Democrats suffered a major setback and Republicans continued to reshape voting maps their way in a frantic week of developments prompted by court rulings.
The Supreme Court of Virginia Friday nullified the results of a special election on April 21, where 1.6 million Virginians approved redistricting that Democrats hoped would win them four more House seats. In a 4-3 ruling, the court said the legislature followed the wrong process for putting the question, an amendment to the state constitution, on the ballot.
Meanwhile, Southern Republicans rushed to redraw their states’ congressional voting maps after an April 29 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which weakened voting rights protections for minority communities.
The Louisiana v. Callais ruling has remade the redistricting race that President Trump began last year to help Republicans hold on to the U.S. House this fall.
In Louisiana, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the May 6 primaries for Congress, after early votes had already been cast.
Republican-led legislatures in Alabama and Tennessee started special redistricting sessions within four days of the ruling. South Carolina Republicans have started steps toward redrawing there.
Protesters have flooded capitol buildings in Montgomery, Ala. and Nashville. Civil rights activists and Democratic lawmakers have said the redistricting dilutes the voting power of Black voters, harkening back to the south’s history before the movement for civil rights.
Tennessee Republicans still gave fast-track approval to a map that could flip the state’s only Democratic-held seat. Alabama lawmakers approved redistricting but it’s pending court approval.
Voting rights groups have been planning and filing lawsuits saying to try to stop these states from going forward.
Before the ruling, Republicans held a lead in redistricting – creating districts they can more easily flip to their side – by perhaps just three seats over Democratic efforts to counter it. Now, following the loss in Virginia, that lead could be around 10. The extent of redistricting in some states is still not certain.
Trump set off an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting shuffle
Currently, the House stands at 217 Republicans to 212 Democrats and the party that holds the White House usually loses ground in the midterms. Republican control of the House is key to Trump’s agenda. He’s said a Democratic House would impeach him.
Usually states just redistrict after the census at the start of the decade. That’s when seats are divided up among the states. And efforts at gerrymandering, which means creating districts to favor one party over another, tend to be common but unpopular.
But last summer Trump got Texas Republicans to pass a new map that could help them win five seats and Democrats in California countered with a map to turn five seats their way there. Republicans responded to Trump’s call in Missouri and North Carolina for one seat each and last month in Florida for four seats. Republicans in Kansas and Indiana failed to gain enough support for redistricting.
In all, Republicans had turned about 13 House seats their way before the Supreme Court ruling. About 10 seats had been picked up by Democrats but the four in Virginia appear to be lost – unless Democrats can win a court reversal.
At this point, some states have already held their primaries and Democrats have few options left for drawing new maps. Maryland’s Democratic Gov. Wes Moore has called for it there and pressure is building on a powerful Democratic Senate leader to drop his opposition and allow redistricting.
