“Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” — Chico Marx, caught in an outlandish escapade, to Margaret Dumont in “Duck Soup,” 1933.
“Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let voters decide, not politicians.” —former President Barack Obama, supported by Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), to Virginia voters this spring.
Of course, “Duck Soup” was a classic movie comedy. The “yes” vote promoted by Democrats like the former president and current governor in the April 21 special election for a state constitutional amendment is a classic power grab. The Obama-Spanberger duo’s unintentional comedy comes from sheer chutzpah.
VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS TURN THEMSELVES INTO PRETZELS TO ‘STOP DONALD TRUMP’ WITH GERRYMANDER
Chutzpah, for those whose Yiddish needs refreshing, means unmitigated gall. It is often illustrated by the man accused of murdering his parents, who throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is now an orphan.
Comedian Obama, echoed by Spanberger, pops up incessantly on television and in mailboxes in the Old Dominion. He warns that “free and fair elections … are under threat.” This is said to be due to the checkers-playing President Donald Trump’s attempt to get more Republican House seats out of mid-decade red state redistricting, as if chess-playing deep blue Democratic states would not retaliate.
Virginians can ensure fairness, Obama instructs, by approving a constitutional amendment in the April 21 balloting to allow adoption of new congressional districts. In the Virginians For Fair Elections joke, the state’s current congressional districts are unfair.
This despite the fact that Democrats currently hold six of Virginia’s 11 seats in the House of Representatives while Republicans occupy the other five. This pretty closely reflects the fact that in the 2024 presidential vote, Virginians split 51.8% for then-Vice President Kamala Harris and 46% for Republican Trump.
To remedy this glaring imbalance and “level the playing field,” Obama, Spanberger, and national Democratic Party supporters pumped more than $22 million into the “vote yes” campaign even before the end of March. This, compared to less than $500,000 for the nearly invisible Republican-backed “vote no” effort.
Should the well-lubricated redistricting amendment pass, the new Democratic-proposed map is expected to yield 10 House Democrats, one Republican. Talk about a leveled playing field.
The joke gets even better. The language of the proposed amendment — adopted by the legislature’s Democratic majority — asks what sounds like an innocent question: Should the General Assembly “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?”
This implies that the current districts, drawn by a relatively bipartisan process that gave us the 6-5 split, are unfair. Nevertheless, it promises to return to “Virginia’s standard redistricting process” in four years.
Right, you might chortle. And “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” as Obama, then in the White House, misleadingly pledged while selling his Affordable Health Care Act, which has proved to be anything but affordable.
With that cautionary example, try to imagine Virginia’s four additional U.S. House members, all Democrats, agreeing meekly in 2030 to the elimination of their safe seats. Or the state party, by then quite comfortable with the revised map, reverting to Virginia’s pre-2026 redistricting process.
An early indicator that the party does not expect that to happen was an announcement by Dorothy McAuliffe, wife of former Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Virginia’s former first lady will run in the proposed new 7th District, which wanders more than 150 miles from Arlington, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., deep into the Shenandoah Valley.
“Politics ain’t beanbag,” Mr. Dooley sagely reminded us long ago. Meaning it’s a bare-knuckle sport.
REJECT VIRGINIA’S ELECTION-RIGGING CONSTITUTIONAL REDISTRICTING AMENDMENT
People like McAuliffe — who served in Obama’s State Department, was the Democratic National Committee chairman from 2001 to 2005, and head of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign — live to punch. Just like our former president and Virginia’s current governor. They know that this April’s proposed constitutional amendment can itself be amended.
So, who you gonna believe?
Eric Rozenman is the author of From Elvis to Trump, Eyewitness to the Unraveling: Co-Starring Richard Nixon, Andy Warhol, Bill Clinton, The Supremes and Barack Obama!, and most recently, The David Discovery, A Novel of the Near Future. He is a former member of the Fairfax City Republican Committee.