Virginia Judge Blocks Redistricting After Referendum Passes, Immediate Appeal Expected
“And now a rogue Republican judge is trying to override the will of the people because they didn’t like the outcome. That’s not democracy. That’s desperation.”
One day after voters in Virginia narrowly approved a new congressional map expected to produce a 10–1 Democratic split in the state’s House delegation, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley ruled the referendum to be unconstitutional, blocked certification of the results, and refused to pause the ruling during the appeal. This development sets the stage for a legal battle royale, leaving courts to determine the path forward.
Hurley found that the referendum violated several provisions of the state constitution. He was especially critical of how the question was presented to voters, calling it “flagrantly misleading.” He took particular issue with its portrayal of the new map as restoring fairness in upcoming elections, stating that this phrasing “did not accurately describe the proposed amendment.”
Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?
Oh that is soooo good it has to be fattening: pic.twitter.com/tQUaMCgiI6
— A is A (@weRessential) April 22, 2026
Immediately after Hurley’s ruling, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said his office planned to file an appeal. “As I said last night, Virginia voters have spoken, and an activist judge should not have veto power over the People’s vote. We look forward to defending the outcome of last night’s election in court.”
After more than a year of “activist judges” using their positions to block President Donald Trump’s agenda, the remark strikes me as a bit rich.
Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, summed up the legal issues behind Hurley’s decision in a post on X.
THREE challenges to the amendment process itself:
1️⃣ First passage was invalid. The amendment was taken up during a special session convened in 2024 for budget purposes. The General Assembly’s own call to the Governor (under Art. IV, §6 and Art. V, §5) and its governing resolution (HJR 6001) limited the session’s scope. Expanding it to include a constitutional amendment on redistricting required a two-thirds vote that never occurred. A Tazewell County judge found this action “void, ab initio.”
2️⃣ Art. XII, §1 requires that after first passage, a proposed amendment be “referred to the General Assembly at its first regular session held after the next general election of members of the House of Delegates.” An election must intervene between first and second passage. Here, first passage occurred during an election cycle — not before an intervening one.
3️⃣ Art. XII, §1 requires the amendment be submitted to voters “not sooner than ninety days after final passage by the General Assembly.” The timeline from second passage to the April 21 vote did not satisfy this requirement.
Plus ONE challenge to the proposed maps:
4️⃣ Art. II, §6 requires that “every electoral district shall be composed of contiguous and compact territory.” The proposed congressional maps violate this contiguity requirement (rather badly).
Next stop, court. Stay tuned.
The "yes" vote has won Va's redistricting referendum — but the legal fight is just beginning. Four Va Constitutional challenges are now teed up:
THREE challenges to the amendment process itself:
1️⃣ First passage was invalid. The amendment was taken up during a special session…— Ken Cuccinelli II (@KenCuccinelli) April 22, 2026
The debate over whether the state Supreme Court will uphold or strike down Hurley’s challenges fell along party lines. Democrat strategist Adam Parkhomenko took to X to say he has “full confidence a higher court will overturn this nonsense quickly, and the will of Virginia voters will prevail.”
“Virginia voters spoke. MAGA lost,” he wrote. “And now a rogue Republican judge is trying to override the will of the people because they didn’t like the outcome. That’s not democracy. That’s desperation.”
“Nice try,” he added.
Virginia voters spoke. MAGA lost. And now a rogue Republican judge is trying to override the will of the people because they didn’t like the outcome.
That’s not democracy. That’s desperation.
I have full confidence a higher court will overturn this nonsense quickly, and the…
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) April 22, 2026
Republican National Committee chair Joe Gruters called the ruling a “major victory” for Virginians. He criticized the effort as a partisan maneuver, arguing that Democrats were trying to rewrite district lines for political advantage ahead of the midterms. He framed the court’s intervention as a necessary check and emphasized that election rules shouldn’t be changed in a way that benefits one party.
