The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected Virginia’s request to restore a mid-decade congressional map that Democrats said could help them pick up four seats in the House. The court issued its order without noting a dissent, leaving the dispute resolved in a way that Virginia Democrats said effectively eliminated the impact of ballots cast in April.
The case grew out of a redistricting effort that has repeatedly played out across the country since President Donald Trump urged Republican-controlled states to redraw their congressional lines. In recent months, the mid-decade redistricting battle has also accelerated after a Supreme Court ruling weakened the Voting Rights Act, prompting states to pursue new maps that Democrats have said would increase Republicans’ electoral advantage.
Virginia’s fight, however, turned on a different issue than the Voting Rights Act arguments in several other states. The dispute stemmed from a 4-3 ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court that struck down a constitutional amendment voters narrowly approved last month. The state court said Democrats in the Virginia legislature improperly began the amendment process after early voting had begun in the state’s general election last fall.
Virginia Democrats had urged the U.S. Supreme Court to step in, arguing that the Virginia Supreme Court misread federal law and Supreme Court precedent. They pointed to the principle they said holds that, even with early voting already underway, an election does not occur until Election Day itself, according to the account in court filings summarized in the AP report.
Virginia’s amendment was framed as a response to Republican gains in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and to the effect of a new Florida map that had just become law. Before the Virginia Supreme Court ruling, the amendment’s passage briefly shifted the broader national redistricting scramble into what Democrats described as a two-party contest, the AP report said; that shift was undone once the state court nullified the amendment process.
Even after the Supreme Court rejected Virginia’s request, the state’s election timeline continued under existing boundaries. Spanberger confirmed a day earlier that Virginia would hold this year’s elections under the current districts established in 2021. Last month, Elections Commissioner Steve Koski said a court order was needed by that past Tuesday to set district lines for primary elections scheduled for Aug. 4.
Spanberger reacted to Friday’s decision by saying both courts had nullified the votes of more than 3 million Virginians who cast ballots in an April 21 special election. “These Virginians made their voices heard — casting their ballots in good faith to push back against a President who said he’s ‘entitled’ to more seats in Congress before voters go to the polls,” Spanberger said in a post on X, according to the AP account.
In a late Friday night statement, Jay Jones condemned the Supreme Court’s decision, calling it another example of what he described as a national attack on voting rights and the rule of law. “Let’s be clear about what is happening. Donald Trump, Republican state legislatures, and conservative courts are systematically and unabashedly tilting power away from the people for Trump’s political gain,” Jones said.
State Republicans welcomed the outcome. Jeff Ryer, the Republican party chairman, said in a statement that the Supreme Court had confirmed the Virginia Supreme Court’s judgment and that it “should once and for all put to rest the Democrats’ effort to disenfranchise half of Virginia.”