Cardinal News reports:

U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt County, has launched the latest redistricting salvo, saying his campaign will “spend what it takes” to defeat the proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the Democratic-controlled General Assembly to redraw the state’s congressional lines before this fall’s midterms.

Cline, who represents the current 6th District, announced Wednesday that he’s formed a group called Stop the Gerrymander that intends to rally a get-out-the-vote-campaign against that amendment and has seeded it with an undisclosed amount of his own campaign funds.

There are already two other groups in the field urging a “no” vote, but they both seem focused on advertising campaigns. Cline said his group would be different because “ours is exclusively focused on ground game GOTV.” In campaign parlance, that stands for get out the vote — the operational details of identifying likely supporters and then getting them to the polls.

…..

To run the campaign, Stop the Gerrymander has hired John Pudner, a Wisconsin-based political operative who was active with surrogate groups for the Donald Trump campaign in that state in 2024 (Wisconsin voted for Trump that year).

Helping Trump to carry Wisconsin in 2024 by less than 1 percent of the vote was a far different task than winning in Virginia in 2026– less than a year after Democrat Abigail Spanberger was elected governor by a 15-point margin.

Some important background: If voters approve the redistricting amendment on April 21, Virginia’s 6th District, which Cline currently represents, will be redrawn to make it more likely that a Democratic candidate can win in this year’s election. In addition, Cline’s home county of Botetourt would move from the 6th District to the 9th District, currently represented by his fellow Republican Morgan Griffith. (Virginia law allows candidates to run in districts where they don’t live. If Cline wants to run in the 6th District without moving, he could do so.)

On his campaign Facebook page, Cline posted a link to the Cardinal’s article, along with this:

Cline has never objected to the mid-decade gerrymandering that Donald Trump told Republicans in Texas and other states to undertake in an effort to win more seats in Congress and prevent a Democratic majority. Why didn’t he consider that to be an unconstitutional effort to steal Congressional seats and disenfranchise voters?

I think we know the answer.

If Cline was serious about preventing partisan gerrymandering, he would have supported the For the People Act, which would have restricted it nationwide. Of course he opposed it.

Sorry, Congressman. Once again, your outrage at Democrats is nakedly partisan and selective.

You and your fellow Republicans don’t get to play by one set of rules and demand that Democrats play by another.