The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year's midterm elections. The court ruled that the state's Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court's ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless. "This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void," the court said in its opinion, per the AP.
Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional US House seats under Virginia's redrawn US House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent US Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged Republicans' congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year's midterm elections. Virginia is currently represented in the US House by six Democrats and five Republicans who were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts could have given Democrats an improved chance to win all but one of the state's 11 congressional seats.
The state Supreme Court's seven justices are appointed by the state legislature, which has toggled back and forth between Democratic, Republican, and split control over recent years. Legal experts say the body doesn't have a set ideological profile. The case before the court focused not on the shape of the new districts but rather on the process the General Assembly used to authorize them.
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