00:00.47

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode, we will dive into a lot of legal issues, specifically with redistricting and just to see what is going on with some of the legal challenges the Republicans are bringing to redistricting.

00:15.48

Sam Shirazi

So to set the stage, the Democrats in the General Assembly are full steam ahead in terms of trying to have a referendum this year in Virginia on redistricting.

00:25.85

Sam Shirazi

They have proposed a bill that would set the date of the referendum as April 21st. And they have also... given their proposed language for what should go on the ballot in terms of the question for the referendum. And the question is, quote, should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census. So clearly they are, you know, the Democrats have phrased the question in a way that they think is more likely to get people to vote for it. I think the Republicans think the phrasing of the question is unfair and obviously skewed from their perspective.

01:15.06

Sam Shirazi

against the Republican position. And you know I’m not sure if there’ll be any legal challenges to that, but that is the bill that the Democrats are proposing. So have a referendum on April 21st, have that as the question.

01:27.95

Sam Shirazi

And you know if that gets passed, then the next step would be to actually enact a new map in Virginia, including moving the primary deadlines so that the elections could happen this year under the new maps. The one thing that we are still waiting on from the Virginia Democrats is what their proposed map is going to look like.

01:48.69

Sam Shirazi

And it seems like that map will be coming out next week.

01:52.86

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, when that happens, I will do a podcast because that’s going to be a big deal. But before we get to that, I wanted to talk about the Republican strategy and really they’re the Republican legal strategy.

02:03.93

Sam Shirazi

And we’ll go into kind of the ins and outs on of that. But before I get into like the specific legal stuff, I wanted to just talk about kind of where the Republicans are at. Because I think in terms of running a redistricting referendum campaign in basically three months, the Republicans are not in a good place. I think they know that. I don’t think they really or have a plan if they have to run a referendum campaign.

02:28.26

Sam Shirazi

And it reminds me of a quote from the classic movie Rocky III, So a reporter is asking Clubber Lang, who was about to fight Rocky, a question about what’s his strategy.

02:40.33

Sam Shirazi

And Clubber Lang’s response is don’t need any. And I think in some ways, maybe that’s the Virginia Republicans position in that they don’t think they really need a strategy for the referendum campaign because they seem pretty confident in their legal position in this lawsuit that they brought. And you know honestly, it could be wishful thinking.

03:00.14

Sam Shirazi

My sense is it could also just be they have nothing else. They really are just hoping that the lawsuit works out. They don’t have to run a referendum campaign because I think if the referendum is happening, I don’t really see a way where they’re going to be able to mount a a strong campaign. It’s going to be in April. You’re going to have Democrats really fired up.

03:19.21

Sam Shirazi

So I think it’s going to be a really uphill climb for the Virginia Republicans if they have to have a referendum. They seem to kind of understand that. And that’s why they’re basically going in all in on this legal case that they brought. And I kind of want to set up the Republican argument, the Democratic argument, I can kind of give you my personal opinion.

03:37.57

Sam Shirazi

I don’t often go into these like super detailed legal analysis. From my training, I am an attorney, I attended the University of Virginia. I don’t always talk about it on here because most people are pretty bored about legal stuff. But I thought it was kind of interesting To give people, if you’re an attorney, you might find this interesting. If you’re not an attorney, you’ll kind of get a sense of how attorneys analyze legal questions.

03:59.57

Sam Shirazi

And so I’ll kind of do quick rundown about what’s going on and what the courts might interpret in this case. I did want to say, you know, this is kind of standard preference that lawyers like to give, you know, I’m not giving legal advice. I’m not telling people what arguments they should make. I’m just laying out kind of what I’m seeing in the legal landscape just for people’s analysis. And, you know, they can come up with their own conclusions in terms of with what they think is going to happen. This is kind of my personal opinion about this legal issue, but obviously it’s complicated. And, you know, just because I’m

04:37.74

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I’m not saying the case is going to go one way or another. I think it is an interesting legal question. It really boils down mainly to Virginia state constitutional law. There might be a small federal angle to this, but generally this is more of a state issue.

04:51.99

Sam Shirazi

I think the highest court that will hear it is the Virginia Supreme Court, and it’s unlikely to really be decided by the federal courts. So I’ll talk about some of the legal issues going on.

05:02.58

Sam Shirazi

The Republicans have brought a lawsuit in Tazewell County in Southwest Virginia. That’s a deep red county. I think clearly they did what’s called forum shopping. They wanted to pick where they thought they’d have the strongest chance of winning.

