State Supreme Court strikes down redistricting amendment

In a major victory for Republicans, the Virginia Supreme Court on May 8 struck down a constitutional amendment on congressional redistricting narrowly passed by voters on April 21.

The measure would have allowed the Democrats to flip four seats in the House of Representatives – with the ultimate goal of giving Democrats control over the House.

The 4-3 Supreme Court ruling found the amendment put forth by Democratic legislators violated the state’s constitution. The majority opinion states, “This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void.”

Related story: Virginia approves redistricting amendment

Virginia’s constitutional amendment had been proposed in response to redistricting measures approved in other states favoring Republicans. Other GOP-led states are in the process of following suit before the November mid-term elections.

Several Democratic candidates have already launched congressional campaigns in Virginia’s redrawn districts. However, now that the Supreme Court has struck down the redistricting measure, the existing districts remain in effect.

The majority opinion affirms a ruling by a judge in rural Tazewell County who had agreed with Republican challenges that the General Assembly failed to follow the requirement that a constitutional amendment must be passed twice by the General Assembly, with an intervening election between those votes, before a referendum goes to voters.

The court based its ruling on whether 45 days of early voting is considered part of the required intervening election.

Related story: Another candidate joins the race for Congress

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones released the following statement: “This decision silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots in every corner of the Commonwealth, and it fuels the growing fears across our nation about the state of our democracy.”

“This constitutional amendment process and voter ratification occurred in a timely, constitutionally compliant, and legally sound manner,” Jones said. “The Republican-led majority of the Supreme Court of Virginia contorted the plain language of the Constitution and Code of Virginia to give it a meaning that was never intended, which allowed them to reach the wrong legal conclusion that fit their political agenda. . . . This Court’s ruling follows a dangerous trend of tilting power away from the people.”

Jones said his team is “evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia’s elections.”

Sen. Lamont Bagby, chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia, called the decision by the Republican majority on the state Supreme Court “a grave miscarriage of justice in our Commonwealth” that will “prevent the will of voters from being heard in the midterms.”

“All across the south, by order of the President of the United States, and encouraged by the United States Supreme Court,” Bagby said, “MAGA governors are ripping up Black and Brown districts in an effort to tear control of our politics from the people and rest it in the hands of power-hungry politicians who seek to enrich themselves and strip us of our right to self-determination at the ballot box.”

“Four unelected justices used semantics to justify a partisan decision that threw out the votes of three million Virginians, something that has never happened in the history of our Commonwealth,” said Rep. Don Beyer.

“Americans today are overwhelmingly fed up with a lawless President and his allies who have turned Congress and state legislatures into rubber stamps for his whims,” Beyer said. “The people of this great country are furious with this President’s illegal wars and illegal tariffs, which are wrecking their family finances and raising prices to ruinous heights. Trump and his Republican allies have chosen to respond to their unpopularity, not by improving their policies, but by trying to rig elections and our political system to insulate their power and shield themselves from the will of the people.”