RICHMOND, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Virginia voters will decide whether to back a redrawn district map that favors Democrats in the tit-for-tat battle for the U.S. House after the Senate advanced a proposed constitutional amendment on Friday that supports mid-decade congressional redistricting, one of four constitutional amendments going to voters this coming spring.

Such a congressional map has not been publicly released, though lawmakers say that will change by the end of the month. Officials have repeatedly vowed that voters would see a proposed map before the referendum is held, likely in April.

“Because this is a Virginian-led process and we’re asking for their permission, voters will be able to see the maps prior to their vote,” Democratic Del. Cia Price said Wednesday.

The Senate also approved three other Constitutional amendments passed by the House on Wednesday. One enshrines marriage equity rights into the Commonwealth, one protects access to reproductive care, including abortions, and one restores voting rights for convicted felons who have completed their sentences.

The closely divided state Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority, voted along party lines on Friday afternoon, following a similar vote by House Democrats earlier this week.

Trump teed up an unusual redistricting plan last year and pushed Texas Republicans to create more favorable districts for the party by way of new congressional maps. That triggered something of a mid-decade redistricting dogfight.

Since then, Texas, Missouri and North Carolina all approved new Republican-friendly House districts. Ohio also enacted a more favorable House map for Republicans.

On the Democratic side, California voters approved new House districts helping Democrats, and a Utah judge adopted a new House map that benefits Democrats.

There have been some defections in the nationwide redistricting battle: Kansas Republicans dropped plans for a special session on redistricting. Indiana’s Republican-led Senate also defeated a plan that could have helped the GOP win all of the state’s U.S. House seats.

It’s still up in the air as to whether new maps will be created in other states, such as Republican-leaning Florida, and Democratic-led Illinois and Maryland.

The redistricting battle has resulted, so far, in nine more seats that Republicans believe they can win and six more seats that Democrats think they can win, putting the GOP up by three. However, redistricting is being litigated in several states, and there is no guarantee that the parties will win the seats they have redrawn.

In Virginia, the redistricting resolution sparked raucous debate among lawmakers on the merits of gerrymandering a battleground state known to have independent voters, particularly after a recent years-long push for fair maps in the state.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell said when Republican-led states “rig elections in their favor, our commitment to fairness that we made — that our voters made — effectively becomes unilateral disarmament.”

Virginia Republicans have admonished Democrats’ redistricting efforts, arguing gerrymandering isn’t the answer. Republican Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle said, “Republicans in Indiana stood up to political pressure and said, ‘We’re not going to play these political games.’ And they stopped.”

The state currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who ran in districts whose boundaries were imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the census.

That commission came about following a 2020 referendum, in which voters supported a change to the state’s constitution aimed at ending legislative gerrymandering.

The new proposed constitutional amendment, if backed by voters, would only be in effect until 2030. The resolution also has trigger language, meaning Virginia lawmakers can only redraw congressional maps if such action is taken by other states.

In January, Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger backed Democrats’ redistricting effort but has not committed to a particular plan.

“Ultimately, it’s up to the people of Virginia to choose whether or not to move forward with the referendum,” she said.

More than 11 years after the first same-sex couples were married in Charlottesville, the General Assembly has passed the right for consenting adults to marry as one of four new amendments.

Soon-to-be ex-northern Virginia Delegate and soon-to-be state Finance Secretary Mark Sickles is one of the patrons of the marriage amendment.

“I have the happiness amendment,” Sickles told the House Privileges and Elections Committee Wednesday. “We’ve got people on both sides who’ve supported marriage equality, we’ve had it realistically and legally for 11 years and nobody’s straight marriage has been harmed by it.”

Todd Gathje with the Family Foundation opposed the repeal saying, “Marriage is the union of two biological opposites, a male and a female, man and woman, for the purpose of procreation and raising children.”

The amendments also include the automatic restoration of voting rights to felons who have completed their time served and the right to reproductive freedom.

Virginia’s status as the only state in the union that does not automatically restore voting rights after someone who has committed a felony has served their time is the impetus for Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker’s (D-Alexandria)  amendment.

She said the current system of the Governor making the sole decision on which felons get their right restored is arbitrary and needs to change.

Opponents argued that rights should not be restored to felons who have not completed paying restitution for their crimes.

House Majority Leader Charneille Herring (D-Alexandria) is patron of the reproductive rights amendment.

Del. Jay Leftwich (R-Chesapeake) questioned whether the amendment would eliminate requirements for parental notification for minors, or totally pre-empt and call into state code regulation third trimester abortions.

“I think those state codes that prevent that will be challenged and the court will have no choice but to interpret this amendment that way and rule in that manner,” Leftwich opined.

Herring said, “We are not touching the code and the law stands the way that it is.”

“And it’s up to the legislature to decide if they want to change anything, so what is required right now which was read by the delegate will still be required if this constitutional amendment should pass,” Herring said.

University of Virginia politics professor Larry Sabato told Cville Right Now those amendments, no offices, will be all voters will see on the ballot in April.

“What I don’t yet know, other than the final map lines, is whether filing deadlines and the primary day in mid-June will be delayed, and if so, until when,” Sabato wrote in an email.