05:15.38

Sam Shirazi

at the lower court level. You know regardless of what happens at the lower court, the reality is this case is almost certainly going to go to the Virginia Supreme Court to be ultimately decided because it’s such a significant legal issue. It’s such a thorny constitutional state constitutional issue. So I think you know one way or another, the Virginia Supreme Court is going to have to sort this out. And you know essentially the question is based on the state constitution and then a specific provision of the state law under the state constitution. So I’ll kind of go through the different provisions and kind of, you know, go through that analysis. So I think, you know, the Democrats initial position is that the state constitution is pretty clear. And I’m going to read the,

05:59.27

Sam Shirazi

language from the state constitution. This is Article 12 of the Virginia Constitution, Future Changes, and it’s section one about amendments. So it basically says, you know any amendment has to first pass the House of Delegates and the state Senate in one session.

06:14.21

Sam Shirazi

And then it says that amendment will be referred to the General Assembly at its first regular session held after the next general election of members of the House of Delegates.

06:26.76

Sam Shirazi

And those that that phrase, after the next general election, is really the crux of this legal issue. Because what the Democrats are arguing is that language is very clear.

06:38.66

Sam Shirazi

You pass it one in one session, and then you have’t after the next general election, you pass it again in the next session. And so the logical reading of next general election is literally election day. So you have an election and then the next session after that election, you can vote on it again. And that’s basically what happened. You know, the Democrats, they passed this bill essentially the week before election day.

07:02.23

Sam Shirazi

Election day happened, they won. And then in January, they passed it again. And so the logical reading of this without any sort of overthinking about it is. You pass it before the election, and then you pass it after the election. And that’s kind of the plain reading of the state constitution. It’s pretty clear about that.

07:17.63

Sam Shirazi

I think that’s a decent constitutional argument just from the text. But the Republicans make a bunch of arguments that basically...

07:24.52

Sam Shirazi

you know, the election was essentially already underway. Early voting had been going on. The purpose of this provision is to give voters a chance to vote if they want to reelect the House of Delegates and and to allow this sort of amendment to go forward. And so you’re kind of really undermining the purpose of the requirement that it be passed in two different sessions with an election in between.

08:14.74

Sam Shirazi

00:00.47

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode, we will dive into a lot of legal issues, specifically with redistricting and just to see what is going on with some of the legal challenges the Republicans are bringing to redistricting.

00:15.48

Sam Shirazi

So to set the stage, the Democrats in the General Assembly are full steam ahead in terms of trying to have a referendum this year in Virginia on redistricting.

00:25.85

Sam Shirazi

They have proposed a bill that would set the date of the referendum as April 21st. And they have also... given their proposed language for what should go on the ballot in terms of the question for the referendum. And the question is, quote, should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarilyily temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census. So clearly they are, you know, the Democrats have phrased the question in a way that they think is more likely to get people to vote for it. I think the Republicans think the phrasing of the question is unfair and obviously skewed from their perspective.

01:15.06

Sam Shirazi

against the Republican position. And you know I’m not sure if there’ll be any legal challenges to that, but that is the bill that the Democrats are proposing. So have a referendum on April 21st, have that as the question.

01:27.95

Sam Shirazi

And you know if that gets passed, then the next step would be to actually enact a new map in Virginia, including moving the primary deadlines so that the elections could happen this year under the new maps. The one thing that we are still waiting on from the Virginia Democrats is what their proposed map is going to look like.

01:48.69

Sam Shirazi

And it seems like that map will be coming out next week.

01:52.86

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, when that happens, I will do a podcast because that’s going to be a big deal. But before we get to that, I wanted to talk about the Republican strategy and really they’re the Republican legal strategy.

02:03.93

Sam Shirazi

And we’ll go into kind of the ins and outs on of that. But before I get into like the specific legal stuff, I wanted to just talk about kind of where the Republicans are at. Because I think in terms of running a redistricting referendum campaign in basically three months, the Republicans are not in a good place. I think they know that. I don’t think they really or have a plan if they have to run a referendum campaign.

02:28.26

Sam Shirazi

And it reminds me of a quote from the classic movie Rocky III, So a reporter is asking Clubber Lane, who was about to fight Rocky, a question about what’s his strategy.