Gruters issued a statement which said, “Democrats attempted to force an unconstitutional scheme to tilt congressional maps in their favor, but the court recognized it for what it is – a blatant power grab.”
While it is true that Trump’s push for Texas to redraw its congressional map last summer set off the latest round of gerrymandering, Democrats have engaged in the practice aggressively for years. And their efforts have arguably boosted the party’s representation in Congress.
Finally, many Republicans are faulting party leaders for not spending enough money to get the word out about what was at stake in this referendum.
Democrats significantly outspent Republicans and, according to the X post below, most of the $70 million Democrats spent came from out of state.
This is especially frustrating given the closeness of the race.
Democrats spent $70 million on this referendum.
Almost every penny came from out of state.
They broke laws.
They wrote a deceitful ballot measure.
They ran tv spots for two months, nonstop.
They brought in Obama.
They brought in Hollywood.We had grassroots.
That’s really it.… pic.twitter.com/fHR86zkUa4— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) April 22, 2026
Hurley’s ruling can be viewed here.
Stay tuned — legal action in this case could unfold quickly today.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Hm. I’m dubious as to whether the Repubs will survive an appeal
The first 3 points are in-the-weeds political machinations, and I doubt the appeals court will give much gravitas to all those.
The best bet is the fourth because that new map sure as heck ain’t ‘contiguous and compact territory.’ It’s so mandered it makes gerry’s head spin.
But purple Virginia has been so schizo over the years, the appeals court may be just as nutty when deciding the meaning of those words.
This going to go all the way to the VA Supreme Court where I do not have much hope for it. I do wonder if it would be a legit strategy to tie it up in the court system to the point where it won’t affect the midterms this year. At some point you have to print the ballots and if the validity of the redistricting is still an ongoing legal question…
This injunction (assuming someone doesn’t override the injunction) is almost assuredly going to prevent it being useful for the mid-terms (except as campaign fodder). And that’s because the LAW in Virginia says the districts have to be set a number of days before the election.
On the contrary, that’s exactly why the supreme court will immediately overturn the injunction just as it did the last two that the same judge made. The same judge who once ran for the legislature as a Republican.
Come on, people, if this were another Democrat judge behaving this way in Texas or Florida we wouldn’t put up with it. So why do you expect the Democrats, who are a lot less ethical and a lot more ruthless, to put up with it in their state?
Millhouse, based on what I have read, the referendum is blatantly unconstitutional according to the state’s constitution. Tell me why it’s not, or that constitutions don’t matter?
It may have been unconstitutional, but certainly not blatantly so. The Dems have a plausible argument. They didn’t just ignore the constitution; they believe they found a way around it.
The constitution requires that a proposed amendment be passed by the legislature twice, with an intervening election. Well, it was — depending on how you define “election”.
The Dems claim that the election is on the Tuesday after the 1st of November, and all early voting and postal voting that takes place before it is merely an accommodation to voters for their convenience, and is of no effect until the election itself.
The Reps claim that for this purpose the “election” starts as soon as the first postal ballots go out, e.g. to military and overseas voters, and ends when the last vote comes in to be counted, and that the proposal must be passed before the start date and again after the end date.
Who’s right? The state supreme court will decide.
Also, the proposal was passed at a special session that was not called for that purpose. Does that invalidate its passage? The Dems say it doesn’t; the Reps say it does. The constitution itself gives no answer, so the court will have to decide.
Then there’s the “postage” requirement, that the Reps claim is still valid and mandatory, and that ignoring it makes the referendum invalid; the Dems claim it’s not longer valid law, and that even if it were it couldn’t affect the validity post facto.
Then there’s the misleading summary given to the voters, and the non-compactness of the map; both are matters of opinion, and while the summary certainly looks misleading to me the court may decide it isn’t. Likewise the borders don’t look compact to me, but the court may decide they’re compact enough for government work.
Strange that you say violations of the VA Constitution are “in the weeks political machinations”. I sure wouldn’t put it like that.
They are not ‘in-the-weeds political machinations’.
