Supreme Court docket is dying knell for Virginia’s redistricting effort : NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court docket refused Friday to permit Virginia to make use of a brand new congressional map that favored Democrats in all however one of many state’s U.S. Home seats. The map was a key a part of Democrats’ effort to counter the Republican redistricting wave set off by President Trump.

The brand new map was drawn by Democrats and authorized by Virginia voters in an April referendum. However on Might 8, the Supreme Court docket of Virginia in a 4-to-3 vote declared the referendum, and by extension the brand new map, null and void as a result of lawmakers didn’t comply with the right procedures to get the difficulty on the poll, violating the state structure.

Virginia Democrats and the state’s legal professional basic then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court docket, looking for to implement the map authorized by the voters, which yields 4 extra seemingly Democratic congressional seats. Of their emergency software, they argued the Virginia Supreme Court docket was “deeply mistaken” in its resolution on “vital problems with federal legislation with profound sensible significance to the Nation.” Additional, they asserted the choice “overrode the desire of the folks” by ordering Virginia to “conduct its election with the congressional districts that the folks rejected.”

Republican legislators countered that it could be improper for the U.S. Supreme Court docket to wade right into a purely state legislation controversy — particularly because the Democrats had not raised any federal claims within the decrease courtroom.

Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court docket sided with Republicans with out clarification leaving in place the state courtroom ruling that voided the Democratic-friendly maps.

The courtroom’s resolution to not intervene was its newest in emergency requests for intervention on redistricting points. In December, the excessive courtroom OK’d Texas utilizing a gerrymandered map that might assist the GOP win 5 extra seats within the U.S. Home. In February, the courtroom allowed California to make use of a voter-approved, Democratic-friendly map, adopted to offset Texas’s map. Then in March, the U.S. Supreme Court docket blocked the redrawing of a New York map anticipated to flip a Republican congressional district Democratic.

And maybe most significantly, in April, the excessive courtroom dominated {that a} Louisiana congressional map was a racial gerrymander and should be redrawn. That call instantly set off a flurry of redistricting efforts, notably within the South, the place Republican legislators instantly started redrawing congressional maps to get rid of lengthy established majority Black and Hispanic districts.