02:40.33

Sam Shirazi

And Clubber Lane’s response is don’t need any. And I think in some ways, maybe that’s the Virginia Republicans position in that they don’t think they really need a strategy for the referendum campaign because they seem pretty confident in their legal position in this lawsuit that they brought. And you know honestly, it could be wishful thinking.

03:00.14

Sam Shirazi

My sense is it could also just be they have nothing else. They really are just hoping that the lawsuit works out. They don’t have to run a referendum campaign because I think if the referendum is happening, I don’t really see a way where they’re going to be able to mount a a strong campaign. It’s going to be in April. You’re going to have Democrats really fired up.

03:19.21

Sam Shirazi

So I think it’s going to be a really uphill climb for the Virginia Republicans if they have to have a referendum. They seem to kind of understand that. And that’s why they’re basically going in all in on this legal case that they brought. And I kind of want to set up the Republican argument, the Democratic argument, i can kind of give you my personal opinion.

03:37.57

Sam Shirazi

I don’t often go into these like super detailed legal analysis. From my training, i am an attorney, I attended the University of Virginia. i don’t always talk about it on here because most people are pretty bored about legal stuff. But I thought it was kind of interesting To give people, if you’re an attorney, you might find this interesting. If you’re not an attorney, you’ll kind of get a sense of how attorneys analyze legal questions.

03:59.57

Sam Shirazi

And so I’ll kind of do quick rundown about what’s going on and what the courts might interpret in this case. I did want to say, you know, this is kind of standard preference that lawyers like to give, you know, I’m not giving legal advice. I’m not telling people what arguments they should make. I’m just laying out kind of what I’m seeing in the legal landscape just for people’s analysis. And, you know, they can come up with their own conclusions in terms of with what they think is going to happen. This is kind of my personal opinion about this legal issue, but obviously it’s complicated. And, you know, just because I’m

04:37.74

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I’m not saying the case is going to go one way or another. I think it is an interesting legal question. it really boils down mainly to Virginia state constitutional law. There might be a small federal angle to this, but generally this is more of a state issue.

04:51.99

Sam Shirazi

i think the highest court that will hear it is the Virginia Supreme Court, and it’s unlikely to really be decided by the federal courts. So I’ll talk about some of the legal issues going on.

05:02.58

Sam Shirazi

The Republicans have brought a lawsuit in Tazewell County in Southwest Virginia. That’s a deep red county. I think clearly they did what’s called forum shopping. They wanted to pick where they thought they’d have the strongest chance of winning.

05:15.38

Sam Shirazi

at the lower court level, you know regardless of what happens at the lower court, the reality is this case is almost certainly going to go to the Virginia Supreme Court to be ultimately decided because it’s such a significant legal issue. It’s such a thorny constitutional state constitutional issue. So I think you know one way or another, the Virginia Supreme Court is going to have to sort this out. And you know essentially the question is based on the state constitution and then a specific provision of the state law under the state constitution. So I’ll kind of go through the different provisions and kind of, you know, go through that analysis. So I think, you know, the Democrats initial position is that the state constitution is pretty clear. And I’m going to read the,

05:59.27

Sam Shirazi

Language from the state constitution. This is Article 12 of the Virginia Constitution, Future Changes, and it’s section one about amendments. So it basically says, you know any amendment has to first pass the House of Delegates and the state Senate in one session.

06:14.21

Sam Shirazi

And then it says that amendment will be referred to the General Assembly at its first regular session held after the next general election of members of the House of Delegates.

06:26.76

Sam Shirazi

And those that that phrase, after the next general election, is really the crux of this legal issue. Because what the Democrats are arguing is that language is very clear.

06:38.66

Sam Shirazi

You pass it one in one session, and then you have’t after the next general election, you pass it again in the next session. And so the logical reading of next general election is literally election day. So you have an election and then the next session after that election, you can vote on it again. And that’s basically what happened. You know, the Democrats, they passed this bill essentially the week before election day.

07:02.23

Sam Shirazi

Election day happened, they won. And then in January, they passed it again. And so the logical reading of this without any sort of overthinking about it is You pass it before the election, and then you pass it after the election. And that’s kind of the plain reading of the state constitution. It’s pretty clear about that.

07:17.63

Sam Shirazi

I think that’s a decent constitutional argument just from the text. But the Republicans make a bunch of arguments that basically...

