Monday was redistricting day in court.
The Virginia Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on the legality of a constitutional amendment voters approved last week that allows Democrats to implement a more favorable congressional map ahead of the midterm elections.
Attorneys for the Democrats in the case were peppered with tough questions by the justices, signaling some skepticism of their arguments.
Republicans have challenged the process in several court cases, arguing that the Democratic-controlled legislature made procedural errors in putting the amendment on the ballot, which in turn invalidates the results of Tuesday’s special election.
To amend the constitution, lawmakers must pass an amendment in two consecutive legislative sessions with an election in between. Republicans have argued that Democrats first passed the amendment when early voting had already begun ahead of Virginia’s 2025 elections, meaning they failed to meet that requirement.
Democrats have said that Election Day itself, not the start of early voting, is the key date and that voters had plenty of time to educate themselves on the issue.
“If we’re talking about the purpose of protecting the people’s vote and protecting the people’s ability to weigh in, then I feel like it would be patently unfair to override the people’s vote because of a concern that they had not gotten the opportunity to voice their opinion months earlier,” Virginia Solicitor General Tillman Breckenridge said in court.
“What is your position — your client’s position — regarding a constitutional amendment that is adopted at 6 p.m. on Election Day with an hour left at the polls? Is that the next general, is that still the next general election?” one justice asked.
Breckenridge said the state’s position is that the amendment must come before Election Day, not on it.
Earlier this year, the Virginia Supreme Court had permitted the special election to take place, but reserved the right to rule on the merits of the case at a later date. Voters approved the redistricting referendum by 3 points.
See here for the background. On the AmicusPlus podcast last week (for SlatePlus subscribers), Mark Joseph Stern criticized the Republican arguments as being weak and expected the VA Supreme Court to uphold the map; the fact that they didn’t block it in the first place was the key tell, he said. I presume they will rule quickly one way or the other. The conventional wisdom right now is that the Great Redistricting Wars of 2025-26 at best a draw for Trump and Republicans, with a nontrivial chance that Dems could end up netting more seats out of the exercise than the GOP. That’s subject to this court ruling and whatever happens in Florida, which may yet take a crack at squeezing a couple more red districts out of their map, which comes with some downside risk since their map is already pretty skewed towards Republicans. The voters will eventually get a say as well, and then the likely demise of the Voting Rights Act will force us all to go through this again for 2028…it’s all quite exhausting. As I say in the post above, we could choose to do something about this.
There is other litigation in Virginia as well.
A Virginia circuit court has refused to block the implementation of Democrats’ new congressional map, which voters approved in a statewide special election last week.
The order comes in one of several Republican lawsuits aiming to overturn redistricting in the state.
In February, the Virginia legislature passed a new congressional map, contingent on voter approval, in an effort to counteract President Donald Trump’s push to use unprecedented mid-decade gerrymanders in GOP-led states to give Republicans an advantage in the 2026 midterm election. The new map could give Democrats up to four more seats in Congress.
In the lawsuit in question, the Republican National Committee (RNC) alleged that the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature exceeded its authority when it passed a constitutional amendment on redistricting. The RNC also argued that Democrats’ proposed “10-1 map” did not comply with compactness requirements under the state constitution. They asked the court to grant a preliminary injunction blocking the map’s use.
But the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond concluded that the Virginia General Assembly indeed had plenary authority to pass such legislation. It also found that, while the new map was less compact than its predecessor, the issue of compactness was “fairly debatable” and the RNC’s claim was unlikely to succeed.
“Many a tradition and law has been laid down in the advancement of a national quest for political power, and the winds that will blow cannot yet be known. Nonetheless, this Court knows its role is clear. It is not to assess the wisdom of public policy nor to engage in policy making from the bench,” Judge Tracy Thorne-Begland wrote in his order. “Instead, it is to decide if those with whom we have entrusted power have exercised that power in conformance with their constitutional mandate. On this question, the Court’s answer is in the affirmative.”
Significantly, the court also declined to overrule the will of Virginia voters.
“Millions of Virginians voted in an election,” Thorne-Begland wrote. “On the issues raised before this Court, in these early stages of the proceedings, the evidence suggests the election and the proceedings leading to it were conducted in conformance with the applicable constitutional and legal principles and controlling authorities. As such it is in the public interests to allow the amendment to take effect. Granting the extraordinary relief requested would imperil the public interests.”
That’s a federal case, and that Democracy Docket story was the first I’d heard of it. Seems clear that the real action is in the state courthouse, but you never know. I’ll keep an eye on all this.