Virginia Dems file emergency petition with SCOTUS to allow gerrymandered map after state court blocked it as 'unconstitutional'

( Post Millennial )

Virginia Democrats have filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States after Virginia’s high court blocked a redistricting effort from taking effect, deeming it unconstitutional. 

A redistricting effort in the state had narrowly passed in an April election. The map would have made it so the state's makeup in the House would be 10 Democrats and one Republican, up from the current makeup, which is six Democrats and five Republicans. The state's Supreme Court struck down the map, ruling that Democratic lawmakers violated procedural rules when they got the constitutional amendment on the ballot. 

"We hold that the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia. This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy," the court ruled.

In the appeal to the Supreme Court, Virginia Democrat leaders argued that a stay in the case was warranted "because the decision by the Supreme Court of Virginia is deeply mistaken on two critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation." They wrote that the decision "violates federal law" because the court "predicated its interpretation of the Virginia Constitution on a grave misreading of federal law, which expressly fixes a single day for the 'election’ of Representatives and Delegates to Congress," and that "by rejecting the plain text of the Virginia Constitution’s definition of the term 'election' to adopt its own contrary meaning, the Supreme Court of Virginia 'transgressed the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that it arrogated to itself the power vested in the state legislature to regulate federal elections.'"

"The irreparable harm resulting from the Supreme Court of Virginia’s decision is profound and immediate. By forcing the Commonwealth to conduct its congressional elections using districts different from those adopted by the General Assembly pursuant to a constitutional amendment the people just ratified, the Supreme Court of Virginia has deprived voters, candidates, and the Commonwealth of their right to the lawfully enacted congressional districts," the appeal states. 

The Virginia Supreme Court’s decision "amounts to judicial defiance of the Commonwealth’s Constitution and the statutes enacted by the General Assembly lawfully establishing congressional districts to be used in the upcoming 2026 election," they argued.