Richmond, Va., April 27 — The Virginia Supreme Court on Monday weighed a challenge to the process used to create new U.S. House districts that voters approved last week, with justices pressing arguments over whether the legislature complied with the state constitution. The case carries high stakes for the balance of power in the U.S. House because the new districts could shift seats in a way that benefits Democrats.
The court heard arguments after Virginia’s Democratic-led legislature and its supporters relied on a voter-approved constitutional amendment to permit mid-decade redistricting. Republicans are asking the court to block the plan by invalidating the amendment, arguing that lawmakers broke procedural rules when they advanced the constitutional change to voters.
The justices focused on the amendment process that runs through two legislative sessions separated by an intervening election. Because the redistricting commission itself was created by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the congressional districts, and they used the state’s two-step process to place that amendment on the ballot.
During Monday’s arguments, court questions zeroed in on whether lawmakers acted too late when they took the first vote in the earlier legislative session. The first vote occurred last October while early voting was underway but before early voting concluded on election day, according to the arguments described in court coverage.
Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, told the court that the term “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that framing, the legislature’s first vote happened before the election and therefore met the constitution’s requirements, he said.
In contrast, plaintiffs’ attorney Thomas McCarthy argued that “election” means the entire voting period during which people can cast ballots, which he said lasts several weeks in Virginia. Under that broader definition, McCarthy said, the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to satisfy the constitution.
McCarthy also argued that the purpose of Virginia’s two-step amendment process, with a vote in between, is to give voters a clear choice about whether legislative candidates support or oppose a proposed constitutional amendment. He raised the example of Democratic voter Camilla Simon, a plaintiff in the lawsuit who voted early last fall for Democratic state Del. Rodney Willett and then watched Willett sponsor the Democratic redistricting amendment after her vote, the court heard.
“None of these voters had any idea this was coming, and that’s not how this process is supposed to work,” McCarthy told the justices, as court coverage described it. The attorney defending the Democratic redistricting plan argued that the voters approved the constitutional amendment and that the challengers are asking the court to undo that result, according to reporting after the arguments.
After the hearing, Seligman told reporters that “the people voted to ratify the constitutional amendment,” and he said the challengers seek to overturn what he described as a democratic outcome. The court issued no immediate ruling on Monday.
The legal fight in Virginia is part of a broader, national redistricting battle in which Republicans and Democrats have pursued different mapmaking approaches ahead of the November midterms. Both parties, according to reporting, believe they could gain seats through revised districts in multiple states, even as courts continue to weigh challenges.
Virginia’s current delegation in the U.S. House includes six Democrats and five Republicans chosen from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map following the 2020 census. The new districts approved by voters last week could improve Democrats’ chances in additional districts.
In the meantime, some candidates have begun campaigning based on the new districts ahead of Virginia’s Aug. 4 primary election, while additional litigation continues to move through the courts. In January, a judge in Tazewell County ruled that lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session last fall, and he also said the amendment was invalid because lawmakers did not initially approve it before the public began voting and did not publish it three months before the election as required.
The Virginia Supreme Court placed that ruling on hold, allowing the redistricting vote to proceed while the justices heard arguments. During Monday’s session, justices also raised questions about lawmakers’ authority to expand the special-session agenda and about whether the three-month public notice requirement was significant enough to defeat a voter-approved amendment.
The case continues amid additional legal challenges filed by Republicans, with more matters winding through Virginia’s courts as the midterms approach. The court’s decision will determine whether the voter-approved U.S. House map takes effect as planned—at a moment when redistricting disputes have become a recurring lever in state-level fights that reverberate nationally.