They are very clear, unambiguous specifications for how constitutional amendments are allowed to be proposed and passed.
But of course Democrats simply don’t care.
The “machinations” were the Dems trying to end run those legal requirements.
To be specific, the Dems expected the courts to go along with the Standing/Latches BS that they used on any election challenges by the Republicans to the current time. Before the election: “Oh, you don’t have standing because you’re not injured.” After the election: “Oh, it’s already over and you lost, so too bad.” Since it went to the VA Supremes and they went along with “You’re not injured yet” they thought it was a done deal. They imported enough mail-in ballots from pure blue counties to tip the balance…and the judge promptly de-pantsed them post-election by slapping an injunction on *anything* the State planned on steamrolling through. No changing electoral boundaries, no changing ballot printing, no granting a suspension of my injunction so you can quick do all these things behind the voters/courts back. Now we get to see if the VA SC is hopelessly corrupt, or just lightly corrupt.
You’re correct. Dems simply don’t care, and I only characterized those things as ‘in-the-weeds’ because, imho, courts are reluctant to clean up the procedural turds in the pool of another branch government.
Stop me before I mix my metaphors again!
The specifications are not clear or unambiguous, as these events show.
They require a measure to be passed before and after an election, but they don’t specify what is an “election” for this purpose. Does it start when the first early ballot is mailed out to a military voter stationed overseas? When the first early voting ballots are cast in the state? Or does it refer only to the first Tuesday in November?
And they require a description that isn’t misleading, but that’s inherently a judgment call. You and I can easily see that the description on this one wasn’t fair, but a Democrat judge will say it was fair. It’s not an unambiguous standard.
The first 3 points are in-the-weeds political machinations
Huh?!? They aren’t political machinations, they are red-letter law in the state as to how you can get a constitutional amendment. And they were not followed.
I watch texas much closer b/c as you correctly purple state Virginia (is long gone)
I look at how states react to violent criminals and how soft they are to those criminals
just read a gop judge allowed some raging maniac to be acquitted after murdering etc
I would think just the opposite. The first three points are clear violations of blackletter law. The fourth is going to depend on somebody’s “opinion.”
To me the districts look contiguous with the possible exception of district 2. What they do not look like is compact. Some districts meander all over the place, most notably districts 7, 4, 9 and 2.
I’m hoping that you’re wrong about the ultimate result, and I think you are. Among the four issues that Cuccinelli identified (according to the article), the fourth, which you see as the strongest, I see as the weakest, because it includes an element of subjectivity. The other three are objective. If law still matters, these flaws in how the referendum was conducted will result in its being invalidated. What I found odd about the article is that it indicates Cuccinelli didn’t identify a core basis of the judge’s decision as a reason the referendum results will be invalidated. That reason is that the issue presented to the voters was vague, if not outright misleading. Many referendum results in many states have been overturned on this basis. Language explaining the purpose of a referendum must be specific, clear, and accurate. In this case, the purported purpose of “restor[ing] fairness in upcoming elections” obviously fails to meet any of these standards. The more I think about it, I suspect the Democrats knew the referendum results would likely be overturned but were okay with that, because such a result would provide another opportunity to attack Republicans as attempting to destroy democracy.
“Gerrymandering” is too mild a term for the proposed new map. It’s an abomination. Just like the ballot referendum language.
This Judge was correct in his ruling. I believe that the VA Dem AG has appealed in today. I expect it to go to the VA Supreme Court overtime and per what the Judge stated if the Supreme Court rules based on Law then it will be thrown out.
I saw a video of an alternate way that President Trump may change Virginia. This is what President Polk did with DC back before the Civil War, as he gave the Virginia area back to Virginia to help them keep slaves but without Congress. After the war the areas were left to Virginia but nothing is in law. President Trump could take Alexandria and Arlington back to DC as they are very heavy liberal and mostly Federal employees. This would hurt Virginia with Congressional Reps and money. Legally it would be had to stop.
It would be hard to stop, but they would try.
