A Virginia circuit court in Tazewell County struck down a series of election-related laws Wednesday and declared a Democrat-backed redistricting referendum unconstitutional, one day after voters narrowly approved the measure in a special election. The ruling voids the results of the April 2026 vote and blocks certification of a new congressional map that Republicans warned would hand Democrats as many as 10 of Virginia's 11 U.S. House seats.
The court granted final judgment on all counts of the verified complaint brought by the Republican National Committee and plaintiff Steven Koski. It declared House Bill 6007 "void ab initio", a legal term meaning the law is treated as though it never existed, and rejected House Bill 1384 in its entirety. The judge also invalidated related provisions of the Virginia Code, finding they conflicted with constitutional requirements governing legislative action and election procedures.
In practical terms, the ruling means the votes cast Tuesday carry no legal effect. The current 6, 5 Democratic edge in Virginia's congressional delegation remains intact, at least for now. And the proposed map, which critics said would have created one of the most lopsided partisan gerrymanders in the country, is frozen pending what promises to be a fierce appeal.
Virginia Democrats pushed the redistricting amendment through both chambers of the General Assembly, completing the legislative approvals needed to place it before voters in a statewide referendum. The Daily Caller reported that Democrats advanced the plan in response to President Donald Trump asking Republican-led states to pursue midterm redistricting. Virginia's Democratic majority moved to draw its own new lines first.
The effort drew high-profile national support, and the amendment cleared a statewide vote on Tuesday by a narrow margin. But the RNC had already ramped up its opposition, investing significant resources and arguing the new congressional map would unfairly tilt Virginia toward Democrats and reshape U.S. House representation far beyond what the state's actual political composition justified.
The projected shift was dramatic. Virginia's current delegation splits 6, 5 in favor of Democrats. Under the proposed map, Democrats could have held 10 of 11 seats, a near-total lockout of Republican representation in a state that elected a Republican governor as recently as 2021.
The Tazewell County judge found multiple constitutional violations in the legislation that set up the referendum. The court concluded that lawmakers improperly expanded legislative authority beyond what prior resolutions permitted. It also found the measure could not stand under the Virginia Constitution due to procedural defects and the absence of a valid electoral framework supporting its implementation.
House Bill 1384 fared no better. The court found defective ballot language, improper timing of voter submission, and a failure to clearly describe the scope and purpose of the proposed amendment. The ballot presentation, the judge determined, misled voters. The measure combined multiple subjects in violation of constitutional requirements and improperly bypassed legislative safeguards designed to regulate local and special laws.
Fox News identified the presiding judge as Jack Hurley, who cited procedural failures in how the amendment was advanced and called the ballot language misleading.
The ruling said the challenged laws created irreversible legal and procedural harm, justifying immediate and permanent judicial intervention. The judge determined that plaintiffs had standing and granted permanent injunctive relief, barring certification of the referendum results and blocking implementation of the proposed map.
Virginia House Republican leader Del. Terry Kilgore did not mince words. As legal challenges mounted against the redistricting maneuver, Kilgore framed the entire effort in blunt terms:
"This is just a power grab. That's all you can say, a power grab by the national Democrats."
Kilgore expressed confidence the ruling would hold up on appeal, telling Fox News:
"I think if they follow the law, they will definitely strike this down and have it null and void, so we're optimistic."
Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who left office in January 2026, weighed in as well. The Washington Examiner reported Youngkin's assessment of the proposed map:
"Virginians know a 10-1 map is not Virginia."
Conservative commentator Matt Schlapp argued the map's substance and the referendum's wording both made the measure legally vulnerable. Schlapp told Newsmax:
"The first problem is the actual map is an absurdity. There's no way that this squares with constitutional norms."
Former Trump White House aide Hogan Gidley offered a broader critique of the Democratic strategy, saying:
"This is another example of Democrats being angry at Republicans for things they are guilty of actually doing."
Democratic Attorney General Jay Jones made clear the fight is far from over. Just The News reported that Jones plans to appeal the ruling, and the case is widely expected to land before the Virginia Supreme Court.
Jones framed the court's intervention as an overreach:
"Virginia voters have spoken, and an activist judge should not have veto power over the People's vote."
That framing, casting the judge as an activist for enforcing the state constitution, is a familiar move. Democrats routinely invoke "the will of the voters" when courts find their legislation procedurally defective. But the court in Tazewell County did not dispute the voters' right to weigh in. It found that the legislation placing the question on the ballot was itself unconstitutional, that the ballot language misled voters, and that the entire framework violated Virginia's own procedural safeguards.
The distinction matters. Voters were asked to approve something that, in the court's judgment, was never lawfully placed before them. The problem was not the voters. The problem was the process Democrats used to get the question on the ballot.
The Virginia Supreme Court previously cleared the referendum to appear on the ballot despite an earlier procedural challenge. Now the same court will likely be asked to decide whether the Tazewell County ruling stands.
For now, the permanent injunction blocks certification of the referendum results and bars implementation of the proposed congressional map. The current maps remain in place. And the Republican grassroots campaign against the amendment, which mobilized significant resources ahead of Tuesday's vote, has won its first major courtroom victory.
Several questions remain unanswered. The exact margin by which voters approved the measure has not been publicly detailed. The specific provisions of the Virginia Code that were invalidated have not been fully enumerated in public reporting. And the timeline for an appeal, and any potential stay of the injunction, remains unclear.
But the core facts are plain. Virginia Democrats advanced a mid-decade redistricting plan designed to transform a competitive 6, 5 congressional delegation into a 10, 1 Democratic stronghold. They pushed it through the General Assembly, placed it before voters in a special election, and saw it narrowly approved. One day later, a circuit court found the entire effort riddled with constitutional violations, from the legislation that triggered it, to the ballot language that described it, to the framework that was supposed to implement it.
Democrats spent years accusing Republicans of gerrymandering. They built entire organizations around the claim that partisan map-drawing was a threat to democracy. Then, the moment they held the levers in Richmond, they attempted to engineer a congressional map so lopsided that even a sympathetic court couldn't let it stand.
The Tazewell County ruling did not block redistricting because the court opposed voters having a say. It blocked redistricting because the people who wrote the laws and drafted the ballot language cut corners, misled voters, and violated the Virginia Constitution's own procedural requirements. The court's judgment was detailed, specific, and grounded in the state's governing document.
When the rules apply to everyone, power grabs get harder. That's the point of having a constitution in the first place.
