A Virginia judge granted the Republican National Committee a temporary restraining order that halts Virginia Democrats’ gerrymandering efforts to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the upcoming midterms.

Confirmed this also https://t.co/kWctDXHY9E

— Brandon Jarvis (@Jaaavis) February 19, 2026

As The Federalist’s Breccan Thies reported on the proposed constitutional amendment, Virginia Democrats are “rigging the statewide vote … with proposed ballot language that euphemistically describes the lopsided redistricting map as a plan ‘to restore fairness.’”

The ballot question asks voters whether the state Constitution should “be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”

As Thies explained, the redistricting measure would virtually ensure that Virginia has 10 Democrat representatives in the U.S. House and only one Republican. Currently there are five Republican congressmen from Virginia, along with six Democrats. Notably, nearly half of Virginians (more than two million) supported Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, and yet “fewer than 800,000 will be properly represented in Congress under the new map,” Thies reported.

Hurley previously ruled Virginia Democrats’ efforts to gerrymander the state ahead of November’s midterms ran afoul of state law, but the state’s Supreme Court greenlit Democrats’ efforts and overturned the lower court ruling in February. The high court’s swift reversal of Hurley’s previous ruling raises the question of how long his Thursday ruling will stand.

The RNC lawsuit alleged, in part, that the ballot question “presents ‘an entirely different question’ than the General Assembly’s joint resolution proposing the amendment.”

“It fails to inform Virginia voters that the ‘proposed constitutional revision results in the loss or restriction of an independent fundamental state right.’ … It does not tell Virginia voters that the proposed amendment that they are considering strips them of their constitutional right to a nonpartisan redistricting process.”

The lawsuit also alleged that in order for a constitutional amendment to be put before voters, “majorities in both legislative houses” must “vote in favor of a proposed amendment twice — with an intervening election in between” before the General Assembly is allowed to”submit such proposed amendment” to “the voters.” The suit argues that the measure was not properly adopted according to such rules and is an “abuse of power” because it “trampl[es] on the ‘procedural rights of the minority’ of the General Assembly.” Further, Democrats passed the measure “in violation of the rules of the House of Delegates,” the suit says.

The RNC further argued that the court previously held the “General Assembly proposed a constitutional amendment to allow for mid-decade partisan redistricting in violation of the careful constitution-making process that the people of Virginia established.”

The suit also noted a potential issue with early voting beginning on March 6, 2026. According to the lawsuit, state law requires a minimum 90-day period between the General Assembly approving the measure a second time and the measure being put before voters. Notably, March 6 is not 90 days “after final passage by the General Assembly,” as the suit pointed out. Final passage took place on Jan. 16, and therefore the suit alleged that the “earliest that voting can begin [on the amendment] is April 16, 2026.”

Additionally, the RNC told the court that HB 1384 is unconstitutional because “it combines multiple objects in a single piece of legislation.” The state constitution stipulates that “no law shall embrace more than one object, which shall be expressed in its title.” The suit alleged that Democrats crammed several proposals into one bill. The RNC said such grouping renders the entire bill “null and void” because it unconstitutionally “embrace[s] more than one object.”

“Virginia Democrats are trying to ram through an illegal redistricting scheme that a court has already called a blatant abuse of power,” said RNC Chairman Joe Gruters. “Despite nearly half of Virginians supporting President Trump, Abigail Spanberger and Democrats are working to silence voters and lock in permanent political control. They’re ignoring the state Constitution, misleading voters, and rushing a sham election. The RNC is stepping in to stop this power grab and defend Virginia voters who would be effectively disenfranchised by Democrats.”

Public pressure for the Senate to take up and pass the SAVE America Act, the Republican authored and promoted bill that will require voter ID and proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in our federal elections, has advanced to the point that an unlikely body has actually taken notice of the effort: the Senate itself.

