Republican legislators urge justices to leave Virginia Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling in place

Legal professionals for a bunch of Republican legislators (together with an election official and two registered voters) urged the U.S. Supreme Courtroom on Thursday afternoon to depart in place a ruling by the Virginia Supreme Courtroom which struck down an modification to that state’s structure permitting the Virginia Common Meeting to enact a brand new congressional map. Calling the request to pause the state supreme courtroom’s ruling “extraordinary,” the legislators burdened that the case concerned “state courts making use of state legislation to carry state actors accountable.”

The 15-page submitting got here simply three days after the state’s legal professional common, Jay Jones, and different Virginia Democrats requested the justices to dam the state supreme courtroom’s determination and permit the state to make use of the brand new map, which is predicted to strongly favor Democrats, within the 2026 elections.

The Virginia Common Meeting had adopted the brand new map in February of this yr, as a part of the continuing effort by states throughout the nation to provide one political celebration or the opposite a bonus within the U.S. Home of Representatives. However earlier than the state may really use the map, it wanted the state’s voters to approve an modification to the Virginia structure that will give the Common Meeting the facility to attract a brand new congressional map outdoors of the traditional cycle following the decennial census. Voters permitted that modification in April by a margin of round three proportion factors.

A divided Virginia Supreme Courtroom invalidated the modification on Could 8. It dominated that as a result of the Common Meeting had not adopted correct procedures when it put the brand new modification on the poll, the referendum was not legitimate. Particularly, the bulk reasoned, below the state structure the Common Meeting should approve a proposed modification to the structure throughout two completely different legislative periods, which have to be separated by an election to the Common Meeting’s Home of Delegates. However on this case, the bulk stated, greater than 1.3 million votes had already been forged by the point the Common Meeting first voted on the modification on Oct. 31, 2025, and thus “the Common Meeting handed the proposed constitutional modification for the primary time effectively after voters had begun casting ballots through the 2025 common election.”

Jones and the Virginia Democrats defending the Common Meeting’s actions got here to the Supreme Courtroom on Monday, asking the justices to intervene. They contended that the dispute implicates “two crucial problems with federal legislation” – particularly, the which means of the time period “election” below federal legislation, and the concept the state courtroom so “impermissibly transgressed the strange bounds of judicial evaluation” that its ruling ought to be reversed. Furthermore, they added, the Virginia Supreme Courtroom’s ruling “overthrows [a] democratic consequence simply days earlier than the Commonwealth should start its preparations to manage the 2026 midterm election.”

Of their submitting on Thursday afternoon, the Republican legislators countered that it’s too late for the Supreme Courtroom to intervene now as a result of Jones had “‘identifie[d] Could 12 as the purpose of no return’ for on-the-ground election preparations.” Certainly, they famous, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger has now indicated that Virginia won’t use the 2026 map within the upcoming elections.

The Supreme Courtroom must also go away the Virginia Supreme Courtroom’s ruling in place, the legislators continued, since Jones and the Democrats didn’t make any of their arguments primarily based on federal legislation till they reached the Supreme Courtroom. As a result of they “by no means raised federal claims beneath,” the legislators contended, “[t]he Virginia Supreme Courtroom didn’t resolve any. This Courtroom shouldn’t take into account them for the primary time.”

Advisable Quotation: Amy Howe, Republican legislators urge justices to depart Virginia Supreme Courtroom’s redistricting ruling in place, SCOTUSblog (Could. 14, 2026, 9:38 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/05/republican-legislators-urge-justices-to-leave-virginia-supreme-courts-redistricting-ruling-in-pl/