Virginia asks Supreme Court to reinstate pro-Democrat map

Virginia’s Democratic attorney general asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to intervene in a redistricting dispute that could flip four House seats and reshape the state’s congressional delegation, seeking to revive a map that would give Democrats an advantage in 10 of the commonwealth’s 11 districts.

The emergency application, filed by Attorney General Jay Jones, follows a 4-3 ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court that invalidated a constitutional amendment voters approved in April by a margin of roughly three percentage points. That amendment would have authorized a nonpartisan commission to draw new congressional lines, replacing the current map imposed by the state courts after the 2020 census. More than 1.2 million Virginians voted on the measure, making it one of the highest-turnout off-year constitutional referenda in state history.

Under the existing court-drawn map, Democrats hold six of Virginia’s 11 seats and Republicans hold five — a split that roughly tracks the state’s competitive political character in recent elections. The revised map Jones is asking the justices to reinstate would tilt that balance dramatically, putting Democrats in position to win 10 seats while leaving Republicans with a single safe district. It represents one of the largest single-state redistricting swings in the current cycle: a net shift of four seats from competitive or Republican-leaning to Democratic-favored.

The state court’s ruling, Jones argues, was “deeply mistaken on two critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.” He contends the Virginia justices exceeded their authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution by striking down a duly enacted state constitutional amendment. And the timing compounds the error — the decision arrived weeks before Virginia must begin printing ballots, configuring voting machines, and assigning precincts for the 2026 midterm elections.

This Court’s intervention is necessary, the application states, because the ruling “overthrows a democratic outcome just days before the Commonwealth must begin its preparations to administer the 2026 midterm election.” Candidate filing deadlines open in June. County election boards across the state’s 133 localities cannot finalize their administrative plans without certainty on district boundaries. Ballot design, precinct assignments, and voter roll verification all depend on knowing which district each address falls in. A four-seat swing would also have immediate consequences for control of the narrowly divided U.S. House, where Republicans currently hold a 221-214 majority and every seat is on the ballot in November. A ruling favorable to Virginia Democrats could shift the national math in a chamber where the margin for error is already razor-thin.

The Virginia Supreme Court’s majority held that the amendment’s redistricting criteria — compactness, contiguity, and respect for communities of interest — were unconstitutionally vague and that it improperly delegated legislative authority to an unelected commission. Three justices dissented.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency applications from the Fourth Circuit, has not indicated whether he will refer the matter to the full court or act on the application himself. The Court directed Virginia Republicans to file a response by Wednesday, signaling at least preliminary interest in resolving the question on an expedited basis. But the justices have shown mixed appetite for intervening in state-level redistricting disputes on their emergency docket — a procedural track that bypasses the usual rounds of briefing and oral argument.