On January 31, the Virginia Supreme Court refused to derail the lawsuit filed to invalidate the legislature’s U.S. House redistricting plan. The lower state court had said that the plaintiffs have standing. They are charging that the legislature can’t draw U.S. House districts, because the state constitution says the redistricting must be done in the odd year after any census. The 2011 session of the legislature did not pass any U.S. House redistricting plan. See this story.

This makes it very likely that the U.S. House district boundaries won’t be settled for some time. In the meantime, statewide independent and minor party candidates cannot be petitioning, because Virginia has a distribution requirement for statewide petitions. Also, minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House can’t be petitioning either.

The lawsuit is Little v Virginia Board of Elections. In the Supreme Court it is number 120148. In the lower court, in the city of Richmond, it is CL11-5253.