It's an attempted do-over by institutional demolition - and a huge mistake.

There is court packing, and then there is whatever this is.

After the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the Democrats’ redistricting amendment in a 4–3 decision, some on the left started looking for a workaround. 

The new idea is to retroactively change the law in order to force retirement the whole court.

The theory goes like this: Virginia’s Constitution gives the General Assembly power to set a mandatory retirement age for judges. Current law sets that age at 73. So, the argument goes, Democrats could simply lower the retirement age to 54, which just happens to be the age of the youngest justice in the majority, Stephen McCullough.

How convenient.

That would push out the entire current Supreme Court of Virginia, allow Democrats to replace the justices, and then give the new court a chance to rehear the redistricting case before the 2026 elections.

That is not judicial reform. That is court packing by another name.

Actually, it’s worse than ordinary court packing. Traditional court packing means adding seats to a court so your side can appoint more judges. This proposal would purge sitting justices by lowering the retirement age to the age of the youngest justice in the majority, then refill the court with judges expected to rule differently.

It is a plan to erase a court because of one specific 4–3 decision, replace it, and try to get a different result before November.

That should bother people whether they liked the recent redistricting ruling or not.

The court’s decision was not primarily about whether the proposed Democratic map was fair. It was not even really about whether partisan gerrymandering is good or bad. The ruling turned on process. The court said the legislature advanced the constitutional amendment in a way that violated Virginia’s own Constitution.

Democrats disagree. They say voters approved the amendment and the court should have respected that. But losing a legal argument does not give you permission to fire the court.

And this is where the proposal becomes almost comically obvious.

Fifty-four is not a normal judicial retirement age.

Virginia’s current mandatory retirement age is 73. Around the country, judicial retirement ages are usually much closer to 70 than 50. If Democrats wanted to have a serious debate about judicial tenure, term limits, or age limits, they could have one. There are perfectly reasonable arguments for making courts more accountable over time.

But nobody is going to believe this is about retirement policy.

Fifty-four, selected because it happens to remove every justice on the current court, looks less like reform and more like retaliation.

That is the whole problem. This is not a neutral rule for the future. This is a weapon aimed at a known set of judges because they issued an inconvenient ruling at an inconvenient time.

And even if Democrats somehow managed to pull this off, does anyone seriously believe the courts would look kindly on it?

This would almost certainly be challenged immediately. And while the legislature may have broad authority to set a retirement age, higher courts are not stupid. Judges understand the difference between ordinary policymaking and naked partisan machination. A court reviewing this would not have to squint very hard to see what was happening.

The public record would be full of the motive. The timing would be obvious. The number would be obvious. The target would be obvious. The purpose would be obvious.

Democrats would not be lowering the retirement age to improve the judiciary. They would be lowering it to remove the judges who just ruled against them in a redistricting case.

That is a very ugly fact pattern to defend.

Maybe they would find some clever legal theory. Maybe they would argue the constitutional text gives the legislature all the power it needs. Maybe they would say the age limit is facially neutral because it applies to everyone.

But come on.

A retirement age of 54, adopted immediately after a redistricting loss, designed to clear out the entire court and get a new ruling before an election, is not subtle. It is exactly the kind of stunt that makes courts suspicious, even when the text gives lawmakers some room to maneuver.

The timeline is also brutal.

Democrats have already filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, but that path is a long shot. The U.S. Supreme Court is usually reluctant to second-guess a state supreme court’s interpretation of its own state constitution. Meanwhile, Virginia election officials are already up against hard deadlines. The map has to be settled. Candidate filing is coming. Early voting is coming. The machinery of an election does not pause forever because one party wants another bite at the apple.

So Democrats would need to pass a new retirement law, remove the entire court, seat a new court, get the case reheard, get a new ruling, and implement a new congressional map in time for 2026.

And the bigger problem is the precedent.

If Virginia Democrats can lower the retirement age to remove a court after losing a redistricting case, then a Republican legislature can do the same thing after losing on abortion, guns, school policy, ballot access, religious liberty, or election law.

Once that norm is broken, it will not stay broken in only one direction.

Escalagion is always the danger with procedural hardball. One side convinces itself its emergency is special. Its case is different. Its opponents are so dangerous that ordinary rules no longer apply. Then, a few years later, the other side picks up the same weapon and uses it with fewer apologies.

Rinse and repeat.

Democrats are saying the court ignored the will of the voters. That is their strongest argument. Voters did approve the amendment. But constitutional procedures exist for a reason. A referendum is not magic. If the legislature had no lawful right to put the question before voters in that way, then the answer cannot fix the defect.

The better question is why Democratic leaders let this happen. Why did they wait so long? Why did they take the procedural risk? Why did they build their 2026 strategy around a redistricting plan that could be knocked out on process?

Firing the court is not democracy. It is an attempted do-over by institutional demolition. It would make Virginia’s judiciary look like just another prize to be seized after an election. It would destroy constitutional checks and balances. 

And in the long run, nobody should want to live under a system where judges keep their jobs only until the legislature dislikes their latest ruling.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)