A state judge in Virginia issued an order on Tuesday blocking the Democratic-led legislature from drawing new district maps for the 2026 congressional elections.
The ruling, which found that Democratic lawmakers had not followed state law on redistricting, could be a major setback to the party’s attempt to counter President Trump’s push for the drawing of favorable new districts in Republican-held states.
Democratic leaders, who had been anticipating a legal fight, immediately said that they would appeal the ruling.
This jockeying over congressional maps began in Texas last year, at the president’s urging, as he sought to ensure that Republicans would maintain their very slim majority in the House in the midterm elections this fall.
Since Texas launched the first salvo of partisan gerrymandering, North Carolina and Missouri, both states with Republican legislatures, have also adopted new maps.
The counter-effort in some Democratic-held states, including Virginia and California, was more complicated, requiring constitutional amendments required to allow the legislatures to redraw congressional districts.
Voters in California approved such an amendment in November.
In Virginia, a new constitutional amendment must be voted on by the legislature twice, before and after an “intervening” statewide election, and then put to voters in a referendum.
Last October, Democratic leaders in the General Assembly announced they were calling the legislature back to Richmond as part of an ongoing special session, which had been first called by the governor in 2024 to consider budget matters. Democrats then introduced the topic of the session: a resolution that would allow the legislature to draw new maps in time for the 2026 midterms. It was passed on a party-line vote, less than week before Election Day.
Earlier this month, Democrats passed the resolution for the required second time and this week, the legislature was holding votes to schedule the referendum for April.
But the ruling on Tuesday, by Judge Jack S. Hurley Jr. of Tazewell County Circuit Court in southwest Virginia, has, for now, thrown the redistricting effort into question.
Republicans had raised objections as soon as the resolution was introduced. They argued that the vote was too late to count for the required “intervening” election, given that hundreds of thousands of people had already been to the polls in early voting. They also pointed to an old Virginia law requiring proposed amendments be “posted at the front door of every Courthouse” at least three months before a statewide election.
Democrats had responded to some of these arguments in debates about the bill on the floor of the legislature. They argued that last November’s election was the required “intervening election.” They also said that the law requiring the posting of amendments on courthouse doors was outdated and obsolete and that was why a state commission had recommended that it be deleted from the legal code last year. Lawyers for the Democrats argued in court that blocking the amendment would be a violation of the separation of powers.
Judge Hurley sided with the Republicans on nearly all of their arguments.
In a statement, State Senator Ryan McDougle and Delegate Terry Kilgore, both Republicans and plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the case was “about process, fairness, and the simple principle that you cannot change the Constitution by ignoring the Constitution.”
Democratic leaders said they would continue “to move forward and put this matter directly to the voters. Republicans who can’t win at the ballot box are abusing the legal process in an attempt to sow confusion and block Virginians from voting.”
Campbell Robertson reports for The Times on Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
The post Virginia Judge Blocks Democrats’ Efforts to Redraw Congressional Maps appeared first on New York Times.