07:24.52

Sam Shirazi

you know, the election was essentially already underway. Early voting had been going on. The purpose of this provision is to give voters a chance to vote if they want to reelect the House of Delegates and and to allow this sort of amendment to go forward. And so you’re kind of really undermining the purpose of the requirement that it be passed in two different sessions with an election in between.

I think there are some policy arguments about why that might make sense. I think the challenge Republicans have with that argument is that the text of the provision doesn’t talk about early voting, it just literally says after the next general election.

08:14.74

Sam Shirazi

And I think if that was it, if that was the entire case, it would be pretty clear cut and it wouldn’t be super complicated. However, it gets even more nuanced because there is a provision of the state law, not the state constitution that kind of throws a wrench into everything.

08:32.08

Sam Shirazi

And I think this past week, There was a hearing in Tazewell County where the Republicans brought their lawsuit. And it sounded like the judge was you know skeptical of the Democratic position.

08:43.72

Sam Shirazi

Is that because you know he thinks it’s a strong legal argument? you know Perhaps it’s because he’s a more Republican-friendly judge, I think. you know Very clearly, the Republicans were doing some forum shopping. I don’t want to question his independence. I’m just saying you know this is maybe a judge that might be more sympathetic to the Republican argument for whatever reason than perhaps another part of Virginia. And so anyways, long story short, it sounded like the the judge was sympathetic.

09:09.100

Sam Shirazi

It’s hard to read the tea leaves during oral arguments. Sometimes you think, oh, yeah, the judge is definitely going to rule against the party. And then you find out that they rule for the other way. So you can’t read too much into oral arguments. And again, as I mentioned, regardless of how the judge rules, whether he rules for Democrats or whether whether he rules for the Republicans, it’s going to get appealed. So this individual judge is not the final say. And I think ultimately we have to think about the Virginia Supreme Court as deciding this.

09:35.66

Sam Shirazi

Okay. So what did the judge, you know, well why was he somewhat skeptical of democratic position? Well, there’s this provision in the state law that, that basically says that the clerk of the House of Delegates at the end of the session will compile a bunch of stuff, and that includes the proposed constitutional amendments, and then he will send the constitutional amendments to the individual courts throughout Virginia.

10:02.54

Sam Shirazi

And then I’m going to quote from the statute. It says, quote, every clerk of the circuit court shall complete the posting required not later than three months prior to the next ensuing general election of members of the House of Delegates, end quote.

10:16.78

Sam Shirazi

So what that means is essentially that what the statute says is the house the clerk of the House of Delegates will send to all the courts a notice that there is a proposed constitutional amendment, and then the clerk of those court of that court will post 90 days before the election each of those referendum notices.

10:35.98

Sam Shirazi

And so I think... what the Republicans essentially arguing is like, this is pretty clear in the state law. Like you can’t just pass a referendum at the last minute because the state law says you have to post this thing for three months before the election. And I think Obviously, the clerks at the courts were not able to do this because the Democrats did this essentially the week before the election.

11:02.30

Sam Shirazi

and And so there is some tension here where it looks like the state law is maybe in conflict with what the Democrats were doing.

11:11.98

Sam Shirazi

However, it gets even more complicated. And as you can see, when you’re a lawyer, things tend to get up complicated and one side will pick something up and then the other side will pick something up. So I went back and I looked at the old Virginia Constitution.

11:26.10

Sam Shirazi

So Virginia changed its constitution in 1971. So the current version of the Virginia Constitution comes from 1971. The old version of the Virginia Constitution comes all the way back in 1902. So that was the constitution Virginia used from 1902 to 1971. It’s actually kind of an interesting story about why that happened. Honestly, part the main reason the constitution was changed was The 1902 Constitution was kind of from the Jim Crow era era and had lot of things that were, you know, basically institutionalizing racism. 1971, right after civil rights movement, there was a feeling that Virginia needed a new Constitution.

12:01.95

Sam Shirazi

So the current version of the Virginia Constitution comes from 1971. But I went back and looked at the text of the 1902 Constitution. And in the part about amendments, it’s pretty similar to the 1971 Constitution, except it has a little bit of a difference that’s super important. And I’m going to read that section.

12:20.83

Sam Shirazi

So again, this is the 1902 Constitution. It says that the General Assembly, each house, shall pass and a proposed amendment. And then it will refer it will be referred to the General Assembly at the first regular session held after the next general election election of members of the House of Delegates.

