Virginia Governor, AG Promise Political Fight After Supreme Court Appeal Denial
He argued that the state court had “contorted” constitutional language to invalidate the outcome of what he described as a lawful democratic process.
In a unanimous one-sentence order issued Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones’ application to stay the Virginia Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling: “The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
One week earlier, the state Supreme Court voted 4–3 to strike down the Democrats’ redrawn congressional map, which party leaders had hoped would secure a 10–1 advantage in the state’s House delegation and potentially net as many as four additional seats in the 2026 midterms. Although the current 6–5 split still favors Democrats, the ruling significantly strengthened Republicans’ chances of retaining their House majority.
Democrats were indignant because Virginia voters had narrowly approved the new map in a statewide referendum in April. As Axios described it, Democrats “fell into a state of anguish.” One lawmaker responded to their request for comment in a one-word text message: “F***.”
The issue was not with the new map itself, but with the legislative process used to advance the measure, which the court found had violated the state constitution. In its ruling, the court stated that “this constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy.”
It remains unclear why Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones believed the U.S. Supreme Court would intervene to overturn the state court’s ruling, particularly given the narrow constitutional questions at issue and the high court’s longstanding reluctance to second-guess state court interpretations of state law. More likely, despite the unfavorable odds, the appeal represented a final procedural avenue — a last-ditch effort to preserve Democrats’ redistricting gains.
In a statement following the Supreme Court’s denial, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones went on offense. He framed the decision as part of a broader national effort by Republicans and conservative courts to consolidate political power ahead of the 2026 midterms. Jones accused President Donald Trump, Republican-led legislatures, and the judiciary of systematically undermining voting rights, particularly for black voters and communities of color, arguing that recent redistricting battles across multiple states reflected a coordinated strategy to entrench Republican control in Congress. He characterized both the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling and the nation’s highest court’s refusal to intervene as direct assaults on democratic representation and the will of Virginia voters.
Jones also sought to cast the failed appeal as part of a larger political and electoral fight rather than merely a legal defeat. Emphasizing that more than three million Virginians voted on the referendum, he argued that the state court had “contorted” constitutional language to invalidate the outcome of what he described as a lawful democratic process. While acknowledging the Supreme Court’s decision left the ruling intact, Jones vowed to continue the fight politically, pledging to campaign aggressively for Democratic candidates and framing the upcoming midterm elections as a referendum on what he described as Republican efforts to “stack the deck” in their favor.
Statement from Attorney General Jay Jones:
“Today’s one-sentence denial from the Supreme Court of the United States is yet another profoundly troubling example of the continued national attack on voting rights and the rule of law by Donald Trump, Republican state legislatures,…
— Brandon Jarvis (@Jaaavis) May 16, 2026
For her part, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger brushed aside the clear constitutional violations by state Democrats. Instead, she portrayed the ruling as a coordinated effort between the Virginia Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court to “nullify an election” for Republicans’ political benefit.
That framing, however, overlooks one inconvenient detail: the Supreme Court’s decision was unanimous, backed by both conservative and liberal justices alike — even the far-left Ketanji Brown Jackson.
This you? pic.twitter.com/Zw7hxbrEoB
— Matt Van Swol (@mattvanswol) May 16, 2026
In a Friday night post about the decision, Professor Jacobson remarked that the Virginia Democrats’ attempt to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling was “so bad that not even KBJ went along. When you are libs and you’ve lost even KBJ, you know your legal arguments sucked big league.”
Professor Jacobson closed his post with a rhetorical question: “So when will the attorneys who brought this frivolous application be disbarred, like [what] happened to Republican lawyers who lost the 2020 election cases?”
You couldn't even get KBJ to go along with you, that's how much the Dems legal arguments sucked. https://t.co/ydx4qvWeBY
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) May 16, 2026
While Democrats will continue to argue that Republicans are putting their thumbs on the scale ahead of the midterms, other voters will likely view the situation quite differently. During the campaign, when specifically asked whether she would pursue redistricting efforts in Virginia, Spanberger said she had “no plans” to do so.
Spanberger has presided over one of the most aggressive bait-and-switches in electoral history. She campaigned as a moderate and turned into Saul Alinsky on her first day in office.
[While a full discussion of her administration’s brazen power grab is beyond the scope of this post, I previously covered the flurry of bills introduced in just the first 72 hours in a January post titled, “Virginia on Fire: Insane Legislative Blitz on Tax Hikes, Sentencing Rollbacks.”]
Given the backlash already forming around those policies, I fully expect her administration’s massive overreach to be presented as a cautionary tale in Republican campaign ads this fall.
Spanberger and Jones have clearly chosen to double down. While that strategy may energize the activist base, it risks alienating the broader electorate — particularly independent voters who still expect constitutional rules to apply equally regardless of party affiliation. The Supreme Court’s unanimous rejection of their appeal only reinforced the perception that this was not a close legal call or some partisan conspiracy, but a fundamentally flawed process from the beginning.
