When I first ran for office in 2017, I ran on INDEPENDENT redistricting with NON-PARTISAN criteria.

Question 1 on your ballot on redistricting does not set up independent redistricting and I urge you to vote #NoOn1

How did we get here??

1/several https://twitter.com/ChrisHurstVA/status/1307536089582841861

Last year, many House of Delegates districts were ruled racially gerrymandered, which is unconstitutional and not the first time Virginia has violate the constitution in redistricting.

In 2019 we also voted on a proposed constitutional amendment to address gerrymandering.

2/

That legislation (HJ306) passed overwhelmingly in Feb. 2019. I remember that day well. The final proposal was given to House Democrats about an hour before the final vote. I wanted to vote no. Many of us did.

"It's not independent if lawmakers are on the damn commission!"

3/

The mood in the room when we were given the news was crappy, to say the least. This was not what so many of us believed in, or pledged to support.

"But this is the last bite at the apple, we have to give the voters something on redistricting."

We would come to regret this.

4/

I had my arm twisted the rest of the afternoon as I held out support until it was time to vote. I voted for it. After the session was done, it was hard for many of us to look each other in the eye. This was only the first vote, however, and we thought it could be improved.

5/

For the rest of the year, the reasons this amendment is bad became even more apparent.

Legislators on the commission
Approval process is set up to stalemate and go to Supreme Court
Supr. Court should NOT be drawing districts in the first place; it has become partisan too

6/

Minority communities still have no protections that can be codified. Legislation to "fix" the amendment by constraining it with strong non-partisan criteria can only do so much. But the bottom line...

HALF the body that draws the maps are LAWMAKERS!! How is that INDEPENDENT?

7/

So what happened in 2020, when we had to pass it again in order to send it to voters, is that I and many others voted against the proposal the 2nd time but the legislation passed anyway.

I think we got here due to a series of terrible circumstances that aligned.

8/

Friends are reaching out to say that I'm incorrect about racial protections in the amendment. There is language addressing the issue but the composition of the commission is silent about minority involvement, that's my problem.

2020 proved to be a confluence of politics.

9/

Decades of gerrymandering
A majority on its way out corners the new majority into a spoiled meal, albeit one that attempts to address the problem
Democrats torn because so many of us ran on redistricting reform and here it is! kinda

10/

We had to get it done in 2019/2020 or else lose shot to have reform for this decade

The pressure was real and many of us voted in a way which we now regret.

We can still fix gerrymandering in Virginia but we'll need more years to do it.

11/

If we vote to approve this, we replace a bad system with an imperfect one. If that's ok to you, I get it.

But putting something less bad in the Constitution still doesn't solve our problem and is very hard to further change.

12/

Let's defeat the amendment and keep working to bring real independent redistricting reform to Virginia.

#NoOn1

13/end