Virginia Democrats on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive the voter-approved redistricting amendment struck down last week by the Supreme Court of Virginia, escalating the fight over the state’s congressional map to the nation’s highest court. In an emergency application filed with Chief Justice John Roberts, attorneys representing House Speaker Don Scott, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, and the commonwealth of Virginia asked the court to pause the state ruling while the appeal moves forward.
Democrats are asking the court to immediately freeze the Virginia ruling and keep the new congressional maps in place while the justices consider the case. Virginia election officials must finalize ballot orders by May 28 so that absentee ballots for military and overseas voters can go out by June 18, ahead of the August congressional primaries. A filing from Virginia’s commissioner of elections Steven Koski stated the department would need to begin making changes by May 12 to be ready in time.
Democrats argue the Virginia Supreme Court violated federal law in two separate ways. First, they say the court predicated its interpretation of the Virginia Constitution on a “grave misreading of federal law, which expressly fixes a single day for the ‘election’ of Representatives and Delegates to Congress,” arguing that early voting does not constitute an “election” under federal law, and that Election Day is when votes are counted, not when they are cast. Second, Democrats accused the Virginia Supreme Court of exceeding its constitutional role by effectively rewriting the Virginia Constitution, arguing the court “defied the combined sovereignty of the people of the Commonwealth who ratified the 1971 Constitution, two General Assemblies who passed the amendment, and the people who ratified the amendment in 2026.”
The 4-3 majority opinion, authored by Justice Arthur D. Kelsey, found the process violated the intervening-election requirement, noting that voting in the 2025 House of Delegates general election began September 19, 2025, and by the time the General Assembly voted on October 31 to propose the amendment, about 40% of voters or more than 1.3 million Virginians had already cast their ballots, depriving them of the opportunity to weigh the redistricting issue when choosing their delegates.
Constitutional law professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond said the appeal faces “significant practical and legal obstacles, particularly this late in the court’s term and so close to the 2026 elections,” adding that “the justices are often reluctant to rule on voting disputes as elections approach” and that SCOTUS “may also be reluctant to second-guess the interpretation of Virginia’s Constitution by a 4-3 majority of the Virginia Supreme Court justices.”
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