Virginia Redistricting Lawsuit: Amendment Struck Down, Map Stays

The Virginia redistricting lawsuit ended in May 2026 with the Supreme Court of Virginia striking down a voter-approved constitutional amendment that would have let the General Assembly redraw the state’s congressional districts before the 2026 midterms. The 4-3 ruling in McDougle v. Scott held that lawmakers violated the state constitution’s amendment process, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to step in. Virginia’s 2021 court-drawn congressional map stays in place.¹²

What the Amendment Would Have Done

Democrats controlled both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly and wanted to reclaim map-drawing power that a 2020 amendment had shifted to a bipartisan commission (and, on deadlock, to the Virginia Supreme Court). Their vehicle was a new constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to redraw congressional districts outside the normal post-census cycle if another state conducted its own mid-decade redistricting.³

Paired with the amendment was House Bill 29, a proposed 10-1 congressional map favoring Democrats in ten of Virginia’s eleven districts. The House passed HB 29 on February 10, 2026, and Governor Abigail Spanberger signed it on February 20, but it could take effect only if voters ratified the amendment.⁴ Voters did approve the amendment on April 21, 2026, by roughly three points, about 1.6 million to 1.5 million out of 3.1 million ballots cast.⁵

The existing 2021 map, drawn by two special masters appointed by the Virginia Supreme Court, had produced a delegation of six Democrats and five Republicans and received an “A” rating for partisan fairness from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.⁶⁷

Why the Virginia Supreme Court Struck It Down

Amending the Virginia Constitution takes four steps under Article XII, Section 1: both chambers must pass the amendment, an election for the House of Delegates must intervene, both chambers must pass it again in the next regular session, and voters must approve it in a referendum. The intervening election exists so voters can weigh in on their delegates’ positions on the proposed amendment before the second legislative vote.⁸

Democrats tried to compress that timeline. The General Assembly held its first vote on October 29 and 31, 2025, during a special session. Early voting for the November 4, 2025, House of Delegates election had already opened on September 19. By October 31, more than 1.3 million Virginians had already cast ballots. The legislature took its second vote in January 2026.⁸³

The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and U.S. Representatives Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith sued in Tazewell County Circuit Court on February 19, 2026. Their central argument: the first legislative vote had to precede the election, and it did not.⁹ The Virginia Supreme Court allowed the April referendum to proceed under the 1912 precedent Scott v. James, which counsels against halting an amendment process midstream, and reviewed the merits afterward.¹⁰

The core legal question was what “general election” means under Article XII, Section 1. The Commonwealth argued it meant Election Day, November 4, 2025, which would have placed the October 31 vote before the election. On May 8, 2026, the Virginia Supreme Court rejected that reading in a 4-3 decision written by Justice D. Arthur Kelsey. Drawing on historical dictionaries and Black’s Law Dictionary, Kelsey defined “election” as the “act of choosing” or “process of selecting,” and held it encompasses the entire early-voting period. Because the legislature voted after 1.3 million people had already cast ballots, the intervening-election requirement was not satisfied.¹¹

Kelsey wrote that the requirement exists “to give voters the opportunity to participate in the process of amending their Constitution,” and that the Commonwealth’s approach “ended up denying over 1.3 million Virginians their constitutional right to have a voice in the debate.”¹ The majority also held that the referendum’s outcome did not matter to its analysis: “The ultimate vote margin plays no role in the analytics of our judicial review of the constitutionality of the pre-election constitutional amendment process.”¹²

Chief Justice Cleo Powell dissented, joined by Justices Thomas P. Mann and Junius P. Fulton III. The dissenters argued the majority improperly broadened “election” to include early voting, conflicting with how both Virginia and federal law define the term.¹³

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Refusal to Intervene

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones and Democratic legislative leaders — House Speaker Don Scott, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, and Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas — filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court on May 11, 2026, asking it to stay the state ruling and reinstate the new maps. The case was docketed as Scott v. McDougle, No. 25A1240.¹⁴

Jones argued the state court’s ruling rested on a “grave misunderstanding” of federal election law, specifically 2 U.S.C. § 7 and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Foster v. Love, which fix a single day for electing federal representatives. He contended the Virginia court “impermissibly transgressed the ordinary bounds of judicial review” by treating “election” as something other than Election Day.¹⁴

On May 15, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the application in a one-sentence unsigned order with no noted dissents. The New York Times noted that the decision reaffirmed the standard that the Court does not ordinarily review state supreme court rulings interpreting state constitutions.²¹⁵

Governor Spanberger had already acknowledged the practical outcome. On May 14, citing a May 12 administrative deadline for map changes, she announced Virginia would run its 2026 elections on the existing maps regardless of how the federal case turned out.¹⁶

Which Map Virginia Will Use in 2026

Virginia’s 2026 congressional elections will be run on the 2021 court-drawn map. That map remains operative for the rest of the decade because the amendment that would have authorized a redraw was itself nullified. Without the amendment, the General Assembly lacks authority to draw a new congressional map outside the standard post-census cycle.¹²

The prolonged litigation pushed the state’s 2026 election calendar. The revised schedule sets a candidate filing deadline of May 26, early voting for primaries opening June 18, a primary election day of August 4, and the general election on November 3, 2026.⁵

What Happens Next

The litigation is effectively over. No retroactive legal challenges to the 2020 redistricting commission amendment have been filed, and legal experts consider that path unlikely to succeed. A reported Democratic proposal to lower the mandatory retirement age for state Supreme Court justices from 74 to 54, widely interpreted as retaliation against the majority, was dismissed by Senate Majority Leader Surovell as an idea that “did not pan out.”⁵

Reaction to the ruling split along partisan lines. Senate Republican Leader Ryan McDougle, who brought the challenge, said, “You cannot violate the Constitution to amend the Constitution.”¹⁷⁷¹⁸¹⁶

1
Virginia Mercury. Supreme Court of Virginia Strikes Down Redistricting Amendment
2
SCOTUSblog. Court Denies Virginia’s Request to Reinstate Congressional Map
3
Virginia Legislative Information System. HJ4 Bill Details
4
WRIC. Virginia House Passes HB 29 Congressional Map
5
Virginia Mercury. Virginia’s Redistricting Amendment Was Struck Down — What’s Next
6
Courthouse News Service. Mixed Reaction to New Virginia Districts Drawn by Court-Appointed Mapmakers
7
Politico. Supreme Court Denies Democrats’ Virginia Redistricting Bid
8
State Court Report. Virginia’s Redistricting Effort and the Laborious Process to Amend Its Constitution
9
Virginia Mercury. RNC, Virginia GOP Lawmakers File Emergency Lawsuit to Stop Redistricting Vote
10
Cardinal News. Why the Redistricting Results Might Not Stand
11
Supreme Court of Virginia. Don Scott v. Ryan T. McDougle, Record No. 260127
12
Virginia Scope. McDougle Talks Supreme Court Win
13
Roll Call. Virginia Supreme Court Invalidates Redrawn Congressional Map
14
U.S. Supreme Court. Scott v. McDougle, Application for Stay
15
The New York Times. Supreme Court Virginia Redistricting
16
Democracy Docket. Virginia Will Use Old Congressional Map for Midterms
17
VPM. SCOVA Redistricting Reactions
18
Office of the Governor of Virginia. Governor Spanberger Statement on Redistricting Ruling