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The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday invalidated a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, handing Republicans a major victory in the nationwide fight for control of the U.S. House.
In a 4-3 decision, the court found that Virginia’s Democratic-led legislature failed to follow constitutional procedures when placing a mid-decade redistricting amendment on the ballot. Voters narrowly approved the measure on April 21, but the ruling nullifies that result.
Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote for the majority that lawmakers had submitted the amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” Kelsey wrote.
Democrats hoped the new map would help them capture as many as four additional House seats, countering Republican-led redistricting in other states encouraged by President Donald Trump.
Trump celebrated the decision on social media as a “Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia.”
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson described it as another sign of Republican momentum before the midterm elections.
“We’re on offense, and we’re going to win,” Hudson said.
Virginia House Speaker Don Scott said Democrats respected the ruling but criticized the court for overturning the voters’ decision. He said supporters approved the amendment because they wanted to resist what he called “the Trump power grab.”
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairwoman Suzan DelBene also accused the majority of disregarding voters’ wishes. She said Virginians would have another opportunity to make their voices heard in November and predicted they would help Democrats regain the House majority.
Democrats Face an Uphill Appeal
Democrats are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Virginia decision, though such an appeal faces long odds. The nation’s highest court generally avoids overriding state courts on questions involving their own constitutions.
In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an effort by North Carolina Republicans to overturn a state Supreme Court ruling that had blocked a GOP congressional map.
Even if the Virginia appeal fails, Democrats could use the case to focus criticism on the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority. The party and civil rights organizations were already angered by a recent decision that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act.
Together, the Virginia ruling and the Voting Rights Act decision strengthen Republicans’ redistricting advantage entering the midterms.
Congressional districts are ordinarily redrawn once every decade after the census. That pattern changed after Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw their map in hopes of gaining several House seats and protecting the party’s narrow majority.
California responded by adopting voter-approved districts favoring Democrats, while Utah’s highest court imposed a map that also benefits the party. Republicans could gain seats from maps adopted in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. The Voting Rights Act ruling has also led other Republican-led states to consider new maps before this year’s elections.
Virginia’s current House delegation consists of six Democrats and five Republicans. Those members were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan commission failed to agree on a map following the 2020 census.
The now-invalidated map could have improved Democrats’ chances of winning 10 of Virginia’s 11 seats. The court majority criticized the effort to draw districts for one party’s benefit, noting that Republican congressional candidates received 47% of Virginia’s vote in 2024 while Democrats could have secured 91% of the state’s House delegation under the proposed map.
How the Democratic Map Would Have Worked
The Democratic plan would have anchored five districts in heavily Democratic Northern Virginia.
Changes to four districts around Richmond, Southern Virginia and Hampton Roads would have reduced the influence of conservative voting blocs. Another redesigned district in Western Virginia would have combined three Democratic-leaning college towns to counterbalance Republican voters elsewhere in the district.
Virginia Supreme Court justices are appointed by the General Assembly, where control has shifted among Democrats, Republicans and divided government in recent years. Legal experts do not consider the court to have a consistent ideological identity.
The case centered on how lawmakers authorized the map, not the configuration of its districts.
Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting commission was created through a voter-approved constitutional amendment. To bypass that system and redraw districts, lawmakers had to propose another amendment.
The state Constitution required the proposal to pass during two separate legislative sessions with a state election between them before it could be presented to voters.
Lawmakers first approved the amendment last October, after early voting in the general election had begun but before Election Day. They voted for it again after a new legislative session opened in January. In February, they passed separate legislation establishing the new districts, contingent on voters approving the amendment.
Early Voting Became the Decisive Issue
Arguments before the court turned on the meaning of the word “election” and whether lawmakers acted too late because Virginians were already voting.
Matthew Seligman, an attorney defending Democratic legislators, argued that the term should refer specifically to the Tuesday designated as Election Day. Under that interpretation, the General Assembly’s first vote occurred before the election and complied with the Constitution.
The majority rejected that reading, saying it appeared to be unprecedented in Virginia history.
Thomas McCarthy, an attorney for the plaintiffs, argued that an election includes the entire period when ballots may be cast. Early voting in Virginia lasts several weeks, meaning lawmakers first endorsed the amendment after the relevant election had already started.
The Supreme Court agreed. It found that the General Assembly passed the proposed amendment for the first time well after voting began in the 2025 general election.
More than 1.3 million ballots had already been cast by then, representing about 40% of the election’s eventual total, according to the court.
Friday’s decision upheld an earlier ruling from a judge in Tazewell County in southwestern Virginia. The state Supreme Court had temporarily paused that decision, allowing the April 21 referendum to proceed before hearing arguments.
Chief Justice Cleo Powell dissented, arguing that the early-voting period should not count as part of the election when determining whether lawmakers properly advanced the amendment.
“The majority’s definition creates an infinite voting loop that appears to have no established beginning,” Powell wrote, “only a definitive end: Election Day.”