Virginia Supreme Court Overturns Democratic Gerrymander

Virginia’s Supreme Court overturned the new congressional map passed by the state legislature and rubber-stamped by Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) on Friday.

The new map would have given Old Dominion Democrats an advantage in ten out of the state’s eleven congressional districts.

Fox News’ Bill Hemmer reported the news on Friday by noting that a referendum in support of the mid-decade redistricting effort “passed, by not by a lot,” and that the new map would have effectively, Democrats believe, made it 10-t0-1, Democrats to Republicans. I think the current figuration is 6-to-5,” before turning to Shannon Bream and asking, “Is that the end of the line for now?”

Bream replied:

It sounds like it. because this was an issue of the Virginia Constitution. It was a state law issue, and critics of this referendum have said from the beginning that Democrats were on thin ice because they did not follow procedures as outlined by state law and state constitution. And what the court ended up saying here is that violation irreparably undermined the integrity of the entire voting referendum, said it makes it null and void, and for that reason, they say the congressional district maps issued by the court in 2021, the old maps, are the ones that they’ve got to use for the upcoming congressional election.

Now, this was a state matter. Virginia’s Supreme Court, the highest court in that state — it’s a Commonwealth, I’ll remind you — made this decision. Now, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that challengers to this decision would try to find some federal hook for it to try to get to the Supreme Court to say that there is some U.S. constitutional violation in the way that this ruling was made. It’s a very tough ask, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to do it, because what have you got to lose at this point?

The ruling comes as both Republicans and Democrats scramble to carry out mid-decade redistricting projects ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Watch above via Fox News.

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