Ensconced in six-year terms that are offset from the pressures of presidential elections, protected by rules and norms that in most circumstances require 60 out of 100 senators (that is to say, requiring some partisan crossover) to proceed to the point where a simple majority can pass a bill, and slowed by a consideration of one another’s personal time that borders on obscene, the Senate is often a bystander to its own functions.

Recent “innovations,” the various nukings and counter-nukings of rules that will be the enduring legacy of the Reid/Jentleson-McConnell/Stewart era, have further estranged the Senate from its purpose. Non-appropriations bills or bills that otherwise authorize and move hundreds of billions of dollars are relegated to “messaging” or “show-vote” status at best, or, more often, outright ignored. To paraphrase former Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA), if a bill doesn’t service the great donor spreadsheet in the sky, it doesn’t move. It is in this context that we should understand the debate in Republican circles about the revival of the talking filibuster.

To resolve any confusion:

Invoking the talking filibuster does *not* require any change to any Senate rule—just the use of existing rules & procedures that often go unused (see the video)

We don’t have to do it on every bill, but we must do it here—to pass the SAVE America Act… https://t.co/Oyy4b2S9GX pic.twitter.com/4Z2hZXFACW

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) February 18, 2026

The first argument is one that masquerades as prudence, in Kimberley Strassel’s social media response to Rachel Bovard’s Federalist piece highlighting the flaws in Strassel’s arguments against the resuscitation of the talking filibuster. After all but conceding that her technical understanding of what was at stake was fatally flawed, Strassel states, “My piece is a foretelling of how this will more likely play out — which spoils the party punch.” To wit, Strassel does not believe that Senate Republicans will be able to hold together to force debate, act in concert against Democratic amendments to preserve the underlying bill, make effective arguments in their own defense, and deliver to 50 votes in favor that the co-sponsorship of the SAVE America Act suggests exist.

That is a bold pronouncement against the leadership ability of Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, and President Trump for a start. But all senators should be offended that it is an acceptable professional parlor game to count their noses before the debate has begun. “They can’t because they won’t” may or may not turn out to be true. Presented as a reason to not take action, however, it points to an unacknowledged part of Bovard’s argument that deserves more attention, as it seeks to remedy the core of the problem in the Senate.

Bovard writes, “A talking filibuster — using the Senate as it was designed — provides a catharsis that may, in fact, reduce the pressure to ‘nuke’ the filibuster as the country is able to witness the chamber openly deliberate and negotiate on the issues that matter to them.”

That catharsis could prove more vital to our institutions than the SAVE America Act itself. Even senators that never experienced a pre-nuclear Senate know that something is wrong in their chamber. They have powers that they are all but forbidden to use. Their policy ideas are shelved without their consent. They not only cannot solve the biggest problems of the day, but they often are also unable to even discuss them in a legislative context. Doing the textbook version of their jobs, with the public pressure to provide results, would produce that rarest of things in our contemporary politics — a bona fide legitimate result. I differ with many of my colleagues in the conservative movement about the overall efficacy and desirability of legislative debate in achieving our goals. However, a culture of debate undoubtedly has the potential to produce its own norms and scramble factional and partisan plans. For those who have made a cottage industry of warning in dread tones about the pernicious influence of populism and creeping impulses towards imperialism, this new way forward should have at least some appeal.

When a longtime veteran of the institution is pleading for this catharsis, for the return of relevance to the institution, it should not be lightly dismissed. The talking filibuster is worth trying. It is worth failure and success. It is worth a public accounting of whether this Senate, in this moment, for this American people, can deliver on its duties.

