The Virginia Supreme Court struck down the state's newly redrawn congressional map on Friday, invalidating a redistricting referendum that Democrats had counted on to shift the delegation from a projected 6-5 edge to a 10-1 supermajority, according to The Hill.

The Founders gave the power over elections to state legislatures and, ultimately, to the people — not to party strategists stacking decks before a single vote is cast. When a court steps in to call that play dead, the constitutional order is doing exactly what it was built to do.

Neither party gets to inherit a republic they haven't earned at the ballot box. That principle predates both of them.

A Utah Supreme Court justice resigned this week after a judicial conduct investigation into an alleged personal relationship with an attorney who litigated a high-stakes redistricting case before her court — a case that determined whether Utah would keep four Republican congressional seats.

Justice Diana Hagen, who served on the bench for twenty-six years, wrote in her resignation letter to Gov. Spencer Cox: "I also understand that public officials are rightly held to a higher standard and must accept a greater degree of public scrutiny and diminished privacy." The Judicial Conduct Commission conducted a preliminary investigation and chose not to pursue formal action. Hagen said she voluntarily recused herself from cases involving attorney David Reymann in May 2025.

The Honor Code's first obligation is simple: don't put yourself where the conflict lives. When a judge cannot guarantee the separation of personal loyalty from the authority of the bench, the constitutional order she swore to uphold is already compromised — whatever the conduct commission decides.

Alabama's legislature convened a special session this week to redraw the state's congressional maps, passing Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 1 after protests broke out in the gallery — loud enough that lawmakers called a recess because, as floor members said, they could not hear over the crowd.

Activist Dee Reed, Alabama State Organizing Manager for Black Voters Matter, was walked out of the gallery by state troopers, though she was not arrested. Said state Rep. Barbara Drummond (D-District 103): "Those are individuals who were standing for democracy. This is their house and that is what we see."

The bills are contingent on the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts permitting Alabama to proceed with the changes. The Founders gave Congress — and the states they empower — the authority to draw these lines. But that authority has always carried a duty to serve the republic, not the party. The courts will hold the line or they will not. That is the constitutional order doing its work.

The Supreme Court of Virginia struck down a redistricting map that would have handed Democrats 10 of the state's 11 congressional seats — a gerrymander built after the state's independent redistricting commission deadlocked. The original map, drawn by special masters Dr. Bernie Grofman and Sean Trende, was constructed blind to partisan data and projected a 6-Democrat, 5-Republican outcome in a neutral year — a rough mirror of Virginia's actual political composition.

Said Trende, senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics: "In a normal year, we would have expected the map to produce 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans."

The Founders lodged redistricting authority inside Article I precisely so the people's House would answer to the people. When state legislatures — of either party — engineer maps to predetermine outcomes, they don't just insult voters; they breach the constitutional order. The republic's long memory is clear on this: rigged maps are a surrender of self-government, whatever jersey the riggers wear.

Alabama Republicans signed legislation on May 9, 2026 authorizing the governor to call new primary elections if courts lift the injunction protecting the current congressional map — the map that produced Rep. Shomari Figures's 2024 victory after a federal court rejected the GOP's 2023 version as non-compliant with the Voting Rights Act.

The move came days after the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's majority-Black district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander — a ruling Alabama is now citing to ask the Court for emergency relief clearing the way for the 2023 map. Tennessee approved a similar redraw on May 8, carving up that state's only majority-Black district.

The Founders placed the rules of representation at the republic's foundation for a reason: legitimacy flows from the governed, not from whoever draws the lines last. When the map changes mid-decade to serve a party rather than the people, the constitutional order bends toward the boardroom, not the ballot box.

California's Governor Gavin Newsom pushed Proposition 50 to dismantle the state's independent redistricting commission — a body created by voters precisely to keep partisan hands off the map — and spent hundreds of millions of dollars the state does not have to redraw congressional lines and eliminate Republican-held seats.

The gambit spread. Democrats backed a new Virginia map that would have flipped an evenly divided 6-to-5 congressional delegation into a 10-to-1 Democratic sweep. On Friday, Virginia's Supreme Court struck it down. Republican-run states that had held back then moved: Florida swiftly passed its own new map, projected to cost Democrats four additional seats.

The Founders designed Article I to make representation a compact between the people and their legislature — not a chessboard for a single party's presidential ambitions. When one faction tears up that compact to grab the board, the republic's answer has always been the same: the other side picks up pieces too, and everyone ends up worse off than when they started.

Virginia's Supreme Court moved last month to throw out a voter-approved redistricting referendum, and on Friday, May 8, House Speaker Don Scott and fellow Democrats filed a joint motion asking the court to stay that ruling while they prepare an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to The Hill.

The Founders gave the power to set election rules to legislatures and, ultimately, to the people through their constitutions — not to courts acting after the fact on maps that voters already weighed in on. When courts override ratified referenda on how districts are drawn, the constitutional order gets inverted.

Whoever controls the map controls the republic. That is true whether the party doing it wears red or blue. The oath doesn't have a party registration.

The Virginia Supreme Court struck down a Democratic-drawn congressional map that would have eliminated four Republican-held seats, ruling 4-3 that the referendum was passed in violation of Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution — specifically the requirement that constitutional amendments survive an intervening election before going to voters. Democrats pushed the referendum through on October 31, 2025, days before Election Day and weeks into early voting.

The constitutional failure wasn't cheap. The state spent more than $5 million on the special election; activist organizations poured upward of $60 million into the campaign to pass it, per Axios reporting.

The Virginia Supreme Court's ruling: "This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void." What the Founders built wasn't a ladder for whichever party holds power to kick away when convenient. The court, this time, remembered that.

The Virginia Supreme Court struck down a voter-approved congressional map on May 9, ruling 4-3 that lawmakers had passed the constitutional amendment while more than 1.3 million ballots — roughly 40 percent of the final vote — were already cast in the 2025 general election. The procedural violation, the majority wrote, "incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy."

The ruling is one piece of a wider wave. Tennessee split Memphis's Shelby County into three congressional districts to eliminate Rep. Steve Cohen's seat. Alabama called a May 4 special session seeking emergency Supreme Court relief from a federal order barring new maps until 2030. Combined with earlier moves in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, analysts now project Republicans could add six to seven additional House seats before November 2026 — before a single midterm ballot is cast.

The Founders gave Congress its legitimacy through the House — the chamber closest to the people, chosen by the people. When the map is settled in a courtroom before the republic votes, every American should ask who actually holds Article I.