Virginia\u2019s top court on Friday struck down a congressional map drawn by Democrats and recently approved by voters, dealing a major blow to the party as it struggles to keep pace with Republicans in the nation\u2019s redistricting battle.<\/p>\n
The ruling will wipe out four newly drawn Democratic-leaning U.S. House districts in Virginia and means that Republicans will enter the midterm elections with a structural advantage from their moves to carve out more red districts across the country.<\/p>\n
Congressional maps have for generations been drawn once a decade, after the census, to account for population shifts. But last year, President Trump started a rare, mid-decade gerrymandering war when he persuaded Texas officials to draw a new map to help Republicans as they face midterm headwinds. California countered with a map favoring Democrats. Other red and blue states followed.<\/p>\n
After the Virginia map passed in a statewide referendum<\/a> late last month, Democrats thought that they had battled Republicans to a draw, or that they had even eked out a small advantage. Then a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court<\/a> prompted several Southern states to work to pass new maps, which will favor Republicans.<\/p>\n Now, the rejection of the new Virginia map means that across the country, Democrats stand to lose half a dozen safe seats, and possibly more, from redistricting alone. <\/p>\n Still, Republicans face a challenging political environment in their bid to retain control of their slim House majority, including worries about the economy, the unpopular war with Iran, high gas prices and Mr. Trump\u2019s sagging approval ratings.<\/p>\n In its 4-to-3 decision, the Virginia Supreme Court wrote that Democratic legislators had violated the state\u2019s constitution with their move to enact a new map meant to give their party 10 out of the state\u2019s 11 U.S. House seats, up from the six it currently controls. Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment to allow for the map in a referendum. <\/p>\n The problem, the court\u2019s majority suggested, was that the first vote on the amendment in the General Assembly, which would authorize Democrats to redraw the map, occurred days before last fall\u2019s legislative elections \u2014 meaning that some Virginians who cast their ballots early did so without knowing how their state lawmakers would vote on the new map.<\/p>\n That, the justices wrote, violated the process in the State Constitution.<\/p>\n \u201cThis constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy,\u201d the majority wrote.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump and Republicans celebrated the decision.<\/p>\n \u201cHuge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia,\u201d the president posted on his social media site.<\/p>\n Democrats seemed despondent over the decision after eight months and nearly $70 million invested in passing the referendum.<\/p>\n Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House minority leader, who lobbied Virginia legislators to advance their redistricting push and then campaigned for the referendum, said that \u201cthe decision to overturn an entire election is an unprecedented and undemocratic action that cannot stand.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cWe are exploring all options to overturn this shocking decision.\u201d<\/p>\n What those options are was not clear in the immediate aftermath of the decision. <\/p>\n Some legal experts believe that the Virginia Supreme Court\u2019s ruling may be the final word on the state\u2019s maps before the election. That is because the case involved a state law challenge about whether state lawmakers had followed rules laid out in the Virginia Constitution, not a question of federal law or the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, said in a statement that \u201cI am disappointed by the Supreme Court of Virginia\u2019s ruling, but my focus as governor will be on ensuring that all voters have the information necessary to make their voices heard this November.\u201d <\/p>\n Since the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s ruling late last month that further weakened the Voting Rights Act, Republicans in Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana have taken steps to draw new maps before the midterms. Those efforts could net Republicans a handful of additional safe seats before voters cast a ballot in November. South Carolina is also exploring a new map before November.<\/p>\n While Democrats have themselves grown more ruthless about gerrymandering, they are broadly struggling to keep up.<\/p>\n In part that is because years ago, some Democratic-controlled states like Virginia installed independent commissions to oversee their map-drawing process in an effort to insulate it from politics. But Republicans kept the power in state legislatures, allowing states like Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Missouri to enact partisan maps with few logistical hurdles.<\/p>\n