Virginia Democrats Take Redistricting Battle To U.S. Supreme Court

By Markus Schmidt
Virginia Mercury

Virginia Democrats on Monday (May 11) asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive the voter-approved redistricting amendment struck down last week by the Supreme Court of Virginia, escalating the fight over the state’s congressional map to the nation’s highest court with the 2026 midterms inching closer.

In an emergency application filed with Chief Justice John Roberts, attorneys representing House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and the commonwealth of Virginia asked the court to pause the state ruling while the appeal moves forward.

The filing comes three days after Virginia’s high court ruled 4-3 that the constitutional amendment authorizing mid-decade redistricting violated procedural requirements in the Virginia Constitution and therefore could not take effect, despite being approved by voters April 21.

That decision left in place the congressional map adopted in 2021 after Virginia’s bipartisan Redistricting Commission deadlocked. The current map, approved by the court at the time, is viewed as politically balanced and currently favors Democrats in six of the state’s 11 congressional districts and Republicans in five.

The amendment would have allowed the Democratic-controlled General Assembly to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts in response to similar efforts already underway in several Republican-led states. The new maps were projected to heavily favor Democrats in as many as 10 districts.

Writing for the majority last week, Supreme Court of Virginia Justice Arthur Kelsey said the amendment process violated the Virginia Constitution because lawmakers first passed the proposal without a 90-public notice required by state law before the “next general election” took place.

The court concluded that the election included Virginia’s early-voting period, which had already begun when lawmakers first approved the amendment. The majority described partisan gerrymandering as a threat to democracy and said the constitutional violation “incurably taints” the referendum results.

Democrats now argue that the Virginia court fundamentally misread both state and federal election law.

“The Court overrode the will of the people who ratified the amendment by ordering the Commonwealth to conduct its election with the congressional districts that the people rejected,” the emergency application states.

Advertisement

Virginia’s congressional primary was recently moved from June to Aug. 4 because of the ongoing litigation.