Those amendments say congressional districts may not be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent. Now Florida Republicans have enacted a new map, and voting-rights groups have sued to stop it.⁹ ¹⁰
Virginia helps Florida Republicans politically. They can say that mid-decade redistricting is not automatically forbidden. They can say process matters, and Florida followed its legislative process.
But Virginia also helps Florida plaintiffs in a more important way. It reminds everyone that state constitutions still matter. Federal law may not generally forbid mid-decade congressional redistricting. But state law can. State constitutional limits can. Voter-approved anti-gerrymandering rules can.
That is why Florida is dangerous for Republicans. Not because the calendar is sacred. Because Florida voters wrote a rule into their constitution that politicians are now trying to outrun.
Missouri sits somewhere between Virginia and Florida.
Republicans enacted a new map. Opponents gathered referendum signatures. The fight is now over whether the new map takes effect while voters try to repeal it. That is not just a fight over districts. It is a fight over whether a legislature can win by speed — pass the map, start the election clock, and dare the referendum process to catch up.³
Virginia gives both sides ammunition. Republicans will cite strict procedure. Opponents will cite the right of voters not to have their constitutional tools nullified by timing games.
This is what the redistricting war has become.
Not one case. Not one doctrine. Not even one kind of gerrymander.
It is a stack of state constitutions, federal racial-gerrymandering doctrine, Voting Rights Act remnants, referendum rights, commission rules, filing deadlines, primary dates, injunctions, emergency stays, and courts being asked to decide which election rules still matter when power is within reach.
That is why the usual shorthand fails.
It is not enough to say Republicans are gerrymandering. They are.
It is not enough to say Democrats are responding. They are.
It is not enough to say courts are deciding. They are.
The harder truth is that the whole system now rewards whoever can convert law into timing. A map does not have to survive forever. It only has to survive the next election. A lawsuit does not have to settle the principle. It only has to miss the filing deadline. A referendum does not have to be defeated. It only has to arrive too late.
That is the real significance of Virginia.
The map did not fail because voters rejected it. Voters approved it. It failed because the process reached them after the election machinery had already begun moving. The court treated that as fatal. Then the U.S. Supreme Court let that result stand.¹ ²
That may be doctrinally defensible. It may even be right under Virginia law.
But it also reveals the new battlefield.