Virginia Democrats’ scheme to redraw congressional maps and lock in a decade of political power just hit a wall inside the state’s highest court.
And it only took one sentence.
The Supreme Court of Virginia on Tuesday denied Democrat Attorney General Jay Jones’ emergency request to certify last week’s gerrymandering vote, leaving a ruling in place by the lower courts that blocked the referendum as unconstitutional.
The ruling was unanimous: “Upon consideration whereof, the Court denies the motion.”
The special election that Democrats pushed into the national conversation and spent millions to win is now stopped dead in its tracks.
Republican Del. Wren Williams, who has been at the center of the legal fight against the redistricting push, broke down what the ruling means.
“Jay Jones’ outside counsel from California asked the Court to allow the election process to proceed pending the rulings on the merits of the gerrymandering cases,” Williams posted on X.
“The Court said ‘no.’ This stops the election from being certified for now. The same Supreme Court that allowed the referendum to go forward in March, so voters could be heard, has now declined to override a final judgment finding the constitutional amendment process defective. Strong signal that process matters in Virginia.”
It’s the latest in a series of court losses for the Democrats in the Old Dominion State. Democrats had previously used a special budget session called by then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin to ram through a mid-decade redistricting amendment last October.
After a vote on the change was held this spring, Republicans immediately challenged it in court, arguing the process was unconstitutional. Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. agreed, ruling April 22 that the referendum was unconstitutional from the start and blocked certification. Jones rushed to SCOVA seeking an emergency stay of Hurley’s ruling. The justices just said no.
If the redistricting were ultimately upheld, Virginia’s congressional delegation would shift from a 6-5 Democrat edge to an unfair 10-1 Democrat advantage, which would disenfranchise millions of Republican voters in the state. It would also potentially tip the balance of the U.S. House.
The court’s oral arguments the day before the ruling were also a bad sign for Democrats. Fox News reported that justices pressed the “Yes” camp’s lawyers far harder than Republican plaintiffs’ counsel.
Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said Democrats’ own attorney handed Republicans a gift during arguments by conceding the vote outcome “does not matter” in a legal setting. That’s a direct contradiction to AG Jones, whose defense of the referendum has been the “will of the people.”
“The current attorney general of Virginia has really in his public statements; the only defense I’ve heard him offer is the ‘will of the people’ … and his own lawyer in court today says that was irrelevant,” Cuccinelli said. “[The lawyer] completely undercut the public stance of the current attorney general.”
Cuccinelli called Tuesday’s order about as positive a development as Republicans could have hoped for at this stage.
The battle has been won by Republicans, but the war is far from over. With the 2026 primary roughly two months away, SCOVA is operating on an expedited schedule. Districts must be finalized before voters go to the polls.
Democrats are not done fighting. But for now, their gerrymander attempt is on thin ice.