Redistricting Litigation Heats Up 

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State courts are increasingly at the center of legal and political fights over election districts. The last two weeks saw several major state rulings related to efforts at mid-decade redistricting. And now, maps passed by southern states in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision are generating a new wave of lawsuits. Here’s where things stand.

The biggest national news came from Virginia, where the state supreme court blocked a constitutional amendment that would have allowed Democrats in the state legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map. The court’s 4–3 ruling, which came after the amendment had already passed, occurred just as several Southern states were pushing through new maps post-Callais. The decision prompted sharp criticism and scrambled expectations about the midterms.

The legal issue before the court related to the process for amending the state constitution, as Steptoe’s Laura Niday explains in a State Court Report analysis. Virginia’s constitutional amendment procedure is relatively arduous: A proposed amendment must be passed by the state legislature and then passed again after the next general election, before going to the voters.

The issue was that the first passage of the amendment occurred in October 2025 during early voting for the general election, after 1.3 million Virginians had already cast their ballots for general assembly candidates. The court ruled that this early voting period was part of the general election, which meant that there hadn’t been the required intervening election prior to the amendment’s second passage.

In its reasoning, the court focused on the purpose behind the amendment procedure: to give Virginians a chance to consider the proposed amendment when voting for the members of the legislature who would need to pass it a second time. If the legislature passes an amendment after early voting has already commenced, people who voted before its passage are denied that opportunity. The dissent argued that the court was broadening the meaning of an election in a way that was inconsistent with both federal and state law.

The court also addressed why it had waited to rule until after the referendum had taken place. It pointed to long-standing state precedent that the court could only intervene at the conclusion of an amendment proceeding — and to Virginia’s own position in the litigation, wherein the state had argued that the court needed to wait. The court’s ruling means that Virginians will vote this year under the state’s existing congressional map, although they could potentially take another crack at amending the constitution for 2028.

In Missouri, the state supreme court issued two redistricting rulings last week, rejecting efforts to block the use of a new congressional map passed in 2025. In Maggard v. State, the court rejected a bid to halt use of the map until voters have the chance to consider a referendum to overturn it. The plaintiffs relied on the Missouri Constitution’s right of referendum, which grants Missourians the right to approve or reject acts of the state legislature and provides that a challenged measure shall only take effect after voters approve it. The state argued that this provision had not yet been triggered because, although a referendum had been submitted to the secretary of state, he had yet to certify the signatures.

The plaintiffs argued that the only way to effectuate the purpose of the state constitution’s referendum right was to halt the map automatically pending the secretary of state’s signature review. Lingering in the background was a suggestion that the secretary of state was slow-walking the process. The court responded that there was no dispute that the secretary of state was operating within the legally authorized timeline for approving referenda, and it held that an automatic pause triggered by the referendum’s filing was inconsistent with the constitutional text.

In Healey v. State, the Missouri high court also rejected claims that the map violated state constitutional requirements of contiguity and compactness. And, while the plaintiffs hadn’t raised a claim that the map was a partisan gerrymander, the court expressed skepticism in dicta that such claims were justiciable. On May 27, the Missouri Supreme Court will hear one more lawsuit challenging the map, which claims that the governor lacked the power to call the special session in which it had passed.

Turning to the post-Callais maps, three lawsuits in Florida are challenging the state’s new congressional map, pointing to a constitutional amendment that prohibits drawing districts to favor incumbents or political parties. The defendants argue that this amendment no longer has legal effect, claiming that the amendment’s antidiscrimination provisions violate the U.S. Constitution because they require prioritizing race in redistricting, and that the partisan gerrymandering provision can’t be severed from the whole. A trial court held a temporary injunction hearing on Friday; look for this case to move quickly.

In Tennessee, plaintiffs in NAACP v. Tennessee argue that the legislature lacked the power to change a state law banning mid-decade redistricting during a special session called by the governor in which a new congressional map was passed. The state constitution requires that the governor “state specifically” the purpose of any special session, and that the legislature limit its business to what’s named in the governor’s proclamation. Because the mid-decade redistricting law wasn’t identified as part of the special session, the plaintiffs argue that the legislature lacked the authority to address it. (The Tennessee map is also being challenged in a series of federal lawsuits.)

Meanwhile, in Louisiana, plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought to block state officials from suspending the state’s congressional primary to enable the legislature to redistrict after Callais. Judges in two cases denied temporary restraining orders.

Sometimes three weeks can feel like a year. The aftermath of Louisiana v. Callais has felt more like a decade. Look for many more cases to come.

Alicia Bannon is editor in chief for State Court Report. She is also director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Suggested Citation: Alicia Bannon, Redistricting Litigation Heats Up, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (May 21, 2026), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/redistricting-litigation-heats