Democrats on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in Virginia’s mid-decade redistricting fight, filing an emergency appeal aimed at stopping a state ruling that invalidated a ballot measure voters approved last month to create additional congressional districts.
The immediate trigger for the federal appeal was the Virginia Supreme Court’s Friday decision invalidating the constitutional amendment. In a 4-3 ruling, the court found that Virginia’s Democratic-controlled legislature improperly began the process of placing the amendment on the ballot after early voting had started for last fall’s general election.
In Monday’s filing, Democrats argued that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that even when early voting is underway, an election is not considered to have happened until Election Day itself. They said their position was not accepted by the Virginia Supreme Court when it struck down the measure.
The appeal asked the Supreme Court to halt the effects of the Virginia ruling while the justices consider whether to reverse it. The Supreme Court, the AP reported, generally tries to avoid second-guessing state courts’ interpretations of their own constitutions; the AP noted that in 2023 the court denied a request by North Carolina Republicans seeking to overturn a state Supreme Court decision that blocked the GOP’s congressional map.
In the emergency appeal, lawyers for Virginia Democrats and Democratic Attorney General Jay Jones argued that the state court’s approach would override the vote that had already been cast. “The Court overrode the will of the people who ratified the amendment by ordering the Commonwealth to conduct its election with the congressional districts that the people rejected,” the filing said, adding that “The irreparable harm resulting from the Supreme Court of Virginia’s decision is profound and immediate.”
Democrats framed the appeal as a last-ditch effort after the Virginia decision deprived their party of four “winnable” U.S. House seats in the mid-decade redistricting contest. The AP said Democrats remained favorites in the broader mid-decade battle, but that GOP rivals have argued they gained more than a dozen seats through redistricting, and the voter-approved Virginia map would have partly offset that.
The filing also arrives as the national redistricting competition has been reshaped by Supreme Court actions affecting voting-rights enforcement. The AP said the redistricting scramble was kicked off last year when President Donald Trump urged Republican-controlled states to redraw their lines, and that it was supercharged by a recent Supreme Court ruling that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act.
The AP further described the political backdrop as unfolding against the remaining pace of Southern redistricting battles. The Virginia amendment, Democrats argued, was launched before the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act decision, and it was intended to respond to Republican gains in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, as well as to blunt a new map in Florida that recently took effect.
As the Virginia case proceeds, the outcome could also influence how the dispute is used in broader election-year messaging. The AP said the appeal could provide Democrats—who are struggling to compete with Republicans in the unusual mid-decade redrawing of congressional districts—with material for messaging tied to a partisan Supreme Court.