Facts
- After the 2010 Census, Virginia redrew House of Delegates districts, citing compliance with § 5 of the Voting Rights Act and maintaining certain districts with at least a 55% Black voting-age population.
- Virginia voters sued state agencies and election officials, alleging 12 House districts were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The Virginia House of Delegates and its Speaker intervened as defendants and actively defended the plan in the district court proceedings.
- In prior Supreme Court proceedings, the case was remanded for reconsideration of 11 districts under the proper racial-gerrymandering standard.
- On remand, a three-judge federal district court held 11 of the 12 challenged districts unconstitutional, enjoined elections under the existing plan, and directed remedial action.
- Virginia’s Attorney General, representing the state defendants, declined to appeal.
- The Virginia House of Delegates alone filed a direct appeal to the Supreme Court, raising whether it had Article III standing to do so.
Issues
- Whether the Virginia House of Delegates had Article III standing, either as a representative of Virginia’s interests or based on its own institutional injury, to appeal the judgment invalidating 11 House districts when the state’s executive representatives chose not to appeal.
Decision
- The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction in a 5–4 decision.
- The Court held the House lacked standing to appeal on the State’s behalf because Virginia law vested litigation authority in the Attorney General, and the State did not designate the House to represent its interests.
- The Court held the House lacked standing in its own right because it did not suffer a concrete, particularized institutional injury from the invalidation of the districts.
- The Court did not reach the merits of the racial gerrymandering claims.
Legal Principles
- Article III standing (injury in fact, traceability, and redressability) must exist at all litigation stages, including on appeal, and cannot be waived.
- An intervenor seeking to continue litigation or appeal when the original party declines must independently establish Article III standing.
- A state’s sovereign interest in defending its laws on appeal must be asserted by the officials authorized under state law (or by an entity the State designates); a single legislative chamber generally cannot assume that role without authorization.
- A legislative body’s interest in the identity or composition of its membership, and incidental electoral or budgetary effects of a remedial order, do not constitute a cognizable institutional injury sufficient for standing where no chamber-specific legal power is impaired.
Conclusion
The Court dismissed the House’s appeal because it lacked Article III standing to represent Virginia’s interests and failed to show a concrete institutional injury of its own, leaving in place the judgment invalidating 11 districts without deciding the racial-gerrymandering merits.