RICHMOND — Virginia’s General Assembly, lampooned on national TV last year for a plan to require women to get a vaginal ultrasound before an abortion, has once again become fodder for late-night comedians.

Stephen Colbert named Senate Republicans his “alpha dogs of the week” Wednesday for muscling a surprise redistricting plan through the evenly divided chamber on a day when one Democrat, Henry L. Marsh III of Richmond, was absent to attend President Obama’s inauguration. Marsh is a civil rights lawyer who decades ago argued school desegregation cases and served as the Richmond’s first black mayor.

“They waited until a Democratic senator and longtime civil rights leader left town on Martin Luther King Day to attend President Obama’s inauguration,” Colbert said, prompting groans from his audience. “In the words of Dr. King, ‘I have been to the mountaintop, and while I was there, they heavily redistricted the promised land.’ ”