There wasn’t much in the news this morning, no surprise, since the Iranians were rumored to have had 48 hours to respond to a US proposal for peace issued Wednesday. That would have expired around lunch time today, and although we are starting to get a little hungry, no word from the part of the globe that is now descending into evening.

We will see about that after lunch. There was some shooting as US warships and a response on three coastal targets where the fast boats were based. Our President says it is no big deal, just justified self-defense actions no reasonable person could misconstrue.

The BIG NEWS was about the redistricting thing that has had many of us upset. We are used to being underrepresented here in our 15-minute Counties of Arlington and Fairfax. When the Navy called some of our crowd to come and sun by the Reflecting Pool on The Mall a half century ago, there was still a purple tinge to our side of the River. That dried up decades ago, so we were used to voting even though it made no difference in what some have called Virginia’s 11th District “The richest in America, due to two- income families and the lobby crowd.”

Controversy has swirled since the last election, when Abigale Spanberger was elected Governor. She had campaigned on a moderate platform, indicating she would not take a position on the redistricting. Upon election, she immediately signed the Bill in her first day in Richmond. We won’t delve too deep into what was a LawFare dead-end since the Court has now spoken. But it was a relief that someone seems to think not all change is good.

What is news is the decision of the Virginia Supreme Court this morning to reject our state’s mid-decade redistricting effort, passed narrowly last month by referendum and would overwhelmingly benefit Democrats in terms of likely seats 10-1. So, that would mean the 48% of the electorate who thought they were GOP voters would effectively be disenfranchised.

That would not seem to be the ‘democracy,’ we have heard so much about lately, but our votes haven’t counted for much for a long time. We will see if this is the just the start of something we will just have to get used to.

So, the torrent of commentary is only beginning to tell us what to appreciate and what this means to other states considering re-drawing their maps ahead of the 2030 Census. That is the National standard for apportionment, and the beginning of new re-districting fights to get ready for 2040.

Our state spent $5.2 million to pay for the special election to ask voters to approve the map, which would have created ten districts that favor Democrats, with just one district favoring Republicans.

We will let this one rest until more issues are found to scream about. Now, for the Weekend!

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com