12:39.75

Sam Shirazi

And this is the important part, quote, and shall be published for three months previous to the time of such election. And so if you notice, that language is in the 1902 Virginia Constitution, but that language is not in the 1971 current version of the Virginia Constitution. So clearly, that three-month requirement was removed from the Virginia Constitution and it is no longer there.

13:04.95

Sam Shirazi

However, it is still in the state law. And what the Democrats are arguing is you know that random provision of the state law, which is kind of buried in the state code, it’s basically about the duties of the House of Delegates clerk and the local circuit court clerks, that essentially was not supposed to be in there. was honestly just a mistake that it was not removed because no one updated the code after the constitution was changed.

13:31.93

Sam Shirazi

And so it’s really essentially a dead letter, if not just something that is not a requirement on the House of Delegates. Like even if you and interpret the state law as the clerks of the county court have to post these things three months before the election.

13:48.13

Sam Shirazi

That’s only a requirement on the county clerks. That is not a requirement on the General Assembly. It doesn’t say the General Assembly has to pass this thing three months before the election. It doesn’t say you know anything about the General Assembly. It essentially just says the clerk will send these proposed amendments to the clerks. And obviously, if the clerks can post them, the the clerks will post them. But it was not possible for the clerks to post this thing a week before the election.

14:13.74

Sam Shirazi

And the Democratic position is that’s fine. Like the clerks, you know, they didn’t publish it, but it’s not like a fatal flaw in the redistricting process. Because again, if you look at the plain text of the current Virginia constitution, the Democrats did everything they needed to do.

14:29.71

Sam Shirazi

And this other kind of thing that’s buried in the Virginia law is not really what’s controlling. What’s what’s controlling is the state constitution. Because remember, like this is just basic legal principle. The constitution is always higher than the law.

14:43.17

Sam Shirazi

And so if there’s some inconsistency or there’s some tension, the constitution will trump the law. And so if the law is saying, well, the clerks have to post this for 90 days, But the state constitution is saying the General Assembly, all it has to do is pass it once and then an election in between and pass it again.

15:01.34

Sam Shirazi

General Assembly did that. And the fact that the clerks weren’t able to post the notice for 90 days, I mean, that’s that’s on that’s not a something that binds the General Assembly. That’s just something that the clerks have to do.

15:12.80

Sam Shirazi

And frankly, according to the Democrats, you know it shouldn’t even really be in the Virginia Code. I don’t want to go too much into the legal weeds, but there were some things the Democrats are trying to do where they’re trying to retroactively change that provision and basically say, you know, that was always a dead letter. And so just ignore that part of the law.

15:32.29

Sam Shirazi

They’re also trying to they’re also trying to move the lawsuit that Republicans brought from Tazewell County to Richmond County, Richmond City, excuse me. And basically the argument is that is that Richmond is the proper place to bring this type of lawsuit, because obviously most of the election administration is done in Richmond.

15:49.26

Sam Shirazi

And so it was not, you know, the the Republicans lawsuit shouldn’t be brought in Tazewell, should be brought in Richmond. You know, the Republicans. seemed somewhat upset at this, understandably, and they argued that it’s a violation of the US Constitution, the ex post facto portion of the US Constitution. I don’t want to go into it too much, but there is this small hook where, in theory, you could see them bringing a federal challenge if that becomes the crux of the issue.

16:17.38

Sam Shirazi

Long story short, I’m going to focus just based on the tension between the state constitution and the statutory provision. i can kind of give you my personal opinion and my personal analysis.

16:28.20

Sam Shirazi

you know i’m I’m trying to just think through how is the Virginia Supreme Court going to interpret this legal issue? Because I’ve talked about it before. Virginia Supreme Court, I would say, is a pretty nonpartisan court.

16:41.04

Sam Shirazi

It is known for being little c legal conservative. So they are not by any means, or the Virginia supreme Supreme Court is not known as a liberal court by any means. But at the same time, i don’t think the judges on the Virginia Supreme Court are hacks. I don’t think they make their decisions based on political preferences.

16:58.63

Sam Shirazi

You know, some state Supreme Courts are super political, especially the ones that are elected. And basically, you could say this person is going to rule this way because the Democratic or Republican judge.

17:10.48

Sam Shirazi

Virginia is not really like that. I do think the... Judges in Virginia tend to be small c legal conservative. And what that means is they tend to be very textualist. So textualism is this idea that you should really just focus on the text of the constitution and the statutes.

