April 2, 2026 Editor, The News-Gazette: I take this personally. Anyone who votes “yes” in this referendum is acting to take away my right to proportional representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. It is a personal affront … in addition to being dishonest, unfair, punitive, and discriminatory. Even the wording of the proposal is meant to obfuscate and confuse the voter. And in the case of friends of different political persuasion, it’s placing politics above friendship, as it purposefully harms others to purse a political end.
There may be reverse equivalents of disenfranchisement in Virginia, but I’m unaware of them. Well, except maybe laws like the “poll tax,” “literacy tests,” and such, which were once deployed by Virginia Democrats … then to eliminate the voting strength of Blacks, whereas the “end” now being pursued is to eliminate the voting strength of conservatives. Regrettably, the federal Voting Rights Act, which criminalized those types of Jim Crowe laws, doesn’t extend to Republicans.
TDS sufferers have lost their moral code in this instance. Notably, nothing like this was tried when the Republican Party held the majorities in Richmond.
We can only hope that our state Supreme Court will rule this abomination as being unconstitutional. LARRY C. WIESE Rockbridge County
