quote:

One judge that voted with the majority was put on the bench by democrats.

Well, there's one who is true to his oath.

Social media erupts after Democrats 'burned $64M' on failed Virginia gerrymander
Nearly $40M came from a super PAC aligned with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries
https://www.foxnews.com/politi...virginia-gerrymander


Watching it all being destroyed!


https://x.com/gopclassics/status/2052847882563096695

Exceptional write up by Shipwreckedcrew on the VA referendum to change the State Constitution, what the D did wrong, why the lawsuit turned out the way it did with VA Supreme Court and how SCOTUS fits into the equation.

https://x.com/shipwreckedcrew/.../2053137104159596642



US Supreme Court Does Not Review State Supreme Court Decisions Interpreting State Constitutions

The headline above is pretty much all I wrote in a post yesterday after the Virginia AG filed a motion with the Virginia Supreme Court to stay issuance of its mandate -- the step which makes its decision effective in the court below -- while it prepared an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

That very simple post surprised me by getting 250k views and 1.7k Reposts in 18 hours -- suggesting that basic legal issue was not widely understood. So, here is a quick explanation of the issues at play and past Supreme Court decisions that have declined to review similar issues from state law and State Constitutions.

First, there is no opportunity here for lower federal court judges with a partisan inclination to get involved and try to muck up the waters with injunctions. The Supreme Court of the United States has "direct appellate jurisdiction" over all decisions from the Supreme Courts of the states. Any appeal of a State Supreme Court decision goes directly to SCOTUS, bypassing the lower federal courts which lack jurisdiction to consider any such appeals.

These are "cert petitions" no different than cert petitions filed by litigants in federal appeals courts -- meaning the U.S. Supreme Court can simply decline to hear the appeal, and the State Supreme Court decision is then final.

But even if SCOTUS was willing to hear the case, it has been a long-standing principle of federal law, based on federalism, that SCOTUS will not review matters purely of state law decided by a State's Supreme Court -- "pure" matters are those where there is no federal issue in the case.

The Virginia Supreme Court's decision on the redistricting effort was based entirely on the procedural requirements of the Virginia Constitution to AMEND the Virginia Constitution. A prior Amendment prohibits partisan gerrymandering of Virginia's congressional districts.

To do what the Virginia Democrats wanted to do they had to amend the Constitution. But to do that, the proposed amendment had to be voted on by the Legislature during a General Session, then there has to be an election, and then the proposed amendment must be voted on again during a General Session AFTER the election in order to place it on a ballot for the voters.

The purpose of this process is to give voters the opportunity to vote out of office those legislators advocating for the proposed amendment. If the ouster was successful, then the proposed amendment would not get passed a second time after the election, and the amendment would die and no vote on the amendment would be necessary.

What happened instead was that "early voting" -- something Democrats pushed for -- had been underway for weeks as part of the normally scheduled Virginia elections when on Oct. 29 and Oct. 31, the two Houses of the VA Legislature passed the proposed gerrymandering amendment for the first time.

The election ended Nov. 4, 2025 like normal, with Democrats making large gains, including winning the Governor's race. In late January, the two Houses of the Legislature passed the amendment again, sending it to the voters for ratification in an election scheduled for April.

But more than 1 million votes had already been cast in the early voting before the Legislature passed the amendment the FIRST time. The Virginia Supreme Court held that because that election was already underway, both votes by the Virginia Legislature came AFTER the election -- not in between, as required by the Constitution. Thus, the proposed amendment had not been voted on by the Legislature in compliance with the Virginia Constitution, and the Virginia Supreme Court nullified the public's ratification.

There is simply no federal issue involved in this process. It is entirely a function of interpreting the requirements of the Virginia Constitution, and whether the process followed by the Virginia Legislature met those requirements.

In 1875, in Murdock v. City of Memphis, when considering the extent of its jurisdiction over state law matters, the Supreme Court observed:

The state courts are the appropriate tribunals, as this Court has repeatedly held, for the decision of questions arising under their local law, whether statutory or otherwise. And it is not lightly to be presumed that Congress acted upon a principle which implies a distrust of their integrity or of their ability to construe those laws correctly.

Continuing:

These [cases] form a system of appellate jurisprudence relating to the exercise of the appellate power of this Court over the courts of the states. That system has been based upon the fundamental principle that this jurisdiction was limited to the correction of errors relating solely to federal law....

In Minnesota v. National Tea Co. (1940), the Supreme Court addressed the issue of a state's Constitution directly:

It is fundamental that state courts be left free and unfettered by us in interpreting their state constitutions.

Finally, in Michigan v. Long (1983), the Supreme Court stated:

Respect for the independence of state courts, as well as avoidance of rendering advisory opinions, have been the cornerstones of this Court's refusal to decide cases where there is an adequate and independent state ground. It is precisely because of this respect for state courts, and this desire to avoid advisory opinions, that we do not wish to continue to decide issues of state law that go beyond the opinion that we review, or to require state courts to reconsider cases to clarify the grounds of their decisions.

If a state court chooses merely to rely on federal precedents as it would on the precedents of all other jurisdictions, then it need only make clear by a plain statement in its judgment or opinion that the federal cases are being used only for the purpose of guidance, and do not themselves compel the result that the court has reached.... If the state court decision indicates clearly and expressly that it is alternatively based on bona fide separate, adequate, and independent grounds, we, of course, will not undertake to review the decision.


The Opinion of the Virginia Supreme Court rests entirely on state law -- there is little reference to or reliance upon federal law in reaching its decision. The only issue in the opinion that includes citations to federal cases is on the definitional question of what constitutes "an election." But those are offered only as examples that support its citations to Virginia cases on the same subject -- they are not relied upon by the Virginia Court in reaching its decision.

