If you followed Virginia politics in April, you witnessed what appeared to be a clear-cut democratic moment. On April 21, a special election was held to approve a constitutional amendment that would allow for congressional redistricting. It was overwhelmingly approved by voters. Every analyst predicted that the proposed plan would have resulted in a 10-to-1 Democratic edge in the state’s congressional delegation. This would have been a major political change that, on its own, would have balanced the House calculation in a close national midterm cycle. Richmond’s Democratic majority rejoiced. Before the elections closed, the Republican minority started formulating their challenge. There was neither a recount nor a runoff after that. After a four-week legal battle, the state Supreme Court ruled that the entire referendum was invalid.
In response to a Republican legal challenge that claimed the General Assembly’s procedure for putting the amendment on the ballot had been unconstitutional, the Tazewell County Circuit Court first stepped in and halted certification of the April 21 vote. The redistricting plan’s content wasn’t the problem. It concerned whether the legislature had adhered to the procedural limitations Virginia’s constitution places on amendments, particularly the timing of the ballot placement in relation to ongoing election cycles and the procedural sequencing necessary for constitutional amendments. It was a technical argument. In the end, it was also decisive.
In an attempt to go in the opposite way, four Richmond voters filed a lawsuit in early May. They petitioned the state’s higher courts to compel certification of the referendum while the Tazewell County pause was in effect. They argued that the electorate’s will had been clearly stated and that procedural objections could not override the democratic decision. The filing was a classic example of how American voters frequently react to procedural issues they view as obstructive by attempting to avoid the legal back and forth and insist that the vote’s outcome be upheld on its face. There is emotional weight to the argument. It usually has less legal weight than those who support it anticipate.
Even those who disagreed with the Supreme Court’s final 4-3 decision on May 8 seemed unsurprising, according to election law experts who follow Virginia. Constitutional amendments in Virginia must adhere to certain procedural criteria, such as scheduling limitations, which the General Assembly may have handled uncomfortably in this instance. According to the overwhelming judgment, the amendment was put on the ballot while an election was already underway, which was against the constitution’s prescribed procedure for such modifications. Even substantively acceptable revisions cannot withstand procedural flaws of this type, according to the court’s perspective expressed in the majority ruling. The vote was declared invalid. Legally speaking, the referendum was regarded as having never taken place.
The disagreement could have been right. The dissenting justices contended that the procedural issues brought up by the Republican complaint were procedural rather than constitutionally substantive, and that this type of objection ought to have been settled by legislative cleanup rather than judicial nullification. The 4-3 divide was tight. The opposition stressed that Virginia voters had overwhelmingly adopted the amendment, and that invalidating that vote on procedural grounds would jeopardize public trust in the state’s electoral procedures. Procedural integrity is not a discretionary aspect of constitutional governance, according to the majority’s response expressed in the prevailing opinion. Without it, the process’s intended legitimacy is lost in the substantive results.
On May 15, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn the state court’s decision and denied an emergency resurrection request. In some respects, that result was more anticipated than the underlying Virginia ruling. In general, federal courts are hesitant to get involved in state constitutional disputes, especially when the state’s highest court has rendered a definitive decision regarding a matter of state law. Virginia’s current congressional map remained in place for the impending midterm elections when the emergency application was denied, closing the federal pathway. The state’s congressional delegation will be chosen in November using a different map than the 10-to-1 one that voters approved in April.
As this case develops, there’s a sense that it embodies a broader aspect of the relationship between democratic outcomes and American constitutional procedure. Voters turned out. They cast ballots. They yielded a definite outcome. Legally speaking, the outcome was reversed since the legislature did not follow the exact protocols required by the state law to put changes on the vote. From one point of view, that is the system operating as intended: by guaranteeing rigorous adherence to procedural standards, lawmakers are prevented from manipulating the constitutional amendment process. From a different angle, the voters who cast their ballots in good faith and expected them to mean what the ballot stated are being let down by the system.
Before the next election cycle, the Virginia General Assembly can try to revive the amendment through a more transparent procedure. There are clear political incentives to do so. However, that timescale is unlikely to result in a different map prior to the 2026 midterms due to the procedural complexity of Virginia’s constitutional amendments. The map that was in place prior to the referendum on April 21 will be used by the state for those elections; according to every analyst, it is less advantageous to Democrats than the version that voters approved.
