The Supreme Court docket on Friday night turned down a request by Virginia’s lawyer basic and different Virginia Democrats to permit the state to make use of a brand new congressional map, which might have been anticipated to strongly favor Democrats, within the 2026 elections.
The denial got here in a brief, unsigned order despatched to reporters at 6:30 p.m. EDT on Friday – simply quarter-hour after the court docket’s Public Data Workplace distributed the reply filed by Jay Jones, the Virginia lawyer basic, and Democratic legislators.
There have been no public dissents from the order. The results of the court docket’s order are seemingly comparatively minimal, as a result of Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger had already indicated earlier this week that the state wouldn’t use the 2026 map within the upcoming elections.
Jones and the opposite Virginia Democrats came to the Supreme Court on Monday, asking the justices to dam a Could 8 ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court docket that invalidated an modification to the Virginia Structure permitting the state’s Legislature to enact a brand new congressional map.
The Virginia Common Meeting had adopted the brand new map in February. However earlier than the state may truly use the map, it wanted the state’s voters to approve an modification to the Virginia structure that might give the Common Meeting the ability to attract a brand new congressional map exterior of the conventional cycle following the decennial census. In April, voters approved an amendment to the state’s structure that gave the Common Meeting the ability to take action. However, a divided Virginia Supreme Court docket struck that amendment down on the bottom that the Legislature had not adopted the right procedures when it put the brand new modification on the poll. The bulk defined that underneath the state structure, the Legislature should approve a proposed modification to the structure throughout two totally different legislative periods, which have to be separated by an election to the Common Meeting’s Home of Delegates. Though the Legislature had voted on the proposed modification for the primary time on Oct. 31, 2025, the bulk mentioned, greater than 1.3 million votes had already been forged by then – and, subsequently, “the Common Meeting handed the proposed constitutional modification for the primary time properly after voters had begun casting ballots in the course of the 2025 basic election.”
Of their submitting on Monday asking the justices to step in, Jay and the Virginia Democrats argued that the Virginia Supreme Court docket’s ruling “overthrows [a] democratic end result simply days earlier than the Commonwealth should start its preparations to manage the 2026 midterm election.” Furthermore, they contended, the dispute implicates “two crucial problems with federal regulation” – the which means of the time period “election” underneath federal regulation, and the concept the state court docket so “impermissibly transgressed the odd bounds of judicial overview” that its ruling must be reversed.
The Republican legislators (together with an election official and two particular person voters) who challenged the brand new map countered that the request to dam the state supreme court docket’s ruling was “extraordinary.” They emphasised that the case concerned “state courts making use of state regulation to carry state actors accountable” – and is thus not one wherein the U.S. Supreme Court docket ought to intervene. To the extent that Jones and the Democrats now argue that the case entails federal points, they added, the U.S. Supreme Court docket shouldn’t think about them as a result of they didn’t elevate these points till they reached the Supreme Court docket.
In a filing on Friday afternoon, Jones and the Democrats pushed again, telling the justices (amongst different issues) that “Spanberger’s candid acknowledgment of the place issues presently stand, which isn’t a part of the report, doesn’t foreclose this Court docket from appearing.” As an alternative, they argued, her feedback merely indicated that “the Commonwealth will conduct its elections within the method the regulation requires, and this Court docket’s intervention will inform that conduct.”
Quickly after the submitting was submitted on Friday, the court docket denied the request by Jones and the Virginia Democrats with out remark.