Their refusal to acknowledge that reality and their continued framing of every institutional setback as political sabotage could shape not only Virginia’s midterm landscape, but the credibility of their broader “defense of democracy” message moving forward.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn.
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Comments
The Democrats reaction to this is pure gold for Republicans if the Republicans are smart enough to use it.
Democrat Definitions:
Voting Rights = Rigging the electoral system to give Democrats the ability to have more “votes” counted in an election. (votes = ballots cast by legal citizens (once or more), dead people, non-citizens (once or more), or fictitious people.)
Democracy = Rule by the Democrat Party
Headline:
VA Gov, AG Promise Political Fight
Translation by Paula:
VA Gov, AG promise to cause trouble
“Virginia Governor, AG Promise Political Fight After Supreme Court Appeal Denial”
Hope somebody has told the boys at Fort Sumter.
I think the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot (gun control pun intended).
Instead of settling for a fair 6-5 split that respects the state’s substantial Republican constituency, the low IQ Democrats tried to put their thumb on the scales in such a ridiculously haphazard manner that they lost in the state Supreme Court – which the Dems own – and at SCOTUS, which does not have jurisdiction but couldn’t even sway the dopiest justice in history anyway.
My prediction is that instead of 6-5, this could wind up being an 8-3 split in favor of the Rs.
That perception is incorrect. It was a close legal call, at the state court level. Both parties in the state court had reasonable positions, and an honest court could have gone either way. The SCOTUS appeal was rejected unanimously because the grounds for that were ridiculously flimsy. That doesn’t mean that any of the justices thought the state court had got it right, let alone that all of them thought so.
Fair point. A unanimous SCOTUS denial does not mean all nine justices agreed with the Virginia Supreme Court’s reasoning. It only means they saw no sufficient federal basis to intervene in what is primarily a state constitutional matter.
That said, I think Republicans are calling this a “win” mostly because of the immediate practical outcome, not because the underlying political issue was definitively settled. The voters actually approved the referendum, so the court did not reject the map on its merits or because the public opposed it. The ruling was that the legislative process behind it violated the state constitution, which legally invalidated the result.
So technically this looks more like a procedural stoppage or delay than a decisive ideological victory. If Democrats corrected the constitutional defects, they could theoretically try again later. Republicans still benefit because the existing map stays in place for now, but that is different from voters rejecting the proposal itself.
Wrong again sweetie.
Democrats completely f88ked the pooch by trying to force this through without following their own State constitution.
When you lose a Democrat controlled Supreme Court you know you f88ked up royally 🤣🤣
Who says they didn’t follow their state constitution? Four judges on the state supreme court, which makes that the correct answer now, but at the time they did it no one had answered the question, and it was very far from clear that they weren’t following it. The decision could easily have gone the other way, and what would you be saying then?
One thing I guarantee, which is that if the parties were reversed you would be saying the opposite of what you’re saying now. Which makes you a dishonest person.
The plain fact is that it was a close question of law, both parties had reasonable interpretations, and an honest court could easily have found either way. Had the question somehow come before SCOTUS there’s no telling which way it would have gone. It might have come out 9-0 for the Democrats. In some other state with a similar clause in its constitution the correct interpretation may well be the opposite. But in VA the question is now settled, for better or for worse.
The tearful whining from VA d/prog is as.delicious as it is ridiculous. They argued in State CT that the question should be allowed to proceed to the ballot and conceded that the result of the election outcome shouldn’t matter to the questions of law. Now the d/prog are whining that an election outcome/will of the people is being trampled. Nah, Cuz y’all already agreed it didn’t matter so go put some ointment on your chapped rear end.
Pro tip: Watch your six, guys. Lil Jay Byrd has a nasty history of threatening to mvrder his political opponents, and their families. FYI.
C’mon now, Jay Jay was just trying to protect democracy, Dem-style.
He didn’t threaten anyone, he merely wished them ill. If he’d made an actual threat he would have been arrested for it. So now he can wish all the justices ill, and they can file him with the millions who already do so. If Clarence Thomas had a dollar for everyone who’s ever prayed for his death, he’d be rich enough to be giving Harlan Crow presents. I forget who it was who many years ago publicly wished that his wife would feed him fat foods and give him a heart attack or something.
You are incorrect.
“Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot,” Jones wrote. “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.”
Kaiser’s Maxim remains undefeated.
Marxists never say die until their dead.
VA Constitution also requires the districts be “compact”.
These new ones most definitely were not.
No ruling on that.
Cuccinelli was talking about two other constitutional violations, for four total, did they only sue over one? Or, did the State supreme court just rule on one and then punt on the rest??
That only becomes an issue if the constitution has been amended. Since the court found that the constitution had not been amended, so no new map could be valid, any questions about that proposed map are now moot.
When Virginia Republicans lodge formal complaints with the Virginia State Bar. That’s when. But I highly doubt that will happen as Republicans simply don’t have the balls to push the issue in that direction.
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