page_title: Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill
section_title: Opinion of the Court
hierarchical_section_title: Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill / Opinion of the Court
caption_attribution_description: English: Virginia House of Delegates chamber in the Virginia State Capitol in 2017 This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 66000911
context_page_description: Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, 587 U.S. ___, was a case argued before the United States Supreme Court on March 18, 2019, in which the Virginia House of Delegates appealed against the decision in 2018 by the district court that 11 of Virginia's voting districts were racially gerrymandered, and thus unconstitutional. The Court held the "Virginia House of Delegates lacks standing to file this appeal, either representing the state's interests or in its own right." In other words, the court upheld the decision made by a federal district court ruling in June 2018 that 11 state legislative districts were an illegal racial gerrymander. This was following a previous case, Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections.
context_section_description: In order for to file for appeal, the litigant must have judicial standing. In other words, this means that the litigant must show a "concrete and particularized injury, that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct and is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision." Because the Virginia House of Delegates served as an intervenor, it must file for appeal on its own standing. However, the court decided that the House of Delegates did not demonstrate standing on its own and thus cannot challenge the result of the case in court.
  In order to determine whether the House of Delegates had standing, the court had to consider whether the House represented both the state's interests and its own. In Virginia, "the authority of representing the state's interests in civil litigation lies exclusively with the state attorney general." In this situation, Attorney General Mark R. Herring had states that he did not want to appeal the case. Since the attorney general is not tied to the House of Delegates, the House therefore does not have standing to file an appeal on behalf of Virginia. The House also never indicated that it was representing the State in the District Court, thus the House was only representing its own interests. In reference to whether the House of Delegates has standing on its own, the Court again concluded that it does not, stating that a "judicial decision invalidating state law" did not inflict any injury to the House of Delegates.
  In response to the majority opinion of the court, Justice Samuel Alito, backed by the other dissenting judges, stated that the House did in fact have standing because the new redistricting plan would injure the House by affecting who was elected to it. Alito was critical of the impermissible blurring of the standings of the congress and state legislatures. He believed separation of powers is not required for state legislative standings.
caption: Image of the Virginia House of Delegates Chamber in 2017
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