On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones (D) responded to a question on the timing issues with the state’s redistricting measure by saying the judge who ruled against the measure is an activist.

Co-host Brianna Keilar asked, “[T]he judge here also said this effort violates the timing clause of Virginia’s Constitution, because voters didn’t have the 90 days between the General Assembly passing the constitutional amendment allowing this redistricting and the voters voting on it. It was signed in early February by the governor. It was passed in January. It went [in] early March for early votes, it was presented to voters. Do you disagree with that timing argument?”

Jones responded, “Well, look, again, I think that one judge, an activist judge who was engaged in this earlier –.”

Keilar then cut in to ask, “I’m not asking you about the judge. I’m asking you, really, it’s about a math problem here. It’s about a math problem. It’s the timing clause. I laid out the dates. We’re talking about facts. We’re not talking about — I know you don’t — you have disagreements with this judge, and you’re calling this judge an activist. Let’s talk about the argument here and the merits of it. Can you address that and the timing that I just laid out? He says that it needs to be 90 days because the Constitution requires it to be 90 days. The bill was passed mid-January, signed early February by Gov. Spanberger (D), submitted for early vote March 6. That’s clearly not 90 days. How do you see yourself working around that?”

Jones answered, “Well, look, this is going to be decided by the Supreme Court, and we are in the process of preparing for oral arguments here in a couple of days. And I’m really confident that, when all is said and done, the will of the people of Virginia will be upheld. Again, people came out in large numbers earlier this week, and votes are still being counted, because we accept mail ballots through Friday. And I think that you’ll see that the yes campaign, that did prevail, which is now my obligation to enforce, has a pretty strong position when it comes to the legal foundations of this. And I’m really excited. My team, they’re top flight, we have some of the best attorneys in the country, and I look forward to presenting our case in front of the Supreme Court and for those folks who are just a few blocks away from us here in Richmond to make the ultimate decision.”

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