Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli asked the Virginia Supreme Court Wednesday to overturn a lower court ruling made the previous day which held that six Virginia residents had grounds to sue the state for its current redistricting legislation.
"Given the impending elections and deadlines associated with the federal Voting Rights Act, my office is seeking immediate intervention by the Supreme Court of Virginia," Cuccinelli said in a statement.
Also on Wednesday, Gov. Bob McDonnell signed House Bill 251, which fulfilled Virginia's responsibility to redraw its 11 congressional districts to reflect changes in population as measured by the 2010 census. Democrats argue that the bill undermines black voting power by concentrating many of those voters in a single district.
In a written opinion released Tuesday, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Richard D. Taylor, Jr. denied the defendants' motion to dismiss the suit before the bill was passed by McDonnell. Brian Gottstein, a spokesperson for Cuccinelli, one of the defendants, disagreed with the court's opinion.
"Now that the General Assembly has passed - and the governor has signed - the congressional redistricting plan, the court can only act if passing the redistricting bill was beyond the legislature's authority," Gottstein said in a statement. "Because the General Assembly clearly has such authority under both the United States and Virginia constitutions, the Richmond Circuit Court does not have the jurisdiction to hear the plaintiffs' claims."
Taylor wrote that Article II, Section 6 of the Virginia constitution requires the legislature to pass a redistricting bill during 2011, a year after the most recent U.S. census was completed.\nGeoff Skelley, media relations coordinator at the University's Center for Politics and former Cavalier Daily opinion columnist, said Democrats would benefit the most if the redistricting bill were rewritten by courts.
"[The current redistricting plan] clearly favors the Republicans," Skelley said. "It favors all the incumbents to a certain degree." Since the bill groups more Republicans into Republican districts and more Democrats into Democratic districts, it potentially preserves an 8-3 Republican-Democrat split in the Virginia delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Skelley said Democrats would argue for a different map because there is only one majority-minority and predominantly black district in Virginia - Congressman Bobby Scott's third district - even though the state's population is 20 percent black.
Cuccinelli has said he will continue defending the current plan.
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