The House of Delegates Appropriations Committee has already voted, 15–7, to move forward a bill introduced by Chair Luke Torian (D–Prince William) that would set April 21 as the date for a ballot referendum on a proposed constitutional amendment that passed through the legislature on a partisan line.

The proposed text of the amendment requires voters’ approval. It would give the General Assembly the authority to go around the state’s bipartisan independent commission — which typically redraws maps after a decennial census — if other states undergo middecade redistricting.

That condition has already been triggered, after a cascade of redistricting efforts started by President Donald Trump’s pressuring of Texas Republicans to draw maps giving the GOP five additional seats in the US House of Representatives.