17:26.56

Sam Shirazi

You shouldn’t really look beyond that. You shouldn’t be looking too much at intent of why a law was passed. And so I think that cuts a lot of different ways. In this case,

17:37.78

Sam Shirazi

In my opinion, if you’re a textualist, the state constitution is very clear. The Democrats didn’t need to do this you know three months before. If you’re just looking at the state constitution, all the state constitution says is you pass it in one session,

17:51.50

Sam Shirazi

there’s an election, after that election, you pass it again. And so it’s pretty straightforward from a state constitution standpoint that you can just do this you know right before the election and then there’s an election and then you do it after the election.

18:05.20

Sam Shirazi

I think what makes it much more complicated is this state provision, state state legal provision, the the statutory provision. And you know the the interpretation of that is you know, if you want to post, you you have to, the clerks have to post the the notices 90 days before the election.

18:24.99

Sam Shirazi

I think what’s what’s complicated about that is It doesn’t say, again, the General Assembly has to do this. it doesn’t you know It’s not in the state constitution. It’s kind of buried somewhere in the Virginia code. And it’s kind of a big deal if the General Assembly had to pass this 90 days before the election. You would think that would be in the state constitution, or at least you would think the state code, the state statutory code, would be very clear about that and say the General Assembly needs to pass this 90 days before the election.

18:53.01

Sam Shirazi

you wouldn’t think that just kind of randomly buried in the state code, it says that the county clerks have to post this 90 days before the election, and that actually means that the General Assembly has to pass it 90 days before the election. So I think you really have to stretch the statute a lot.

19:08.30

Sam Shirazi

I’m not saying Republicans don’t raise valid policy arguments, But the Virginia Supreme Court tends not to be very policy oriented. They’re not super sympathetic to policy arguments. They tend to want to just stick to this to the statute.

19:22.10

Sam Shirazi

And I could see the Virginia Supreme Court writing an opinion where they’re basically like, This is a little bit ambiguous. There’s some tension here. We’re going to go with the language the state constitution because clearly the state constitution was changed from 1902 to 1971.

19:37.78

Sam Shirazi

I do think You know, it’s perhaps a more cleaner argument, just given the change in the Constitution between, you know, 1902 and 1971. But, you know, we’ll just have to wait and see.

19:50.83

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I could also see, you know, for the Republican side, if the Republican Virginia Supreme Court really wants to be hyper textualist about the text of the statute, they could say, yeah, well, yeah, maybe the Virginia Democrats complied with the Constitution, but there’s also the statute and you know the clerks had to post it for 90 days and they weren’t able to post it for 90 days. Again, i think there’s a possibility they could rule that way. i think it’s It’s a bit of a stretch because it doesn’t say the General Assembly has to pass this 90 days before. and And so to say that a clerk having to post this for 90 days is the same as the General Assembly has to definitely pass this 90 days before the election, I think is reading more into the Constitution that than is there and is reading a lot into a state provision that arguably, as the Democrats argue, shouldn’t even be there.

20:42.94

Sam Shirazi

You know, the Virginia Supreme Court can say, like, it’s the law, like, we have to interpret it, it’s there. i do think given the change between the constitutions, perhaps the Democrats have the stronger argument.

20:54.96

Sam Shirazi

But ultimately, we’re goingnna have to find out what the Virginia Supreme Court says. And at the end of the day you know, i don’t want to make a prediction. i do think the Republicans are really hopeful that this is going to get them out of it. Essentially, they’re hoping the Virginia Supreme Court bails them out and they don’t actually have to run a referendum campaign.

21:11.84

Sam Shirazi

You know, you you may argue that’s wishful thinking. you may argue the Democrats are overconfident and that they didn’t think through all the legal implications, you know, I wouldn’t worry about it one way or another because eventually the Virginia Supreme Court is going to rule on it. And, you know, if they rule for the Democrats, wouldn’t be a huge surprise and things will just kind of go full steam ahead. I think if they rule for the Republicans, that would be a pretty big shocker and I think would reset the midterms in Virginia. And obviously I’d do a podcast about it and kind of,

21:41.28

Sam Shirazi

talk about all the implications. But anyways, so that’s that’s kind of the Virginia redistricting challenge. Hopefully people found the legal analysis interesting. You may either really be interested in the law now or really think the law is super boring. So either way, you got a little taste of it.

21:58.53

Sam Shirazi

All right. Well, I wanted to end on one other note, and that is a separate legal issue, but one that’s like super fascinating and kind of ties into another referendum, and that’s about restoring voting rights to people convicted of felonies. So I’ll just quickly give you an overview of this legal issue. So in Virginia, it’s one of the only states that...

