Alabama urged the Supreme Court on Friday for an emergency order clearing the way for its redrawn congressional map that could boost Republicans’ chances of holding on to the House in November. The ask landed just as Gov. Kay Ivey ® signed the map, which lawmakers passed in response to the high court’s recent decision in Louisiana that weakened the Voting Rights Act. Alabama says that should enable the state to axe the boundaries that judges forcibly implemented to boost Black voting power under the 1965 law. The court-mandated design led to the election of Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures. “After enacting a racial gerrymander, Louisiana is now free to hold elections under a lawful map consistent with its policy goals. Alabama seeks the same opportunity,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s ® office wrote to the justices, asking for a ruling by Thursday.
*VA supreme court
I don’t think that the US supreme court (or the US House, or Senate or President) gets to decide how a state conducts their elections, outside of very broad constitutional reforms and mandates.
So the Virginia supreme court made that decision, for that particular state.
They’re doing their best to make it possible
I think there is some cover for the VA legislature to override the VA supreme court here in that they at least did take it to a referendum, and people did vote on it. It would seem to me that if the SC wanted to stop this on a technicality, they needed to do so before the referendum occurred; because at that point you’ve taken it to the people and the people responded by saying “yes do this thing”.
At least if I were trying to manage this in VA as part of the legislature, thats the argument I’d be making, that the Supreme Court of VA’ opinion on procedural details is moot because the People of VA have spoken via the referendum.
They’re talking about the federal Supreme Court effectively overturning the Voting Rights Act this past week - https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-louisiana-alabama-4e3225083caccda5ec73a98533a79add.
This has caused Louisana to stop an election already happening so they could redistrict, and is what Alabama is referencing for their redistricting push.
The VA case is different as their redistricting was never a federal issue. The VA Supreme Court said the legislation to kickoff a redistricting went against VA laws.