By Ken Falkenstein, Brian Kirwin, and J.R. Hoeft
One of the fundamental purposes of our court system is to provide stability to our society by resolving conflicts peacefully and efficiently. This basic function of the judiciary seems to have been lost on the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which redrew Virginia’s congressional district lines and imprudently ordered them into immediate effect despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has accepted an appeal challenging the legitimacy of those lines.
The result of the district court’s arrogant refusal to let the appeal play itself out before imposing its lines on the Commonwealth is chaotic uncertainty.
The most significant change to the current congressional district map is that the 4th district was changed from safely Republican to predominantly Democrat, thereby severely endangering incumbent Republican Representative Randy Forbes. Meanwhile, 2nd district incumbent Republican Representative Scott Rigell recently announced his retirement and has publicly encouraged Forbes to run for his seat in the still Republican-leaning 2nd district. Forbes is giving serious consideration to this option and has also received some encouragement from nominally-Republican Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms, who values Forbes’ congressional seniority and position as a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, which has jurisdiction over Navy and Marine Corps programs that are vital to the Hampton Roads economy.
And therein lies the rub. Granted that by moving to the 2nd district, Forbes opens himself up to charges of being an outsider. However, his seniority on the Armed Services Committee would be an enormous benefit to the 2nd district, which contains the largest number of military facilities of any congressional district in the entire country.
Already in the race for the Republican nomination to succeed Rigell are Del. Scott Taylor (R-Virginia Beach) and Virginia Beach attorney Pat Cardwell. Taylor had previously announced that he was exploring a bid for Lieutenant Governor in 2017 but last week announced that he was entering the congressional race instead. Taylor has an impressive resume that compensates for his relative youth at age 36. However, he is in just his second term in the House of Delegates, and his almost perennial candidacies for various offices paints a picture of a young man in a hurry. Taylor also generated some controversy within the local Republican Party by favoring a plan to slate the delegates to last year’s 2nd district convention, which drew the ire of current 2nd district Republican chairman Curtis Colgate, who won his position by successfully challenging the slating scheme. Taylor’s victory in 2013 over Tea Party favorite Gary Byler for the Republican nomination for House of Delegates was a victory for decency given the slimy campaign that Byler ran against him but nevertheless served to alienate him from some Virginia Beach tea party activists.
Cardwell hopes to have the support of the tea party and had already planned to challenge Rigell before Rigell announced his retirement. Cardwell does not appear to start in a very strong position, having lived in Virginia for less than four years and having not significantly involved himself with the Republican Party or in public affairs generally during that time. In a two-way race against Taylor, it is conceivable that the stars could align to enable Cardwell to mount a viable campaign, but if Forbes enters the race, it would be hard for Cardwell to provide a rationale for his candidacy. Forbes has established a long history of a consistently conservative voting record that tea party activists in the 2nd district are unlikely to find objectionable even in the current anti-incumbent political environment.
It should also be mentioned that Ben Loyola, who, like Taylor, was defeated by Rigell for the Republican congressional nomination in 2010, is rumored to be considering entering the race. With the plethora of military assets and NASA assets in the 2nd, Loyola would seem a natural. Many elected officials, tea party activists and Republican stalwarts are talking with Mr. Loyola who tripled Taylor’s vote in the 2010 primary. There are many who feel that Loyola could unite the establishment and the tea party pretty easily.
However, Mr. Loyola isn’t so eager for early attention (sorry, Ben – you gave that up with the 2010 campaign and challenge to Ralph Northam in the 6th Senate campaign in 2011). Loyola is likely ready to jump in once there is more clarity regarding who the court outcome and who the other candidates will be..
Del. Chris Stolle is also a possibility. Not only being elected, he, like Taylor and Loyola, has a strong military background. But he is not likely to consider running until after the General Assembly in March, when presumably all these other questions would be answered for him as well.
To reiterate regarding Forbes, he has accumulated a solidly conservative voting record throughout his congressional career, and he also showed himself to be a pragmatic statesman, thereby earning the respect and support of Rigell. Even if Forbes might be seen as a bit of an outsider, having never lived in the 2nd district, his home city of Chesapeake is hardly a foreign country to the people of the 2nd district. Heck, J.R. Hoeft, our founder, editor-in-chief and a Chesapeake resident, speaks more frequently to Virginia Beach audiences than in Chesapeake. And with Forbes’ right flank most likely secure, he could hardly hope for a better entree to the 2nd district than Rigell, with his considerable political network brought to bear on his behalf.
It is also possible that Forbes could forego running in the 2nd district and instead challenge incumbent 7th district Republican Representative Dave Brat. Brat won his seat by defeating former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014, but in so doing he made a lot of political enemies. His tenure in Congress has been undistinguished as he has largely thrown a lot of rhetorical bombs but accomplished very little for his district and the Commonwealth. Henrico County Sheriff Mike Wade has already announced his candidacy against Brat for the GOP nomination, and Forbes would also be a formidable challenger if he decided to run in the 7th. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that Forbes would choose to run in the 7th over the 2nd, which is much closer to his home in Chesapeake and where he has been warmly invited to run by the outgoing incumbent.
Confusing enough? Well add to the mix the fact that all of this could disappear or be thrown into a brand new kind of disarray in an instant if the Supreme Court invalidates the district court’s lines later this summer, which is a very distinct possibility
If the Supreme Court ultimately decides that the original lines were legal and proper, which might be likely given its rulings in similar recent congressional redistricting cases, then the whole congressional shake-up discussed above (and impacting other areas of the state as well) will be undone. But, making matters about as chaotic as can be, likely before that decision by the Supreme Court will be rendered, Virginia will hold its primaries and/or conventions this spring under the district court’s redrawn lines.
So, if the Supreme Court ultimately invalidates the district court’s lines, what then? One possibility is that the parties will need to scramble to redo their respective nomination contests within the original lines drawn by the General Assembly, and everything discussed above will be erased. Forbes will once again be a safe incumbent in the 4th district, and Rigell’s 2nd district seat will be up for grabs in a more open contest between Taylor, Cardwell, possibly Ben Loyola, and possibly other candidates who are unwilling to oppose Forbes. All of that would have to be done in a panicky rush in order to have the candidates in place for the general elections in November.
It is also possible that the Supreme Court will issue a decision that would cause the lines to have to be redrawn altogether yet again in a manner different from both the General Assembly’s original lines and the district court’s lines. In such a scenario, a wide range of things could happen, not the least of which is that a new 2nd district could be formed combining Virginia Beach with Chesapeake, rather than Norfolk, as a community of interest, thereby allowing Forbes to run as an incumbent in the new district without having to move to Virginia Beach. Such entirely new lines would once again throw the Commonwealth into upheaval with a need to redo all of the nominating contests in a rush before the general election.
And if all of that isn’t enough to make your head spin, Chief Justice Roberts has been asked to stay the imposition of the new lines pending the appeal, and he hasn’t yet ruled on that request. Given that absentee ballots have already been mailed, a decision at this point to stay the new lines would add yet another level of upheaval to an already chaotic situation. (J.R. Note: deleted because absentee ballots have been mailed for the March presidential primary; not June congressional primaries)
All of this confusion and potential chaos could have been avoided if the district court had simply remembered its obligation to be a force for stability and waited for the Supreme Court to decide the case before imposing its lines on the people of the Commonwealth. We are now living the results of inexplicable judicial arrogance.
Ken Falkenstein has been a staffer in the United States Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates, and more recently he was an Associate City Attorney for the City of Virginia Beach. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach. J.R. Hoeft has been Randy Forbes’ constituent since moving to Chesapeake in 1996.
