The Virginia Supreme Court comes through on redistricting
Well, well, well:
Democrats in Virginia looked to pick up four congressional seats by a partisan gerrymandered map that passed the legislature and went to a referendum where it passed by a couple of points. Now the Virginia Supreme Court has stricken the referendum as not having followed Virginia constitutional requirements.
From the Opinion:
On March 6, 2026, the General Assembly of Virginia submitted to Virginia voters a proposed constitutional amendment that authorizes partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts in the Commonwealth. We hold that the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia. This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy.
Gerrymandering for political reasons is legal, but violating the procedural requirements in the state constitution is not. The Virginia Court did not base the ruling on the deficiencies in the wording of the referendum, which had been another possibility.
The upshot of the entire redistricting effort in Virginia is that the Democrats spent oodles of money – reported as eighty million dollars – on this, all to no avail. Between this and the recent SCOTUS decision on racial gerrymandering, the Democrats are not happy campers.
Although it seems to me that the procedural violations were egregious and obvious, the ruling was only 4-3. But we’ll take it.
This result could have been handed down prior to the election, but the Virginia Supreme Court decided to let the referendum proceed and rule on it after that. I had thought this meant there was a good chance that they wouldn’t have the courage to overrule it after it passed, but I’m happy to report that was not the case. The GOP was ready post-referendum to fight it, and they prevailed.
The RNC was criticized for not trying to match the Dems on spending for this amendment battle. Looks like they won the gamble.
It certainly was a bait and switch, but then every Democrat/ Marxist scam usually is.
Bet they haven’t given up though.
Oh, I’m sure they’ll try again, but not for this election cycle.
Kate:
Hopefully, by the time they try again they won’t control the Virginia legislature.
What’s the chance one or more VA Supreme Court Justices suffers Arkancide in the next fortnight?
I wonder if the 51-49 results made it just a little easier to overturn it. Listening to the “they overturned the will of the people” seems pretty weak when the map gave a 10-1 advantage to a 2% advantage.
“Although it seems to me that the procedural violations were egregious and obvious, the ruling was only 4-3. But we’ll take it.”
There’s no “seems” about it, the procedural violations were egregious, obvious and numerous. That 3 partisan hacks voted in favor of letting that attempt at disenfranchisement stand reveals nothing less than judicial malfeasance.
I haven’t followed it closely so what were the procedural violations?
Marisa, as I understand it: Virginia law requires a proposed amendment to be passed by the legislature and then submitted to voters with one general election occurring between the proposal and its being submitted to voters. This amendment was passed by the legislature in late October 2025, just a few days before the November 2025 general election. The SC ruled that, because early voting had been underway for several weeks and about 40% of Virginians had already voted at the time the resolution was passed, it was not “before” the election. Therefore, it could only be voted on in a referendum after another general election, i.e., after the one coming up in November 2026.
I have to agree that allowing something like eight weeks of early voting and then claiming the “election” is only on the final election day is not right.
Post at Ann Althouse’s blog that explains the process
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2026/05/in-its-4-to-3-opinion-virginia-supreme.html
“Before voters weigh in on an amendment to the State Constitution, the General Assembly must approve it twice, with an election for the state’s House of Delegates taking place between the two votes. The first vote for this amendment was on Oct. 31, just days before the state election.”
I believe they also violated a provision of the legislative rules that requires a vote to modify the agenda of the special session during which the amendment was originally passed. Not sure if that came up in the lawsuit though.
@ GB: “That 3 partisan hacks voted in favor of letting that attempt at disenfranchisement stand reveals nothing less than judicial malfeasance.”
I had the same thought.
If the procedure was “egregious and obvious”, then 3 state SC judges should be facing some form of impeachment or reprimand for judicial misdemeanors of some sort. If it proceeds as due to “excessive partisanship” that is still a suitable political remedy.
GB and R2L, re: the 3 VA partisan hacks on Virginia’s supreme court:
Yes! The epitome of malfeasance!
Those judges do deserve impeachment!
States need to start holding them accountable, finally. At every level.
( And similar fond thoughts for “Justice” Ketanji Brown Jackson. )
Hostile rhetoric by the likes of Hakeem Jeffries was ominous, post-ruling.
The Dems do not lose graciously.
I don’t expect their fight for Virginia midterms is over.
Their “by any means necessary” rule s a permanent, thriving threat.
Tripling down on election fraud is “possible to likely”.
“3 state SC judges should be facing some form of impeachment or reprimand for judicial misdemeanors of some sort.”
“Those judges do deserve impeachment!
States need to start holding them accountable”
Held accountable by whom? The entire state government is now controlled by the Dems and unless and until vote integrity laws pass (good luck with that), that will continue.
The very people who would be required to “hold them accountable” are the ones who illegally tried to push the gerrymander through.
It’s much more likely that the Virginia government will try to manufacture ways to impeach the four who voted for the rule of law so they can be replaced by judges with a more…flexible…view of the purpose of the courts.
I actually thought (hoped) it might go this way. We’re very lucky that the dems haven’t had their stranglehold long enough to have packed the VA Supreme Court with political activists….yet.
”It’s much more likely that the Virginia government will try to manufacture ways to impeach the four who voted for the rule of law so they can be replaced by judges with a more…flexible…view of the purpose of the courts.”
That’s almost exactly what the Democrats intend to do. I think it was the New York Times that reported that the Democrats are putting together legislation to lower the retirement age for justices on the Virginia Supreme Court to 53, effective immediately. The youngest current justice is 54, so all seven justices would be immediately forced to retire.
The Democrats would then appoint seven new justices who who would agree to overturn the previous redistricting decision (although they probably wouldn’t stop there). They apparently plan to have all of this done this week.
The backup plan is to just ignore the ruling and run the elections with their preferred districts regardless of who or which court objects. One way or another they intend to send ten Democrats to Congress next year.