The most obvious counter is that you cannot take land from a state without that state’s consent. That’s the big problem with making DC a state, you specifically need permission from Maryland. The retrocession of land to Virginia was not done through law, but by presidential proclamation. However, I suspect that 100+ years of inaction on the part of Congress would suffice to consider that particular question settled.
In short, it would be a very funny move on Trump’s part, and yes, there’s enough of a question for it to actually get to court. But I don’t actually expect he’d win on this one.
It is not “taking” land from a state. Land was ceded by Maryland and Virginia to the federal government to create the District of Columbia. The argument is that the retrocession back to Virginia was unconstitutional.
JG:
Drewsome:
What on earth are you two talking about? This is not true. It was a law passed by both houses of congress, signed by the president, endorsed by a referendum of residents, and accepted by the Virginia legislature.
Concise:
What could possibly be unconstitutional about it? How could the original cession by Virginia have been constitutional and yet the reversal by Congress have been unconstitutional? Both depended equally on the power of Congress to alter states’ boundaries with the consent of those states’ legislatures.
solution so simple there is no way a politician wants to do it
This is so funny that a Dem strategist and the murdery VA AG both are railing about rogue judges and the will of the people. Pot meet kettle.
The outrage is so clearly not over the “rogue judge” per se, but the fact that he wasn’t theirs, for once.
What I’m finding is every time I read another stupid comment from a stupid democrat my initial reaction is to want to haul off a punch them as hard as I can in the nose, That really isn’t very good in my opinion. It’s not that they don’t deserve it. They do times 10. It’s that it means my own civility is fraying and that’s not good for me nor does it reflect well on the trajectory of general discourse within our country.
I’m not sure what can be done. Perhaps its time to break up the country and allow various factions to go their own way while the break up can be done civilly. I’m afraid though that the various oligarchs and those that style themselves political leaders wouldn’t accept a peaceful dissolution, especially the democrats.
My breakup would be, “Well, there’s Canada and Mexico. You can practically walk there from here. The border is open going those directions. Get out.”
THEY want to inherit the resource-rich empire. YOU can move to the third-world s*hole.
If there’s one thing nations like China and Russia would love more than anything it would be for the US to fall apart and no longer be the world’s main super power. Clearing the way for them to take the spot. Though I am at times tempted to say “hey you want to be the ones everyone turns to for everything? Be our guest!”
welcome to the jungle!
Read Checkmate in Berlin.
This choose your own destiny thing was managed well by the Soviets in East Berlin. Their guy lost the election and rather than fretting, they just held a victory party declaring victory. Nevermind what the actual vote was.
I don’t think the rest of the country can sit these gerrymandering fights out. Don’t care what you think of local GOP, the consequences are national.
Bob Ferguson is going to do this in spades in Washington state next. For the level of cheat I’m seeing, that is the ONLY way the dems have a hold on half the states they currently hold. That is why they fight to the death over cleaning up voter roles and mail in voting. BTW- a stack of empty mail in ballots (hundreds, possibly thousands) was found by a dumpster in Western Washington in the last month. oopsie.
He can’t. There are only two Republican districts in WA. The worst he can do is get rid of both, and more likely he can only get rid of one. Even VA had to leave one R district into which to pack all of the state’s Republican voters.
Welcome to what Kipling called “when the English began to hate.”
How’s it taste taste Dems having your own tactics thrown right back in your teeth? Also is that shoe comfy? The one on your other foot.
It’s not really their own tactics, though. Because the judge is actually ruling according to established law. (Law that actually did follow the rules in being written and passed.)
True but what I and I believe the author were referring to is the Dems tendency to tie up everything their opponents do in lawfare.
Why should they worry about it? This same Republican judge (he ran for political office as a Republican) tried this twice before and was overturned, so why would they be even slightly frightened that he’s trying it a third time?
Even if their supreme court is honest and eventually finds for the Republicans on the merits, I can’t see how it would not immediately overturn this injunction.
Virginia voters spoke.
