Democrats Keep Accepting Losses They Don't Have to Accept - Jamelle Bouie [View all]

Virginia voters passed a redistricting referendum last month that would have reduced Republicans to a single congressional seat in the state. Then the Virginia Supreme Court threw it out — on a technicality.

Nobody thinks the court would have ruled the same way if Republicans had won. The court said earlier in the year the referendum could proceed. They only decided it was illegitimate after seeing the results.

Democrats in Virginia — including the House speaker and Governor Spanberger — responded by accepting the ruling. That's the wrong call. Three million people voted. A court of four cannot erase that. The right answer is the one Republicans in Ohio and Florida have already demonstrated: you make your ruling, you enforce it yourself. Anything less is unilateral disarmament — and Democrats who won't fight on those terms should find another line of work.