Lawyers for Virginia Democrats and Attorney General Jay Jones filed an emergency application Monday asking the justices to allow the state to use a new map in the 2026 elections. They contended that the Virginia Supreme Court’s invalidation of the map was “deeply mistaken on two critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.”
The 24-page filing is the latest in a series of requests for Supreme Court intervention in state disputes over partisan redistricting ahead of the 2026 elections.
In February, Virginia’s General Assembly adopted a new map that would have favored Democrats in 10 of the state’s 11 U.S. House seats, potentially increasing their majority by four seats. The map’s implementation depended on a constitutional amendment granting the Legislature power to redraw districts outside the normal post-census cycle. Virginia voters approved the amendment in April by a margin of three percentage points.
Last week, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the referendum was invalid because the General Assembly did not follow proper procedures in placing the amendment on the ballot.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court typically does not review state court decisions based on state law, Virginia’s lawyers argued for intervention because the case implicates the federal definition of “election” and whether the state court “impermissibly transgressed the ordinary bounds of judicial review.”
The filing also argued that the state court’s decision “overthrows [a] democratic outcome just days before the Commonwealth must begin its preparations to administer the 2026 midterm election.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency appeals from Virginia, has instructed the Republican legislators who challenged the amendment process to file a response by 5 p.m. EDT on Thursday.