Issue: The Virginia House of Delegates’ redistricting plan created unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We challenged the plan on behalf of 12 Virginia voters, and sought to have the map redrawn to remove the racial gerrymanders.

Result: As a result of our efforts, the House of Delegates map was redrawn to remove the racial gerrymanders and the 2019 election was held under the new map. In that election, the Democrats took control of the chamber for the first time in a decade, winning 55 of the chamber’s 100 seats. The new map was the end result of several years of litigation and multiple judicial decisions in which over a dozen federal judges participated. In the course of the litigation, we secured not just one, but two U.S. Supreme Court decisions in our clients’ favor. A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia first held a bench trial in July 2015, which ended in a divided 2-1 decision upholding the racially gerrymandered map. We sought review by the Supreme Court, which reversed, finding in an opinion issued in March 2017 that the lower court had applied an incorrect legal standard. The Court remanded the case for additional proceedings, directing the panel to apply the correct standard. A new trial was held on remand before a three-judge panel in October 2017. That trial resulted in a new decision, issued in July 2019, in which the panel held (2-1) that 11 of the House of Delegates districts were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The House of Delegates appealed this decision, which the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed in June 2019 for lack of standing.