Virginia Democrats ask conservative-majority US supreme court to restore congressional map approved by voters – as it happened

Virginia Democrats filed an emergency application to the US supreme court on Monday, asking the Republican-dominated body to set aside a state court decision and permit Virginia to use a new map of congressional districts for this years’s midterms that was approved by voters in a referendum last month. The map was thrown out by Virginia’s supreme court last week. Virginia’s supreme court ruled that the state cannot use new congressional maps approved by voters to help Democrats gain as many as four new seats in the US House of Representatives, handing Republicans a major win ahead of November’s midterm elections. In a 4-3 decision, the court found that the state’s general assembly did not follow the appropriate constitutional procedure in approving the map, which voters then passed in a referendum last month. “This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy,” the court wrote. The ruling was a setback for Democrats’ efforts nationwide to counter gerrymanders approved by Republican-led states that may oust Democratic House representatives and boost the odds Donald Trump’s allies retain their majority in C