Supreme Court rejects Va. Democrats’ attempt to revive gerrymandered election map
The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal by Virginia Democrats to revive a new redistricting election map that the state high court had struck down.
In April, a slight majority of voters in Virginia approved an amendment to create a temporary redistricted map that created congressional districts that heavily favored Democrats.
In an order issued Friday, however, the Supreme Court declined without comment to hear an appeal in the case of Don Scott et. al. v. Ryan T. McDougle et al.
The order allows a decision by the Virginia Supreme Court against the map to stand, leaving the state with its current congressional map that is roughly equal among Democrats and Republicans.
With the congressional midterms months away, about 51% of Virginia voters approved an amendment that sought to temporarily alter the state map’s 11 congressional districts.
At present, Virginia congressional districts are about equal, with six favoring Democrats while five favored Republicans. Under the amendment, the map would be redrawn to have 10 districts that favored Democrats and one that favored Republicans.
Supporters of the amendment argued that it was a fair response to efforts by Republicans in other states, especially Texas, to enact state congressional maps to favor the GOP.
Critics of the amendment argued that the new map unfairly marginalized Republican voters and gave too much representation to Virginia’s more liberal northern counties, especially Fairfax.
The amendment had the backing of Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger, as well as former President Barack Obama, who appeared in ads calling on people to approve the measure.
Earlier this month, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the amendment violated the state constitution, namely the intervening-election requirement, in which the state legislature must approve a constitutional amendment in one session and then approve it against in another session, with an election in between, before it goes before voters.
"In other words, under the Commonwealth’s view, the four-day period (which included a
weekend) was the 'intervening' period during which Virginia voters could find out what the
proposed amendment actually said, whether their preferred candidate supported or opposed it, and whether they wanted to use their vote to express a view on the subject," wrote Justice Arthur Kelsey for the majority. "This view appears to be wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history."
