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The Virginia Supreme Court has just struck down the new congressional maps as part of the Virginia Democrats gerrymandering nuclear option referendum. This morning we're gonna break it all down for you in a very quick and brief issue. Update from 10 Minute Drill. Everybody get up. Get up. The story of America is the story of an adventure. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. We are a nation under God and I believe God intended for us to be free. You'll remember over the last several months we've broken down a number of the legal issues surrounding the Democrats referendum. Well, today the Virginia Supreme Court overturned their referendum by a 4 to 3 vote. One issue that we had talked about that we expected the Supreme Court to really focus on as they did in oral arguments, was the timing issue. The law in Virginia requires a certain amount of time and procedure to ensure that referendums get to voters with a clear amount of information, a clear amount of time to be able to learn more about it and decide. A key part of that timing process is the requirement that the referendum proposal be voted for in two different legislative sessions with an intervening election in between them. The reason for that being they want voters to be allowed to select the representatives before they're allowed to vote that second time on a referendum. And so what the Virginia Supreme Court really honed in on during the oral arguments on this was the fact that there had not been an intervening election because the first time this was voted on in the legislature, early voting had already begun in the election. This forced Virginia Democrats to very awkwardly argue that early voting didn't actually count as the election. One thing I would note that is particularly interesting here is as the United States Supreme Court has considered the Louisiana congressional map, Ketanji Brown Jackson has taken the exact opposite position from Virginia Democrats, arguing that Louisiana cannot adjust their maps because early voting has begun, meaning the election is already underway. So Virginia Democrats were already in an incredibly awkward position here and had no good defense for this, among several other issue areas where they clearly cut corners. So this shouldn't be a surprise to people who really followed the rule of law on this, But I think anyone who's watched state courts, particularly state supreme courts over the last several years, has found they're not necessarily reliable in, in terms of discerning the rule of law. But the fallout for this is massive. Virginia will use their what had previously been described as 6, 5 congressional maps that are seen as significantly more fair because the district lines actually follow things like cities and counties. They're actually compact in the way that the law demands, which is Congressional maps shouldn't spread like a lobster over five or six different counties. And the reason for that is so that members can actually get representation. If you're an elected representative, you should be able to get to your members, you know, as closely as possible. Whereas with the Democrats map in the lobster district, members had to elected representatives would have had to cross through five different districts to get from one corner to the other in a three hour drive. It was a very brazen gerrymander. But again, that's not what undid it. What undid the maps was Virginia Democrats cutting corners and flouting the law. And I think what really is going to be painful for Democrats is the fact that they spent $60 million to win this on, only to have it struck down by courts because of very, very obvious rule breaking. And what's tough there for Democrats is they basically, it's a little bit like building a really fancy building where you spend a ton of money on ornate features about it, but forgetting to build a reliable foundation for it. So the entire thing collapses and you waste all the money that you spent up above. And one of the reasons that Virginia Supreme Court couldn't knock this down before the voting and all that spending happened is Virginia law requires the Supreme Court to wait as the process of making making law is carried out before they weigh in on the legality of the process, even if the process is the really early initial part of it. And part of that is sort of like in a football play or in sports. A lot of times if a referee sees a penalty against, you know, committed against somebody who's about to shoot a ball, they don't necessarily want to stop the play and take the advantage away from the person who's about to shoot the ball. Sometimes they'll let it play out and then, you know, rule at the end of it. So they don't take away that advantage here. And that's what they ruled in this case. They let the Virginia Democrats carry out the referendum even though there were some very clear, obvious flaws in it. But in summation, to get back to the politics of this, the fallout for Democrats stretches far beyond just Virginia. Because after Virginia passed their referendum, Southern states jumped into activity to redraw their maps with a similar level of aggressiveness. And you'll remember people like Hakeem Jeffries saying, you know, f around and find out to states like Florida. This was Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats, right after Virginia won in that redistricting battle. Watch here. Our message to Florida Republicans is f around and find out. Well, Florida went ahead and passed their new maps, Tennessee just signed a new map, and the Democrats just lost the advantages they'd gotten with Virginia because of their corner cutting. So there's a lot of egg on a number of Democrats faces. Another key figure here who really is struggling is Virginia Governor Abigail Spamberger, who has destroyed her own popularity in the first three months of her term as governor on something that they aren't even going to be able to enjoy. Now another Louise Lucas, the Virginia Democrat Senate leader who's having probably the worst week of her career, having both her businesses investigated because of potential ties to Medicaid fraud, among other things, but then also being the face of this. You'll remember that back in January when this debate was going on, Louise Lucas tweeted, I have the utmost respect for Senator Kaine and Senator Warner, but we do not need coaching on redistricting coming from a cuck chair in the corner. How about you all stay focused on the fascist in the White House and let us handle redistricting in Virginia? Virginia. 10 to 1. My word. I wonder if she regrets that tweet. Right now I think a lot of people in the Democrat group chats are going to be pointing out maybe we shouldn't be following the arrogant mob boss style of people like Louise Lucas and maybe we should put Hakeem Jeffries in a closet until we figure out whether we are preemptively spiking footballs that we don't actually have access to. But huge credit to the rnc. One of the behind the scenes sort of jostling stories that didn't really get told was how complicated the legal process was. But the RNC worked with firms like Constable and McCarthy, who are some of the most effective attorneys and litigators on the Republican side with an effective strategy. If anyone listened to oral arguments, they knew this was already going the right way. As long as judges put the law ahead of politics, Conservoi did a phenomenal job. We've also seen from the opinion today that the Virginia Supreme Court was not impressed with the arguments from Jay Jones, from Virginia Democrats and the attorneys that the Virginia Democrats spent a lot of taxpayer dollars bringing in to defend this. They also, like Abigail Spamberger, like Hakeem Jeffries, and like Louise Lucas, have a lot of egg on their face. Now lastly today, just a quick look at where this leaves the redistricting wars state by state going back all the way. California's redistricting added five likely safe Dem seats Utah's added one likely safe Democrat seat. Texas added five likely safe Republican seats. Florida added four safe Republican seats. North Carolina added one likely safe Republican seat. Missouri, one Republican seat. Ohio, two likely safe Republican seats. Tennessee, one more likely safe Republican seat. The total is an addition of six likely safe Democrat seats and 14 likely safe Republican seats with pending potentially adding one more seat in Alabama, two more seats in Louisiana, one more seat in Mississippi. And so again, these are I say likely safe because these will still need to be competed for in a lot of these redistricting, moving what are likely safe pockets of voters around to try and really secure things and trying to lump together in a lot of these states, whatever Democrat bodies, if it's a red gerrymander or Republican bodies, as we saw with the lobster, things like that. So there will still be a tough competition for these. But the net net outcome of this likely will mean 17 more seats for Republicans, six more seats for Democrats with a net gain of 11 for Republicans in the gerrymandering wars, which is an advantage for Republicans still. And I think that in some cases Democrats made this worse for themselves by pushing for nuclear options like we saw in Virginia, nudging other states further. And at the end of the day, Republicans still are going to have a very, very complex fight on their hands on election night in November, but a huge, huge tribute to the legal minds in Virginia who fought this on the rule of law in the state based on the state constitution and worse success. So we will get into this much more next week. That's all the time we'll take today for this quick update. Thank you for tuning in and follow as we continue to cover this on social media over the weekend.