Virginia Democrats’ irresponsible new plan to save their gerrymander |
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Virginia Democrats’ irresponsible new plan to save their gerrymander
Democrats just handed the Supreme Court’s Republicans a loaded weapon.
If you’re a Democrat, ask yourself a simple question: When was the last time something got better after Brett Kavanaugh put his hands on it?
Unfortunately, Jay Jones, the Democratic attorney general of Virginia, does not appear to have considered this question before he asked the US Supreme Court to get involved in his state’s fight over gerrymandering. If the Court actually buys one of Jones’s arguments, they will leave Democrats in a much worse position than if Jones had never filed this case in the first place.
Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser.
Earlier this year, Virginia voters approved a referendum to amend their state’s constitution — and to approve new congressional maps that were intended to give Democrats four additional seats in the US House of Representatives. The map was also intended to counterbalance Republican gerrymanders in states like Texas.
Last week, however, the Virginia Supreme Court handed down a surprising decision invalidating that referendum, and reinstating the state’s previous congressional maps. The state supreme court’s decision in Scott v. McDougle was wrong. It rested on a claim that Virginia voters were denied the right to weigh in on whether to amend their constitution. This claim is absurd because, again, the redistricting amendment was submitted to the state’s voters and approved by them in a referendum.
But the fact that the state supreme court’s decision was wrong does not mean that the US Supreme Court has any business getting involved in this case. While the federal justices have the final word on all questions of federal law, state supreme courts have the final say on how to interpret their own state’s law and their own state’s constitution.
This means that, if the Virginia Supreme Court misreads Virginia’s constitution, then Virginia voters are stuck with that........