CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed the redistricting Constitutional amendment in what she termed simply “a step” on Friday, the day after General Assembly Democratic leaders released their proposed temporary Congressional redistricting map that greatly changes the 5th and 6th District in addition to carving up the Valley.
“It’s recognizing Virginia has the opportunity and responsibility to be responsive in the face of efforts across the country to change maps, that Virginia is moving forward with the temporary and responsive effort to redistrict,” Gov. Spanberger said at a signing ceremony in Richmond.
Senate President Pro Temp Louise Lucas added, “If Donald Trump had not started this power grab back last year when he knew he was going to lose the midterms, we wouldn’t be in this place right now.”
The biggest impact on the Charlottesville area is moving Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Amherst, Lynchburg and part of Bedford from the 5th District into a 6th District.
It also brings more of Bedford County, currently in the 9th, into the 6th along with Roanoke City and Roanoke County as well as parts of western Montgomery County.
The new temporary 6th also spurs over the Blue Ridge into northeastern Augusta County, southeastern Rockingham County and the city of Harrisonburg.
Right now, the Shenandoah Valley and much of the New River Valley into Southwest Virginia comprise the 6th and 9th district. The proposed map cuts these areas into parts of five different districts — 6, 7, 9, 10, and 11.
The current 6th district seat is occupied by Republican Ben Cline while the 9th is Republican Morgan Griffith. The 5th is occupied by Republican John McGuire.
Louisa, Goochland, Powhatan and far northern Cumberland County get absorbed from McGuire’s 5th District into Democrat Eugene Vindman’s 7th in this redraw.
UVA Center for Politics Congressional expert Kyle Kondik told Cville Right Now the map is not surprising in that it’s designed to give Democrats a projected 10-to-1 seats over Republicans.
“One of the ways to do that is to chop up the Richmond area and also further west into Charlottesville to essentially try to pack as many Republican voters into the 9th District in Western Virginia and then try to make the other districts blue, so that’s what you see here,” Kondik said. “The 6th District in Central Virginia kind of stitches together blue dots — [Charlottesville], Blacksburg, Roanoke, Charlottesville, Harrisonburg. That district is a competitive district, though it’s one that leans Democratic and the idea is to elect a Democratic Congressman starting in 2026.”
The current map, Kondik notes, has a 5th District that includes Charlottesville and almost all of Central Virginia. The new proposal elected to separate the region into multiple different districts.
“The intent is obvious,” Kondik said. “It’s not being hidden really, that it’s trying to squeeze more Democratic districts (into Congress) out of Virginia.”
One of the results of the new map is that two Democratic Congressional candidates in Central Virginia have to adjust. Beth Macy’s campaign office is in Roanoke where she’s been preparing to run against Cline in the 6th District, while Charlottesville-based Tom Perriello has been shoring up to run in the 5th District against McGuire.
Both released statements Thursday evening when the new map was released.
“I am fired up to keep fighting for my hometown and the region that I love to get our voice back in Congress,” Perriello wrote in his statement. “Folks across the Blue Ridge and the Valley know that I have been fighting for decades to increase wages and access to affordable health care for families.”
“I was ready to take on Ben Cline when the district was ruby-red—long before redistricting reared its head,” Macy wrote in hers. “I was fully prepared to fight for Virginians before it was politically convenient to do so, and I’m still ready to fight for the people of my community. For 40 years, I’ve chronicled how the system left rural Americans and working people behind. I’ve listened to their stories, and I’ve explained what happens when billionaires and bought-off politicians put their own interests ahead of regular folks.”
The U.S. Constitution does not a require a Representative to live in the district they represent. They’re only required to be residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The signing and proposed map is all for naught, though, if the state Supreme Court refuses to stay, meaning temporarily suspend the enforcement of, or instead simply upholds a ruling by Tazewell County Circuit Judge Jack Hurley, Jr. that the amendment was illegally and unconstitutionally passed.