“emphasise the importance of the full recognition of trans women as women, noting that their inclusion is essential for the effectiveness of any gender-equality and anti-violence policies; call for recognition of and equal access for trans women to protection and support… pic.twitter.com/3HMXquue9D

— Genevieve Gluck (@WomenReadWomen) February 12, 2026

NOW – EU Parliament votes to accept a report, that calls for "the full recognition of trans women as women" as part of the EU priorities for the UN CSW on "women’s rights and gender equality." pic.twitter.com/mMLLLelfL8

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) February 12, 2026

There was no vote on whether a gender-confused woman is a man. There is a very simple reason for this. Trans ideology is a wholesale assault upon the feminine. When trans ideology metastasizes in policy and practice, women pay the price. As Kara Dansky boldly noted in her important book, The Abolition of Sex, “‘[T]ransgender’ is simply a made-up concept … used to justify all kinds of atrocities” against women. “It is, in effect a men’s rights movement intended to objectify women’s bodies and erase us as a class.” She correctly adds, “It is left-wing misogyny on steroids.”

The EU proved her right. But it gets even crazier.

Dem Änderungsantrag mit dem Inhalt, „dass nur biologische Frauen schwanger werden können“, stimmen 200 EU-Abgeordnete zu, während 233 ihn ablehnen, bei 107 Enthaltungen - damit abgelehnt. Ein Irrenhaus. pic.twitter.com/CppSyGmUjD

— Tomasz Froelich (@TomaszFroelich) February 13, 2026

Do not miss the irony that these two votes were cast as the EU’s priorities for the 70^th session on the UN Commission on the Status of Women. “Women” now meaning anything you want it to mean. The EU’s priority is erasing the meaning of women and human fertility across these 27 member countries and the United Nations.

This vote has no binding rule of law in any nation. But it will be highly influential in each of these nations and beyond. As investigative reporter Gerald Posner explains, “Language adopted at this stage often migrates — from guidance, to funding priorities, to regulatory expectation.” Posner explains:

When legislators decline to state who can become pregnant, they are not merely broadening inclusion. They are signaling that biology itself is negotiable in statutory language.

Indeed, a society that publicly demonstrates, then celebrates, its inability to define male and female, as well as the nature of human fertility, is certainly doing so much more. No one forgot what any seven-year-old well knows. Just like the abortion industrial complex, they celebrate because they are deliberately striking at the foundation of the goodness of ordered creation and life itself. You do not have to have a keen spiritual sense to appreciate the demonic nature of it all.

Subverting Life

“Women’s health care” and “gender-affirming care” both mutilate the body of the vulnerable young and thwart natural fertility. They issue from a spirit of death and deception. This is what last week’s EU vote was about and why the parliamentarians’ celebration of it properly strikes us as ghoulish. They redefined into oblivion that which gives life.

Women and girls throughout the world should be furious. Men should be as well, on their behalf. I am, for the feminine dignity of my wife and my four amazing daughters. It is now the official policy of the EU that woman no longer holds any objective meaning. It is a title to be fully claimed by any man. Their new understanding of equality demands it. As such, pregnancy has no feminine virtue or ontological truth. And do not miss that if a man can be a woman, manhood ceases to exist as well.

Trans ideology is a poison deliberately attacking that which is most true and beautiful in humanity. It leads only to death, confusion, and sterilization. Ask the detransitioner who now suffers from lies told under the deception of false compassion. It is diabolical.

Reject and Repudiate

This is why everything having to do with “trans” must be unapologetically rejected and repudiated. Comprehensively excised from human language and practice. No one should ever think they are being kind when using “gender pronouns.” They are the introductory catechism for this new pagan religion.

Always refuse to participate, and do so like you mean it. Your courage will be contagious and the lie will crumble away. Never feel compelled to pretend that being “trans” is something real and must be respected with compassion. It is not a medical or psychological diagnosis. It is a false ideology manifest only in an assertion. It is why LGBTQ identity mushroomed overnight. It is never compassionate to play along with a lie.

The EU Parliament has done great harm here. This is far more than progressive virtue signaling. We hear warnings of transhumanism. EU leaders have delivered this by defining away the objective reality of humanity as male and female. Its pernicious ripples will radiate beyond their Strasbourg auditorium, throughout the United Nations, and countless illiberal European nations, — into your community, which is already inundated with trans deception.

The only antidote is to stand against it, unmask its deception, and denounce it at every turn.