How Virginia Democrats can retire the state Supreme Court
On Friday night, law professor Quinn Yeargain, a longtime contributor to The Downballot, was struck by an inspired idea. After the Virginia Supreme Court invalidated the April election greenlighting a new congressional map, supporters of the new districts were casting about for ways to overcome that ruling.
Quinn’s solution was brilliantly elegant. The state Constitution empowers lawmakers to set the mandatory retirement ages for judges, so why not just lower that age and immediately get an all-new Supreme Court? The Downballot rushed out a piece explaining Quinn’s proposal in detail, and it took off like wildfire.
It also prompted a lot of excellent questions. To answer them, Quinn and David Nir, the publisher of The Downballot, hopped on an impromptu livestream on Saturday evening. Among the topics they address:
- Why we proposed such a dramatic lowering of the retirement age.
- How quickly Virginia Democrats could make all this happen (preview: very).
- Why other efforts to address the Supreme Court’s ruling are either unlikely to work or can’t get deployed quickly enough.
- Why Virginia Democrats can’t simply ignore the court the way that Ohio Republicans did with their Supreme Court several years ago.
https://www.the-downballot.com/p/how-virginia-democrats-can-retire