Mike the Mad Biologist

Yesterday, Virginia state Democrats joined the milquetoast caucus:

Top Virginia Democrats have decided against exercising a controversial procedural end run around last week’s state Supreme Court ruling that struck down their redistricting, which wiped away a gain of four House seats, the Democratic leader of the state Senate told The New Republic.

The decision—which nixes a complicated idea, discussed over the weekend by Democrats, to replace the state Supreme Court and get the case reheard—is likely to anger rank-and-file Democrats who had hoped the party would respond aggressively to the ruling, which has made it more likely that Republicans hold the House this fall.

This is the part that should upset rank-and-file Democrats (boldface mine):

“As a practical matter,” Virginia’s state Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell said in an interview, the move “would not be capable of being implemented” given the “time frame.”

…Surovell insisted in an interview with The New Republic that the plan is unworkable. He cited a May 12 deadline set by the state Department of Elections for having congressional maps entered into the state’s election system. That’s necessary in order to be prepared for the congressional primaries set for August 1, for which early voting starts in mid-June.

That May 12 deadline would not leave enough time to execute the end run, Surovell said. The tactic would involve state legislative votes lowering the retirement age for judges followed by a new hearing of the case and other associated procedural arcana.

In a revelation that will dismay a lot of Democrats, the problem appears to be that the voting system has not been updated recently enough to make faster entry of the new maps possible (it’s currently being updated). If this ends up costing Democrats the House—which is unlikely but not impossible—the recriminations will be severe.

“Because the technology is so old, it takes a lot of time to input new districts into the computers, to ensure that people are assigned the correct ballots and that voting is not completely chaotic in November,” Surovell told me…

Surovell said that practical considerations weren’t the only thing motivating the decision not to exercise the retirement-age tactic. “Wiping out the entire Supreme Court is an incredibly extreme step to take over a decision you don’t like,” Surovell said…

Still, many Democrats will look at this situation and note that Republicans keep finding ways around procedural obstacles, while Democrats keep getting stymied by them. After the U.S. Supreme Court killed the protection against racial gerrymanders, it took Tennessee only a few days to wipe out a Democratic district by carving up the Black population in Memphis.

We will leave aside the reality that Virginia Democrats did not have a plan for dealing with the Virginia Supreme Court (though it will become obvious what it should have been). But Surovell* makes a fundamental error here: he assumes this awful decision will be the last awful decision the Virginia Supreme Court, as currently constituted, will make. Based on their recent decision, it certainly will not be the only bad decision it will hand down. And now the Virginia Supreme Court knows that Virginia Democrats will do nothing to stop them, so they will have no incentive to stop; they likely will be emboldened.

This is to say that Virginia Democrats should remove the Virginia Supreme Court on the basis of malfeasance, even if it will not fix this problem, because it will certainly prevent future problems that would have been created by this court. It is time for the courts to experience some checks and balances too, especially when the fight against fascism demands it.

And Virginia Democratic primary voters have an important role to play here (and this is a point that generalizes nationally). Democratic primary voters (which includes me too!) must start disciplining Democratic officials to the point where they are afraid to not use constitutional hardball to stop the fascists. As long as the milquetoast caucus keeps winning primary elections, they have no reason to change. Democratic primary voters can and have enforced party discipline on a few issues, such as basic abortion rights. While some Democratic officials might not be stalwarts on this issue, only a handful break at all from the party line—because if they do, they know they will be dead meat in their next primary.

It is time for Democratic primary voters to push their officials to fight–and fight to win.

*For what it is worth, autocorrect changes “Surovell” to “Shrivel.” Make of that what you will.