Virginia’s redistricting election will move forward while the state Supreme Court hears the appeal

Virginia voters will be able to cast ballots on a plan to redistrict congressional districts in favor of Democrats, while a court battle rages over the legality of the effort.

The Virginia Supreme Court said Friday that a statewide referendum could be held April 21 on whether to allow redistricting in the middle of the decade, and the court will decide at a later date whether the plan is legal.

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Democrats celebrated the green light for the election. But the court docket raises the possibility that it will all be for naught, if the Supreme Court ultimately upholds a lower court’s ruling that a mid-decade redistricting amendment is invalid.

Virginia Democrats hold six of the 11 US House seats, but they support a revised map that could help them win up to 10 seats in this year’s midterm elections. The new districts are a key part of Democrats’ national strategy to try to offset potential Republican gains in several other states that redrew their districts last year at the request of President Donald Trump.

The Republican president is trying to maintain a narrow Republican Party majority in the House of Representatives in the face of the political headwinds that usually blow against the ruling party in the midterm elections.

Before Virginia Democrats can create new congressional districts, they need voter approval to temporarily repeal a constitutional provision that puts redistricting power in the hands of a bipartisan commission and instead give that power to the General Assembly. Lawmakers last fall approved a constitutional amendment allowing mid-decade redistricting, then passed it again in January as part of a two-step process that requires staggered elections in order to put the amendment on the ballot.

But Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. last month invalidated the General Assembly’s actions on three grounds. The judge ruled that lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding a redistricting amendment to a special session.

Hurley also ruled that the General Assembly’s initial vote on the amendment did not take place before the public began casting ballots in last year’s general election and therefore did not count toward the two-step process. It ruled that the state failed to publish the amendment three months before the election, as required by law. As a result of those issues, he said, the amendment became null and void.

Democrats appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court, which agreed Friday to hear the case while stating that a narrowly tailored injunction by the lower court did not prevent the April referendum from taking place. The court ordered the initial briefs to be submitted by March 23, with the final round of arguments to be submitted to the court on April 23. The court said that any oral arguments will be scheduled at a later date.

Nationally, the redistricting battle has so far yielded nine more seats Republicans believe they can win in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and six seats Democrats believe they can win in California and Utah. Democrats had hoped to make up that three-seat margin in Virginia, although the lower court ruling put a damper on their plans. It is unclear whether redistricting efforts in various states will ultimately make any difference in determining control of Congress in the November election.