Today’s ruling has been issued; the petition that was denied accompanies it. The state’s request for a stay, which the Court declined to grant, opens with this explanation:
Just days ahead of Virginia’s deadline to begin conducting the 2026 election for Virginia’s delegation to the United States House of Representatives, the Supreme Court of Virginia voided an amendment to the Commonwealth’s Constitution that authorizes the General Assembly to draw new congressional districts.
The court claimed there was a procedural defect in the amendment’s passage and ratification: that the General Assembly did not approve the amendment before the “next general election,” then passed it again and referred it to voters for approval. The basis for this ruling rested on its belief that, contrary to the Constitution’s own definition of “election” as a single November day, the term encompasses the entire span of early voting beginning in September. Relying on this novel and clearly textual-contrary interpretation, the Court overruled the people’s choice who ratified the amendment by directing the Commonwealth to conduct the election using the congressional districts rejected by the people.
A stay is warranted because the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision is deeply flawed on two pivotal questions of federal law with wide-reaching implications for the Nation. The ruling violates federal law in two distinct respects. First, it anchored its reading of the Virginia Constitution on a serious misinterpretation of federal law, which fixes a single day for the “election” of Representatives and Delegates to Congress. See 2 U.S.C. § 7. When a state court’s ruling on purported state-law grounds is interwoven with federal law, this Court may intervene to ensure conformity with federal standards. Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1040 (1983). See also Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold Reservation v. Wold Eng’g, P.C., 467 U.S. 138, 153 (1984) (vacating a state supreme court decision whose interpretation of a state statute rested on a misconception of federal law).
Second, by discarding the plain text of the Virginia Constitution’s definition of the term “election” to embrace a contrary meaning, the Supreme Court of Virginia “transgressed the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that it arrogated to itself the power vested in the state legislature to regulate federal elections.” Moore v. Harper, 600 U.S. 1, 36 (2023) (cleaned up). Either violation is sufficient for this Court to reverse the decision below. Accordingly, there is a “reasonable probability that this Court will grant certiorari and will then reverse the decision below.”
