{"id":1466,"date":"2026-07-20T19:31:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/?p=1466"},"modified":"2026-07-20T19:31:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:31:40","slug":"scotus-hands-republicans-a-major-redistricting-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/?p=1466","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS Hands Republicans A Major Redistricting Win"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">SCOTUS Hands Republicans A Major Redistricting Win<\/h1>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The court\u2019s decision was based on reasoning from an earlier case, Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens, but it didn\u2019t say what that reasoning was. Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the three liberal justices, disagreed with the decision.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-2\">\n<div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1982534\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Supreme Court gave the state\u2019s map a temporary thumbs up in December and California\u2019s map a temporary thumbs up in February. Both states led the way in the mid-cycle redistricting fights that are now happening all over the country. The Supreme Court\u2019s approval of both states\u2019 maps, which gave Republicans and Democrats five more seats, canceled out each other\u2019s work before the 2026 midterm elections.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Justice also got involved, telling the Supreme Court to step in and change the decision. They said that Texas\u2019 decision to change its map was based on \u201cpartisan objectives,\u201d not racial ones, which could be against the Voting Rights Act.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Last year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, asked the Supreme Court to put a stop to a three-judge panel\u2019s decision in the Western District of Texas that found 2-1 that race played too big of a role in its redraw<\/h2>\n<p>The voting rights groups that sued Texas and Abbott said that the map was an illegal racial gerrymander. However, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on December 6 that the groups could not provide an alternative map that met Texas\u2019 political needs. The unsigned order from the high court said that the lower court should not have \u201cinterfered with an active primary campaign, causing a lot of confusion and upsetting the delicate balance between federal and state elections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"\" title=\"X Post\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?dnt=true&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;features=e30%3D&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=2048787893431288018&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fdarafreshnews.com%2Fscotus-hands-republicans-3%2F&amp;sessionId=9bd0d07f53a5390c6302700358c7cda726fe8fa1&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=6a3ad42b224df%3A1778106238597&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"2048787893431288018\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This comes amid a redistricting battle across the nation ahead of November\u2019s midterms.<\/p>\n<p>A high-stakes legal fight over Virginia\u2019s congressional map is intensifying as the Supreme Court of Virginia prepares to hear arguments on a voter-approved redistricting referendum that has already been blocked by a lower court.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The outcome could reshape the state\u2019s political map and influence control of multiple seats in the U.S<\/h2>\n<p>House, several political analysts have predicted.<\/p>\n<p>The dispute began after Virginia voters approved a referendum that would redraw congressional districts in a way that analysts say could heavily favor Democrats, potentially giving them an advantage in up to 10 of the state\u2019s 11 districts.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-3\">\n<div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1973748\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>However, shortly after the vote, Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. ruled that the referendum could not be certified, citing procedural violations in how the measure was placed on the ballot.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hurley\u2019s ruling marked the third time a court has found legal issues with the redistricting effort<\/h2>\n<p>In his decision, the judge concluded that state lawmakers failed to follow required steps under Virginia law, including rules governing the timing of ballot measures relative to early voting periods.<\/p>\n<p>Republican officials quickly moved to challenge the referendum, arguing both that the process was flawed and that the resulting map constitutes an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.<\/p>\n<p>The case has moved toward the Supreme Court, where oral arguments are scheduled to address multiple legal questions.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The case now heads to the state\u2019s highest court, where justices will consider whether the referendum complies with the Virginia Constitution and whether it was lawfully enacted<\/h2>\n<p>Among the key issues are whether the legislature violated procedural rules when advancing the referendum and whether the measure conflicts with existing constitutional provisions governing elections and redistricting.<\/p>\n<p>Legal analysts suggested at the time that the court may have opted to wait for a fully developed legal challenge rather than act preemptively.<\/p>\n<p>Now, with a lower court blocking certification, the justices will be required to weigh both procedural and constitutional arguments under significant time pressure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCOTUS Hands Republicans A Major Redistricting Win The court\u2019s decision was based on reasoning from an earlier case, Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens, but it didn\u2019t say &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1468,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions\/1468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}