The US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Monday in Wittman v. Personhuballah [SCOTUSblog materials] that Republican congressmen from Virginia lack standing to appeal a decision regarding an election district plan for Virginia’s Third Congressional District. The district was altered in 2012 in a manner that increased the already majority-African American population, and the district court found the plan unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Stephen Breyer delivered the opinion for a unanimous court:

Ten Members of Congress from Virginia, intervenors in the District Court below, have appealed a judgment from a three-judge panel striking down a congressional redistricting plan applicable to the November 2016 election. We conclude that the intervenors now lack standing to pursue the appeal. And we consequently order the appeal dismissed.

Because the court found a lack of standing, it did not reach the substantive issue of whether the Virginia General Assembly was motivated by race in redrawing the boundaries.

This is the second time the case has come before the Supreme Court, as the court previously remanded the case back to the US Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website] for reconsideration in light of its decision in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama [opinion, PDF; JURIST report], which held that courts must decide whether race predominated over nonracial considerations when planning districts. The district court again found the plan unconstitutional [opinion, PDF] in June. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments [JURIST report] in the case in March.