Supreme Court Rejects Virginia Democrats’ Request to Intervene in Gerrymander Scheme
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has rejected a request from Virginia Democrats for the nation’s high court to intervene after the Virginia Supreme Court ruled to strike down a proposed gerrymander that would have redrawn the state’s congressional map in favor of Democrats.
In an order issued Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection prompted “no dissent,” NBC News reported.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) responded to the rejection by saying the Court had “joined the Virginia Supreme Court in choosing to overturn an election.”
“The United States Supreme Court has joined the Virginia Supreme Court in choosing to overturn an election and the votes of more than three million Virginians,” Spanberger said. wrote in an article on
SCOTUS’ rejection came after Democrats such as Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones (D) and Virginia Solicitor General Tillman Breckenbridge issued an emergency request Monday for a stay of the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision.
In their filing, Virginia Democrats argued that the state Supreme Court got “profoundly wrong on two crucial questions of federal law.” The first critical issue is that the Virginia Supreme Court had “based its interpretation” of the state Constitution on a “serious misinterpretation of federal law”:
The officials continued to assert that the Virginia Supreme Court “mistaken profoundly on two crucial issues of federal law,” one being that it “based its interpretation” of the state Constitution on a “serious and erroneous interpretation of federal law” that Election Day was “a single day.” The second was that the Virginia Supreme Court had “appropriated to itself the power vested in the state legislature to regulate federal elections.”
Virginia Democrats’ request for Supreme Court intervention came after the Virginia Supreme Court issued a 4-3 decision finding that the “legislative process” used to pass the state’s redistricting referendum violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution.
“On March 6, 2026, the Virginia General Assembly submitted to the voters of Virginia a proposed constitutional amendment authorizing partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts in the Commonwealth,” the court said. “We believe that the legislative process used to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution.”
In its decision, the Virginia Supreme Court also explained that “the General Assembly must vote twice in favor of a proposed amendment in two separate legislative sessions, with an intervening election of the House of Delegates.”
The Virginia Supreme Court’s decision came after Virginia residents voted in favor of the redistricting referendum, which would have flipped Virginia’s current congressional districts from 6-5 to 10-1 in favor of Democrats.