The only procedural complication that could arise -- but the Virginia Supreme Court would need to let it arise, and I don't expect that, is if it were to stay its decision until the Attorney General has an opportunity to file a cert. petition with the SCOTUS. That process would take several weeks, and it could be several more weeks -- or months -- after that before SCOTUS would act on the petition.

If the Virginia Court were to do that, then the midterm elections for Congress in Virginia would go forward based on the 10-1 map.

But given the decision to declare the maps invalid, I don't see any real possibility that the Virginia court would go along with a tactic that would result in those maps actually being used. The primary season would be forced to be continued with the 10-1 map, and SCOTUS could blow everything up at any moment by denying cert.

Back in Virginia....


https://x.com/MichelleMaxwell/.../2053963771693994483

It appears we have reached an Idiocracy-like boundary with these COMPSTITUTIONAL SCHOLARS.

https://x.com/shipwreckedcrew/.../2054012607955386550



Shipwreckedcrew:

Just so everyone is aware:

The site is awash today in FALSE claims that the Supreme Court is violating its own rule about not making changes in voting cases too close to an election.

The "Purcell" principle is that federal courts should not ORDER changes in voting cases too close to an election date and put the burden on states to figure out how to comply.

What has happened today is that the Supreme Court has simply ALLOWED Alabama to decide for itself what it wants to do in the aftermath of the decision in the Louisiana decision last week.

Democrats and their supporters are LYING.

Plain and simple.

demoKKKrats are shit-pile of psychotic lunatics, topped off with vile racism.

This is in response to a recent SCOTUS ruling of a congressional map in Alabama.

“ ‘Crazy ass Uncle Tom’: Democrat State Rep. Juandalynn Givan says Clarence Thomas ‘sold us back into the hands of the master’ “

https://1819news.com/news/item...-hands-of-the-master

A couple of paragraphs from the article -

"This mf'er, this man, this Uncle Tom, this Uncle Tim…and I'm so pissed and I said this today…this black man right here, I don't know what kind of black he is. I don't know what damn plantation this man came from. I don't know what slave ship he was on. I don't know what part of the slave ship he was on," Givan said on Facebook on Monday.
.
Givan continued, "I do not say the N word. You have not ever heard me use the N word to say it out. I may say reggin. That's it spelled backwards but this reggin right here, this reggin right here. This man. I'm telling y'all. This mf'er must've been there, he must've been the one who sold us out in Africa. His ancestors had to be the ones that sold us out in Africa that caused us to be chained. I don't understand this man."

Absolutely vile and beyond disgusting.

"The notion that four unelected judges would overturn the votes of more than 3 million citizens in Virginia. Is this what Republicans are celebrating right now?"

But if the court's decision had gone his way, he'd be fine with it, and praising the justices. This is stupid beyond stupid, and he insults the intelligence of every thinking person with this idiotic take. Jackass


https://x.com/WesternLensman/s.../2054601172204368223

^^ Yes Hakeem, 'We The People' are celebrating right now, because the entire process was UNCONSTITUTIONAL, you power hungry America Hating Leftist Asshat!

Maximum Warfare...

Look, Hakeem. Unconstitutionality aside, it's not as if a 90-10 was overturned... it was a 51-49. Those millions of Virginians you're upset about are darn near matched 1:1.

Knucklehead.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
Look, Hakeem. Unconstitutionality aside, it's not as if a 90-10 was overturned... it was a 51-49. Those millions of Virginians you're upset about are darn near matched 1:1.

Knucklehead.

And I'm pretty sure the 1% was mail in votes as well.

Tony.

How much does this improve our odds of winning the midterms? Will we be able to offset any numerical advantages the Dems have by November with redistricting alone?

quote:

Originally posted by Carpentermaass84:
How much does this improve our odds of winning the midterms? Will we be able to offset any numerical advantages the Dems have by November with redistricting alone?

Hard to tell, SC Rinos sided with D and stopped the redistricting action in that state.

Lawsuits abound trying to stop it in other Red states, even though every Blue state is gerrymandered many to the extent there are zero R districts.

Hopefully our side should be filing motions asking to SCOTUS to force MA/NY/CT/NJ and any state with zero R representatives to redistrict with a direct order, just like Alabama did.

F Temu Obama... He's just a mouthpiece...

The this whole issue of redistricting has caused the Democrats to reveal their true, honest plan for this country.

https://x.com/EricLDaugh/statu...istration-day-481%2F

.
Supreme Court rejects Virginia Democrats' bid to revive new congressional map

quote:

In an unsigned one-sentence order, the Supreme Court left intact a ruling from Virginia's highest court that invalidated an amendment to the state constitution authorizing adoption of the new House district lines. No dissents were noted.

^^^ The “No dissents” is what’s shocking.

This is in response to a recent SCOTUS ruling of a congressional map in Alabama.

“ ‘Crazy ass Uncle Tom’: Democrat State Rep. Juandalynn Givan says Clarence Thomas ‘sold us back into the hands of the master’ “

https://1819news.com/news/item...-hands-of-the-master

A couple of paragraphs from the article -

"This mf'er, this man, this Uncle Tom, this Uncle Tim…and I'm so pissed and I said this today…this black man right here, I don't know what kind of black he is. I don't know what damn plantation this man came from. I don't know what slave ship he was on. I don't know what part of the slave ship he was on," Givan said on Facebook on Monday.
[/QUOTE]

Don't democrats understand that Uncle Tom is gender specific?

Hakeem can suck it. Unelected judges are making decisions for democrats as well.

Kamala Harris...what a whiner besides what would happen if the courts were packed with 4 more reublicans?
Why cant we sell Puerto Rico back to Spain?

^^^ eleven posts up.