The court unanimously held that Reps. Rob Wittman and other Republicans from Virginia, including Reps. Randy Forbes and David Brat, lacked standing to pursue their appeal because none of them could show they were injured by the redistricting plan.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a Republican challenge to redistricting in Virginia, leaving in place a map that could prove more favorable to Democrats.
The court unanimously held that Reps. Rob Wittman and other Republicans from Virginia, including Reps. Randy Forbes and David Brat, lacked standing to pursue their appeal because none of them could show they were injured by the redistricting plan.
The case, Wittman v. Personhuballah, centers on Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District, which is now represented by Rep. Bobby Scott (D), the commonwealth’s only black congressman.
Two Virginia voters — Gloria Personhuballah and James Farkas — challenged the way the district was redrawn in 2012, arguing that the Republican-controlled legislature violated the Voting Rights Act by packing black voters into Scott’s district to make surrounding areas better for white candidates.
A lower court agreed and tossed out the Virginia redistricting plan. It elicited and ultimately settled on an alternative, neutral redistricting plan during the remedial phase of litigation.
In their appeal, Wittman, Forbes and Brat argued that, in the remedy for the unconstitutional 2012 plan, a portion of their electorate was replaced with Democrats, reducing the likelihood that they’ll win reelection.
The Supreme Court disagreed. In their six-page ruling, the justices said Wittman and Brat had not identified any evidence to support their claim of injury. Forbes, meanwhile, might have had standing to sue at the start of the appeal, the justices ruled, but doesn’t now.
Republican Reps. Bob Goodlatte, Morgan Griffith, Scott Rigell, Robert Hurt and Barbara Comstock, as well as two former House members from the state, Eric Cantor and Frank Wolf, also participated in this case, but only Forbes, Wittman and Brat claimed to have standing once the case got to the Supreme Court.
