A Virginia judge has dealt a blow to Democrats efforts to redraw the commonwealth’s 11 congressional districts ahead of this year’s mid-term election in a bid for Democrats to pick up seats.

Tazewell County Circuit Judge Jack Hurley, Jr. ruled Tuesday that the General Assembly acted illegally when it failed to make a proposed redistricting constitutional amendment publicly available ahead of the November 2025 election.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle brought the lawsuit in the Tazewell County Circuit Court last fall. Hurley ruled the legislature cannot hold a public referendum on whether the General Assembly should be allowed to redraw congressional maps in April as currently proposed.

In order to pass a constitutional amendment in Virginia, a resolution must pass the legislature twice with a House of Delegates election in between before it moves to a public referendum. The redistricting amendment, which would allow on a temporary basis the legislature to redraw congressional maps assuming other states do so first, passed the first time in a reconvened special session in October, just before the November election. It passed for the second time earlier this month. It was likely headed to voters in a special election in April.

But Hurley’s six-page ruling said the resolution went beyond the scope of business set out by the legislature’s own rules during the fall special session. Hurley also found that because early voting had already begun at the time of the October General Assembly vote, an election had not taken place between the first and second passing of the resolution.

“There is no rational conclusion except that the ELECTION began on the first day of voting (September 19, 2025) and ended on November 4, 2025,” he wrote. “Therefore, the Court FINDS that following the October 31, 2025 vote and passage of House Joint Resolution 6007 there HAS NOT BEEN an ensuing general election of the House of Delegates, and such ensuing general election CANNOT occur until 2027.”

And, Hurley wrote that even if the above were not true, the redistricting amendment would not be legally valid because it had not been posted publicly in courthouses at least 90 days before an election, as required by an old section of Virginia code that predates its current constitution. Democrats in the House moved Monday to pass legislation that scheduled the ballot referendum and attempted to retroactively repeal the courthouse notice section of code and limit litigation surrounding the amendment to the Richmond City Circuit Court. None of that held up in Hurley’s court.

A potential new congressional map is supposed to be publicly available by the end of this week.

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