WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Virginia\u2019s bid to restore a congressional map that would have given Democrats a chance to pick up four seats in the closely divided House of Representatives.<\/p>\n
The court\u2019s order, issued without any noted dissent, is the latest twist in the nation\u2019s mid-decade redistricting competition<\/a>. It was kicked off last year by President Donald Trump urging Republican-controlled states<\/a> to redraw their lines and was supercharged by a recent Supreme Court ruling<\/a> severely weakening the Voting Rights Act that opened up even more winnable seats for the GOP.<\/p>\n In recent days, the justices have sided with Republicans in Alabama and Louisiana who hope to redo their congressional maps to produce more GOP-leaning seats following the court\u2019s voting rights decision. <\/p>\n But the Virginia situation was different, stemming from a 4-3 ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court that struck down<\/a> a constitutional amendment that voters narrowly passed<\/a> just last month. <\/p>\n The state court found that the Democratic-controlled legislature improperly began the process of placing the amendment on the ballot after early voting had begun in Virginia\u2019s general election last fall.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court typically doesn\u2019t intervene in state court proceedings unless they present an issue of federal law. Virginia Democrats had hoped to persuade the justices that the Virginia court misread federal law and Supreme Court precedent that hold that, even if early voting is underway, an election does not happen until Election Day itself.<\/p>\n Virginia\u2019s amendment had been intended as a response to Republican gains in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and to blunt a new map in Florida that just became law. Once the Virginia amendment passed, it briefly turned the nationwide redistricting scramble into a draw between the two parties.<\/p>\n That was unraveled by the Virginia Supreme Court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n The state\u2019s attorney general, Democrat Jay Jones, slammed the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s decision, saying it was another example of what he described as a national attack on voting rights and the rule of law.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s be clear about what is happening. Donald Trump, Republican state legislatures, and conservative courts are systematically and unabashedly tilting power away from the people for Trump\u2019s political gain,\u201d Jones said in a statement issued late Friday night.<\/p>\n The state\u2019s top Democrats had disagreed about whether it was even too late for help from the Supreme Court. \u201cTime grows short, but it is not yet too late,\u201d lawyers for the Democratic leaders of the legislature as well as the state told the justices in a brief filed Friday.<\/p>\n A day earlier, the office of Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger already had confirmed that the state will hold this year\u2019s elections under the current districts established in 2021. Last month, Virginia Commissioner of Elections Steve Koski said a court order was needed by this past Tuesday to set the district lines for primary elections on Aug. 4.<\/p>\n Spanberger reacted to Friday\u2019s decision by saying both courts had nullified the votes of the more than 3 million Virginians who cast ballots in the April 21 special election.<\/p>\n \u201cThese Virginians made their voices heard \u2014 casting their ballots in good faith to push back against a President who said he\u2019s \u2018entitled\u2019 to more seats in Congress before voters go to the polls,\u201d she posted on her X account.<\/p>\n The leader of the state Republican Party said the justices made the right call.<\/p>\n \u201cWisely, the Supreme Court of the United States has confirmed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia,\u201d state party chairman Jeff Ryer said. \u201cThis should once and for all put to rest the Democrats\u2019 effort to disenfranchise half of Virginia.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press writer Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Virginia\u2019s bid to restore a congressional map that would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[362,3508,56,38,286,50,8,15585,11482,9,67,2058,17877,7,363,54,365,921,11478,3077,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-29335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-2026-elections","9":"tag-abigail-spanberger","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-jay-jones","16":"tag-jeff-ryer","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-redistricting","20":"tag-steve-koski","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","23":"tag-u-s-news","24":"tag-u-s-republican-party","25":"tag-virginia","26":"tag-virginia-state-government","27":"tag-voting-rights","28":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116582248722975926","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}