Photo courtesy of colonialghosts.com

By David L. Snelling

The Virginia Supreme Court delivered a devastating blow by rejecting a bid to restore the state’s Congressional map voters narrowly approved to give Democrats a chance to take four seats during the midterm elections.

The state’s highest court dismissed the Congressional map, saying the Constitutional amendment was placed on the ballot after early voting had begun.

The Supreme Court typically doesn’t intervene in state court proceedings unless they present an issue of federal law.

Virginia Democrats had hoped to persuade the justices that the Virginia court misread federal law and Supreme Court precedent that hold that, even if early voting is underway, an election does not happen until Election Day itself.

Virginia’s amendment had been intended as a response to Republican gains in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and to blunt a new map in Florida that just became law.

The ruling is a sharp contrast to other states’ Supreme Courts’ approving Republican governors’ Congressional maps during a mid-decade redistricting war led by President Donald Trump.

The most devastating ruling to Blacks came this month when the Louisiana Supreme Court shot down a new Congressional map, gutting the 1965 Voter Rights Act.

The state’s highest court ruled the map was racial gerrymandering, a victory for the GOP seeking to take a more dominant control of U.S. Congress.

Black Democrats said the decision rolls back the power of Black voting.

As a result of the Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision, Alabama and Tennessee Republican governors called special elections this month to redraw their Congressional districts.

Florida’s redrawn map orchestrated by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis reshaped four districts including District 20 which has been represented by a Black U.S. representative for over 30 years.

The area includes portions of Broward and Palm Beach counties.

The map has drawn lawsuits by voting rights advocates and civil rights groups who call it partisan gerrymandering to benefit the GOP.