NORFOLK — With an end to the government shutdown apparently in sight, talk at a congressional forum this week quickly pivoted to another hot topic: redistricting.
U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott — sitting on a panel Monday with Republicans and Rob Wittman and Jen Kiggans, who represent Virginia’s 1st and 2nd districts — said the state’s Democrats had no choice but to respond to a push from President Donald Trump to have Republican-led states gerrymander their congressional districts.
“We didn’t provoke it,” said the Newport News Democrat. “It was Texas.”
“Every state that can participate, regrettably, has to participate,” Scott said. “They will go back to normal, to a commission, in 2030 so that this is just a temporary response to what is going on, but I don’t think there’s any other way that we can be able to respond to somebody taking five more seats.”
Kiggans said redrawing district lines mid-decade to increase partisanship goes against the values of a purple state.
“Just because other states, according to their constitutions, are changing and gerrymandering — two wrongs don’t make a right,” Kiggans said. “Three wrongs, four wrongs, however many states are doing it, doesn’t make it right. Virginia is Virginia.”
Wittman agreed, and said regardless of what other states are doing, shifting power, even temporarily, from the state’s redistricting commission to the General Assembly would undermine Virginia voters after roughly two-thirds voted in favor of the commission’s creation.
U.S. Rep Rob Wittman speaks during the Hampton Roads Chamber Congressional Forum on Monday in Norfolk. (Bill Tiernan/ For The Virginian-Pilot)
“Texas’ constitution is different than ours. North Carolina’s constitution is different than ours. We ought to do what’s best for the commonwealth of Virginia,” Wittman said. “We ought to do what the voters have said they want us to do, and that is a bipartisan redistricting commission.”
The 16-member Virginia Redistricting Commission — which includes five legislators, three of whom are Republicans — has been tasked with developing maps of the commonwealth’s legislative districts for General Assembly approval.
But last month, the Democrat-controlled House of Delegates voted 51-42 along party lines to approve a constitutional amendment that would give the General Assembly power to create a new mid-decade congressional map. The state Senate approved the same proposal in a party-line, 21-16 vote.
If the new General Assembly approves the resolution in the 2026 session, voters would be able to decide in a state referendum whether to give the legislation certain powers in redistricting the commonwealth until the next census 2030. If approved, a new map could potentially help Democrats, who hold six of Virginia’s 11 U.S. House seats, shift a couple more in their favor.
Republicans have a six-seat majority in the U.S. House, and states normally shift their maps to reflect changing populations at the start of every decade. However, several have been racing to gerrymander their districts heading into the 2026 midterms.
U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans decried Democrats’ efforts to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts at the Hampton Roads Chamber Congressional Forum on Monday in Norfolk. (Bill Tiernan/ For The Virginian-Pilot)
Four already have enacted redistricting plans. Texas, which at Trump’s request approved a new map that should help give Republicans five additional House seats, was the first. The GOP-led state legislatures in North Carolina and Missouri also approved new mapsin hopes of gaining one seat each. In response, California voters approved a ballot measure earlier this month to redraw the state map to help Democrats possibly pick up five seats.
Scott called it an unfair fight that has consequences for Virginians.
“We could sit back and take it, but regrettably, there is a lesson in not responding,” Scott said.
North Carolina’s new map is an update to another map Republicans drew ahead of the 2024 general election, which pushed a 7-7 House tie to a 10-4 GOP advantage. Scott said if Democrats held those seats, it would’ve been a big enough swing to block items like Trump’s megabill, which passed with a razor thin majority in July.
Colleagues across the aisle said Virginia should not respond in kind.
“If this redistricting thing goes through, I won’t be seeing you again next year, because the purpose is to get rid of folks like myself and Jen (Kiggans), again, for a political purpose,” Wittman said. “Not for what’s good for the commonwealth.”
Devlin Epding, 757-510-4037, devlin.epding@virginiamedia.com