22:18.40

Sam Shirazi

If you are convicted of a felony, you are barred for voting for the rest of your life unless the governor restores that right. There’s obviously a referendum that would give people back the right to vote automatically once they leave prison. That’s going to be on the ballot this November in Virginia.

22:51.70

Sam Shirazi

However, there has been a pending lawsuit where people have challenged that provision of the Virginia constitution because they are arguing the act that allowed Virginia rejoin the union after the civil war

It barred Virginia from disenfranchising people except for certain common law felonies. And these are kind of like the big felonies like murder. And you know the the lawsuit talked about or was based on the idea that a lot of people convicted of drug felonies are being prohibited from voting the rest of their lives.

23:09.04

Sam Shirazi

When really at the time that the Virginia was re-admitted to the union, The felonies they were thinking about were really like murder and rape and like the super serious felonies. So long story short, that was the legal argument is that Virginia, Virginia is violating the federal law.

23:24.78

Sam Shirazi

And a judge, a federal judge this week agreed with the plaintiffs who brought that lawsuit and basically said, you’re right. Virginia cannot prevent people from voting who were convicted of felonies, except that There’s a certain kind of common law felonies that Virginia can prohibit people from voting, but like a drug offense, that’s a felony that that is not good enough to prevent someone from voting.

23:51.12

Sam Shirazi

And another interesting thing is that the previous attorney general, Jason Meares, was fighting that lawsuit. and defending the Virginia law. And we’ll see what the current attorney general, Jay Jones, does. He hasn’t yet indicated whether he’ll appeal.

24:06.82

Sam Shirazi

In theory, he has the power not to appeal. And if he doesn’t appeal, then unless someone else intervenes, that ruling is going to be on the books. And while it’s similar to the constitutional amendment that’s coming up, it’s slightly more nuanced because with what the the judge said was essentially people convicted of these you know newer non-common law felonies, you can’t take away the right to vote to begin with. They can register to vote. So if you’re convicted of a drug felony, you can still register to vote in Virginia according to this judge’s ruling.

24:41.38

Sam Shirazi

However, what the constitutional amendment is going to do is you you still lose your right to to vote under the constitutional amendment. It’s just once you get out of prison, you will get that automatically restored. So it’s a little bit of a different question.

24:54.09

Sam Shirazi

In some ways, solves the crux of the problem, but I don’t think the lawsuit would be automatically moved even if the constitutional amendment is passed because there’s slightly different legal issues.

25:04.84

Sam Shirazi

And so all that’s to say is like there’s a lot of interesting stuff In these legal cases, especially this case, it brings up a lot of things about reconstruction. you know Why was that law passed that prohibited Virginia from disenfranchising people? Clearly, the people who allowed Virginia to come back to the union were worried that Virginia would start disenfranchising people.

25:27.59

Sam Shirazi

And the concern was probably that they that they would disenfranchise Black people. And so they made part of the law that Virginia couldn’t disenfranchise people except for certain common law felonies.

25:40.23

Sam Shirazi

And all all the way now in 2026, we are still talking about this. It’s still the the subject of a court case. And we’ll have to see where the court case goes. We’ll have to see where the redistricting referendum goes. But y all it goes to show you, I mean, part of the reason i like law is it it does involve a fair amount of history and you go back and you have to analyze, you know, why were certain laws passed?

26:00.14

Sam Shirazi

What do they say? And I thought it was a creative legal argument from the people who brought this lawsuit because they found this old law that basically no one remembers and tried to apply it in the modern day. And I think a lot of people initially were skeptical, but this judge agreed with them. You know, we’ll see if Attorney General Jones decides to appeal it. You know, in theory, maybe someone else could try to come in and appeal it, even if it’s The attorney general’s office doesn’t want to appeal it.

26:23.48

Sam Shirazi

And yeah, so super interesting stuff. Don’t always go into the ins and outs of all these legal nuance arguments, but I thought it’d be interesting because you will be hearing more about the redistricting lawsuit for sure.

26:38.62

Sam Shirazi

And I just wanted to give people a little bit of sense of what the lawsuit’s even about and the likelihood that it may or may not succeed. We’ll just have to wait for it. i think my next episode will almost certainly be on the proposed maps the Democrats are trying to roll out in Virginia.

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