, protecting access to abortions and automatically restoring voting rights to someone who finishes serving time for a felony.
Here is a rundown of the proposed amendments that voters will be asked to consider later this year:
Redistricting
The proposal does not come with any particular maps, though Democratic leaders said this week they would unveil proposed maps before putting the matter before statewide voters. The amendment would empower the General Assembly to draw new congressional districts any time between passage and 2030 if lawmakers determine other states are doing the same. State legislative maps are not affected.
Virginia’s congressional delegation consists of six Democrats and five Republicans; some Democrats have said they might pursue new maps that could result in a 9-2 or 10-1 blue advantage.
The power would expire at the end of this decade. At that point, a bipartisan redistricting commission — created by a constitutional amendment that Virginia voters overwhelmingly approved several years ago — would draw new maps as usual following the next U.S. census.
Accomplishing all this in time for this year’s elections would be a logistical sprint. Voters would have to pass a referendum as soon as April for there to be time to create new maps for primaries ahead of the November elections.
Same-sex marriage
This amendment would undo a ban on same-sex marriage that was put into the state constitution after a public vote in 2006. That language was rendered moot by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015 establishing a federal right to same-sex marriage.
Some lawmakers want to change the state constitution in case today’s more conservative Supreme Court decides to reverse itself on Obergefell, as it did on abortion rights by overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. A reversal would make Virginia’s ban operative again.
On Friday in the Senate, five Republicans joined every Democrat in supporting the proposal.
Abortion access
Democrats have said enshrining access to abortion in the state constitution is a priority because of the Supreme Court’s decision striking down Roe. The proposed amendment states that “every individual has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom” and sets out parameters for abortion that supporters say track with Virginia law.
The state permits abortion during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy, or until about 26 weeks. The procedure is legal in the third trimester only if three doctors certify that the mother’s life or health is at serious risk.
Republicans have argued that the proposed amendment’s language is overly broad and would take precedence over the state law’s limitations, including requiring parental notification for minors seeking an abortion. “This is an engraved invitation to invalidate reasonable restrictions on health and safety,” Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R-Rockingham) said Friday during debate.
Democrats countered that all the provisions of existing law would remain in place.
Voting rights
Virginia is the only state that permanently disenfranchises someone convicted of a felony and requires them to individually petition the governor for rights restoration. Recent governors from both parties had moved toward a process of automatically restoring voting rights once a person completed their sentence, but outgoing Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has required individual petitions and dramatically slowed the restoration of rights.
The proposed amendment would take the process out of the governor’s hands and automatically restore a person’s rights once they complete a felony sentence.
It passed the Senate on Friday along a party-line vote, with several Republicans saying they would support the proposal if it required the person convicted of a felony to finish paying restitution before having rights restored or if people convicted of violent felonies were exempted.
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