Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-281_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 5

2 

VIRGINIA HOUSE OF DELEGATES v. BETHUNE-HILL 

Opinion of the Court 

State  Bd.  of  Elections,  326  F. Supp.  3d  128,  180  (2018).  
The  court  therefore  enjoined  Virginia  “from  conducting 
any elections . . . for the office of Delegate . . . in the Chal-
lenged Districts until a new redistricting plan is adopted.”  
Id., at 227.  Recognizing the General Assembly’s “primary 
jurisdiction” over redistricting, the District Court gave the 
General Assembly approximately four months to “adop[t] a 
new redistricting plan that eliminate[d] the constitutional 
infirmity.”  Ibid. 
  A  few  weeks  after  the  three-judge  District  Court’s  rul-
ing, Virginia’s Attorney General announced, both publicly 
and  in  a  filing  with  the  District  Court,  that  the  State 
would not pursue an appeal to this Court.  Continuing the 
litigation,  the  Attorney  General  concluded,  “would  not  be 
in  the  best  interest of the  Commonwealth or  its  citizens.”  
Defendants’  Opposition  to  Intervenor-Defendants’  Motion 
to  Stay  Injunction  Pending  Appeal  Under  28  U. S. C. 
§1253  in  No.  3:14–cv–852  (ED  Va.),  Doc.  246,  p. 1.    The 
House,  however,  filed  an  appeal  to  this  Court,  App.  to 
Juris.  Statement  357–358,  which  the  State  Defendants 
moved  to  dismiss  for  want  of  standing.    We  postponed 
probable jurisdiction, 586 U. S. ___ (2018), and now grant 
the State Defendants’ motion.  The House, we hold, lacks 
authority to displace Virginia’s Attorney General as repre-
sentative of the State.  We further hold that the House, as 
a single chamber of a bicameral legislature, has no stand-
ing  to  appeal  the  invalidation  of  the  redistricting  plan 
separately from the State of which it is a part.1 

—————— 

1 After the General Assembly failed to enact a new redistricting plan 
within  the  four  months  allowed  by  the  District  Court,  that  court  en-
tered a remedial order delineating districts for the 2019 election.  The 
House has noticed an appeal to this Court from that order as well, and 
the  State  Defendants  have  moved  to  dismiss  the  follow-on  appeal  for 
lack  of  standing.    See  Virginia  House  of  Delegates  v.  Bethune-Hill, 
No. 18–1134.  In the appeal from the remedial order, the House and the 
State  Defendants  largely  repeat  the  arguments  on  standing  earlier