RICHMOND, Va. — The NAACP Virginia State Conference held a rally in Richmond Saturday in observance of the National Day of Action for Voting Rights.
A group gathered at the Bell Tower outside the state Capitol to protest the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision and the Virginia Supreme Court's dismissal of the voter-approved redistricting referendum.
On Friday, U.S. justices rejected Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones' bid to restore new congressional maps which were drawn to give Democrats a better chance of winning seats in the upcoming 2026 midterm Congressional races.
The NAACP says the U.S. Supreme Court's conclusion has undermined the Voting Rights Act.
"Our parents weren't born with rights. They had to fight for their rights. The young people were born with rights, and now they're losing their rights, and they need to understand the impact of what that means," Gaylene Kanoyton, with the NAACP, said.
Jones appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Supreme Court of Virginia struck down a redistricting constitutional amendment that voters narrowly passed just last month.
The state court found that the Democratic-controlled legislature improperly began the process of placing the amendment on the ballot after early voting had begun in Virginia's general election last fall.
In a bid filed by Jones, Virginia Democrats had hoped to persuade the justices that the Virginia court misread federal law and Supreme Court precedent that hold that, even if early voting is underway, an election does not happen until Election Day itself.
Republican state Sen. Ryan McDougle, one of the plaintiffs of the original lawsuit, said the Virginia court simply followed the Constitution.
"This is about state constitution and whether we followed the Constitution in order to change the Constitution," McDougle (R-Hanover) said. "I think our Supreme Court clearly ruled you cannot violate the Constitution in order to change the Constitution."
Virginia's amendment had been intended as a response to Republican lawmakers in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, who, at the behest of President Trump, redrew maps to give their party an advantage.
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