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The Supreme Court of Virginia heard oral arguments in a challenge to Tuesday’s redistricting amendment, as a former state prosecutor said Democrats’ eagerness to ram through early voting may help derail their redistricting effort.
The state’s high court appeared to press the attorney for the Democrat-led “Yes” camp more than the lawyer for Republican plaintiffs, as Chief Justice Cleo Powell brought the court to order Monday.
While election certification is on hold after Tazewell County Judge Jack Hurley Jr. issued a legal challenge following projections that “Yes” would win by single digits, a separate argument over the validity of the October-November process that led to the referendum was before the high court in Richmond.
In a post-mortem analysis of Monday’s arguments, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said that only a few justices asked questions of the litigants and their questions for the “Yes” camp were particularly pointed.
OBAMA URGES VIRGINIANS TO VOTE YES ON REDISTRICTING MEASURE THAT COULD GIVE DEMOCRATS 4 MORE HOUSE SEATS
The approved referendum could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge, if the courts do not ultimately strike it down. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
Attorneys Richard Hawkins and Matthew Seligman, and Solicitor General Tillman Breckenridge represented Democrats seeking to uphold Tuesday’s election result, while attorney Thomas McCarthy argued for Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, and other officials challenging it.
Justice Wesley Russell’s first question to Seligman and Hawkins was whether the vote Tuesday in which the “Yes” camp won even mattered in a legal setting.
“He got counsel for the defendants to concede ‘no the vote outcome does not matter’ — they didn’t talk about the margin [or the] 3:1 spending,” Cuccinelli said later Monday.
Cuccinelli said Democrats, led by Attorney…
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