Virginia Democrats suffered a major setback Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to restore a voter-approved congressional redistricting plan that Virginia’s highest court had struck down.
In a brief, unsigned order, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency bid from Democratic leaders seeking to reinstate new congressional maps designed to favor Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections.
The decision leaves intact a ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court that invalidated the constitutional amendment underpinning the map.
The dispute stems from a controversial push by Virginia Democrats to redraw congressional boundaries mid-decade in response to Republican-led redistricting efforts in states such as Texas, Florida, and North Carolina.
Virginia redistricting map
The proposed Virginia map would have dramatically reshaped the state’s congressional balance, replacing the current relatively competitive 6-5 partisan split with what the Virginia Supreme Court described as an expected 10-1 Democratic advantage.
Although voters in the state approved the amendment in an April referendum, the state Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, ruled that lawmakers violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution during the amendment process.
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Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey said the legislature failed to comply with constitutional requirements governing how amendments must be proposed and timed before being submitted to voters.
“The constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy,” the court wrote.
At the center of the case was whether lawmakers improperly advanced the amendment after early voting for the 2025 House of Delegates elections had already begun — potentially denying voters a meaningful opportunity to weigh the proposal when choosing legislators.
The court argued that Virginia’s constitution intentionally requires a lengthy amendment process to prevent “hasty changes” to the state’s foundational law.
“Constitutions should not be changed lightly,” the ruling stated, emphasizing that voters must have a genuine intervening election period between legislative approvals of constitutional amendments.
Submissions
Democrats argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Virginia court’s decision disenfranchised voters who had already approved the amendment in a statewide referendum.
“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,” Democratic leaders wrote in their emergency appeal.
Virginia Republicans countered that the case centered entirely on state constitutional procedure — an area where the U.S. Supreme Court rarely intervenes.
Friday’s order keeps Virginia’s existing court-drawn congressional map in place for the November 2026 elections.
The case is part of a broader nationwide battle over congressional boundaries ahead of the midterms. Republicans have aggressively pursued new maps in states including Texas, Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina, while Democrats responded with redistricting efforts in California and Virginia.
The Supreme Court has already allowed new maps in Texas and California to proceed despite partisan criticism from both sides.
Also, the Virginia Supreme Court’s opinion contained unusually sharp language condemning partisan gerrymandering itself, describing it as a threat that “undermines democracy itself.”
The ruling repeatedly referenced Virginia’s earlier bipartisan reforms aimed at reducing partisan influence in redistricting after voters approved the creation of the Virginia Redistricting Commission in 2020.
The court noted that the state’s current congressional maps, adopted after a bipartisan deadlock in 2021, had been widely praised by nonpartisan analysts as among the fairest in the country.
While the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene effectively ends Democrats’ emergency effort, the broader national fight over congressional maps is expected to intensify as both parties compete for control of the House in November.
