By M Dowling
Virginia officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the referendum, usurping their own court, and it will fail. Their other big idea was to fire the justices, and they can’t do that either.
Virginia Democrats wanted to lower the retirement ages of Virginia Supreme Court justices so they could fire them. They can’t unilaterally do that. Justices are elected by the full General Assembly (both chambers) for 12-year terms by statute. The Virginia Constitution (Article VI, Section 9) empowers the General Assembly to set the age. They set it at 73 years.
Additionally, Scott Surovell, the majority leader of the Virginia State Senate, told The New Republic that time has run out.
Yet Surovell insisted in an interview with The New Republic that the plan is unworkable. He cited a May 12 deadline set by the state Department of Elections for having congressional maps entered into the state’s election system. That’s necessary in order to be prepared for the congressional primaries set for August 1, for which early voting starts in mid-June.
That May 12 deadline would not leave enough time to execute the end run, Surovell said. The tactic would involve state legislative votes lowering the retirement age for judges, followed by a new hearing of the case and other associated procedural arcana.
In a revelation that will dismay a lot of Democrats, the problem appears to be that the voting system has not been updated recently enough to make faster entry of the new maps possible (it’s currently being updated). If this ends up costing Democrats the House—which is unlikely but not impossible—the recriminations will be severe.