OK, Pay attention to this. It is where the fight needs to be. This is why so many of us want to slap people and throw things when they say “defend our democracy.”
One of the primary differences between a democracy and a republic is the presence of a set of rules outside of the “will of the people.” It’s why we have constitutions – so there are things “the people” cannot simply vote into being in the passion of the moment.
The point is it doesn’t matter that “the people spoke.” There are rules that the people that started this whole thing agreed to, and you have to follow them – especially if you want to change that arrangement. If you don’t follow those rules then your change is null and void.
Look at the tactics of those who would throw out the Constitution. They’re all about riling the people up emotionally (so, things like the exploitation of mass shootings) and marching and demanding change right now! And preferably just demanding votes on laws without regard to the rules. Because following the rules might allow (are designed to allow) emotions to cool and the populace to think it out a bit.
The Constitutional violations are important. But note they are all designed to support the “But Virginians voted!” argument. All designed to support emotional populism the marxists are expert at stirring up so they can get a bit more power and loosen their restraints a bit more.
“Defend out democracy” = defend our DemoncRat party.
I don’t expect SCOVA to invalidate the referendum or its maps. They will either punt a decision until after the Midterm Election, or they will rule that procedural violations occurred, but the errors were harmless.
The new maps may provide some opportunities, though. The Democrats spread their voters so thin that a real heavy and well organized turnout operation outside of Northern VA could actually flip some of those districts (R).
They can’t punt until after the mid-terms. That would defeat the purpose of the Dem power play here. Unless the lift the injunction on certification of the vote. If they do that, they will invalidate their authority and every further decision they make.
On the contrary, they will definitely lift Hurley’s injunction just as they lifted his last two.
I have some hope that they will eventually find against the referendum on the merits. But that will be after the damage has been done.
I remember this tactic being used when I was in Rome in 1974. There was a national referendum, the voting outcome of which, would determine if divorce would be legal in Italy. There was massive confusion concerning the double negative wording’s application to existing law. A no vote meant yes to divorce.
The same some of trickery was employed here with the aid of the master of the dark arts, Barry Soetoro.
I can’t think of an objective definition of “compact” that would apply here, so unless it’s defined someplace in state law, I think judges would dismiss it as meaningless. Even worse, those districts are contiguous except for the piece of the Delmarva Peninsula. However, that’s how the current districts are drawn, and they passed muster. Cuccinelli must have been having a bad day.
There is actually a definition of “compact” as applied to voting districts, but as to whether it is actually codified in any state’s laws is unknown to me. It’s simply the ratio of area to circumference. The higher this number, the less gerrymandered the districting is.
I notice the new Virginia districting uses the “octopus strategy” that Massachusetts has been so blatant about — make sure as many districts as possible have tentacles into the Big Blue City, so it won’t matter at all how the rubes in the sticks vote.
Yeah, this is the same Republican judge who twice tried to enjoin the referendum, and was twice overruled by the state supreme court. Now he’s trying a third time, but I see no reason to suppose that the supreme court won’t override him a third time.
There is of course a hope that the supreme court will eventually find in favor of the Republican challengers on the merits, but in the meantime it isn’t going to allow this injunction to stand.
To be fair, he was overruled because of lack of standing.
If he’s now overruled because of mootness….
No, his two previous injunctions weren’t overturned for lack of standing. As best as I can tell, they were overturned for lack of jurisdiction but I’m having difficulty finding the actual language.
Ah, here we go. Legalism in a country of legalese.
I still can’t find the actual language the state supreme court used to overturn the previous two injunctions, but the gist that I’ve been able to gather from secondary reports was that it was because in VA courts don’t have jurisdiction to enjoin referendums before they happen, and can only consider challenges to them afterwards, so it scheduled briefs for immediately after the referendum.
If that is correct, then I’m left with more hope that the court will consider the merits of the case honestly, and find that the result is unlawful for one or more of the multiple grounds on which it was challenged.
Clearly Virginia Republicans didn’t have the grassroots.
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