GOP sees new opening to overturn Virginia redistricting after judge blocks new maps

After losing Tuesday’s closely watched redistricting referendum, Virginia Republicans are now shifting their focus to the courts, arguing the legal fight — not the ballot box — will ultimately determine whether the measure stands.That legal fight escalated late Wednesday, when a Tazewell County Circuit Court judge issued a new ruling halting implementation of the voter-approved amendment less than 24 hours after it passed.With nearly all votes counted by Wednesday afternoon, the “yes” campaign prevailed by just over 3 percentage points, 51.45% to 48.55%, out of nearly 3.1 million ballots cast, according to unofficial data by the Virginia Department of Elections.While the result initially cleared the way for newly drawn congressional maps to take effect, the latest ruling by Judge Jack C. Hurley pauses that process — at least for now — as the case ultimately heads to the Supreme Court of Virginia.Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said the state will move quickly to challenge the ruling, writing on X that his office “will immediately file an appeal in the Court of Appeals” and arguing that “an activist judge should not have veto power over the People’s vote.” He added that the state “look(s) forward to defending the outcome of last night’s election in court.”And for GOP leaders, the narrow margin reinforces their case.House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, told reporters Wednesday that Republicans are now looking to the state’s highest court as their best chance to invalidate the result.“I think the Supreme Court will expedite it because they know that we’ve got to have the decision sooner rather than later, because folks are going to be voting, folks are going to be trying to get their signatures to get on the ballot and things of that nature,” Kilgore said.He argued the close vote undercuts Democratic claims of a sweeping mandate.“I actually think yesterday’s results helped us, because it shows how close Virginia is. We’re not a 10-1 state, we’re still a 6-5 state,” he said, adding that “for any Democrat to be going around here spiking the ball today is just disingenuous.”Kilgore acknowledged the loss but said Republicans expected a difficult fight from the start.“It was much closer than last year, (but) we still lost. We’re disappointed in losing,” he said, arguing that “misleading (ballot) language” and outside spending helped Democrats prevail by a narrow margin.“We think we’re going to win in the courts,” he said.Legal challenges center on processAt least three lawsuits are moving forward in an effort to block or invalidate the referendum, including one that goes to the heart of how the amendment reached the ballot.Wednesday’s ruling, however, stems from a separate lawsuit filed last year by the Republican National Committee, which alleges that the General Assembly violated constitutional requirements in advancing the amendment. Hurley’s decision in that case effectively halts implementation of the referendum while legal challenges continue.RNC Chairman Joe Gruters called the ruling “a major victory for Virginians,” arguing that Democrats “attempted to force an unconstitutional scheme to tilt congressional maps in their favor.”He said the court “recognized it for what it is – a blatant power grab,” adding that the GOP will continue to challenge what he described as an illegal process and pointing to the narrow margin of Tuesday’s vote.That case is distinct from another closely watched challenge filed late October in the same court by Republican lawmakers and a member of the Virginia Redistricting Commission, which argues that Democrats violated state law when they expanded a special legislative session to take up the amendment.Oral arguments in the case are on the state’s Supreme Court docket for Monday.The plaintiffs — Sens. Ryan McDougle of Hanover and Bill Stanley of Franklin, Kilgore and Commissioner Virginia Trost-Thornton — contend that only the governor can call a special session and that it must be limited to the topics originally set.Their challenge focuses on a letter from House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, reconvening a previously called session to consider redistricting. The same Tazewell judge initially sided with the plaintiffs, but the Supreme Court of Virginia later allowed the referendum to proceed while the case continues.With multiple cases now active, it remains unclear whether the Supreme Court of Virginia will take them up individually or consolidate them into a single proceeding. But given the looming election calendar, legal observers expect the justices to move quickly.The amendment itself allowed lawmakers to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts outside the normal once-a-decade census cycle.