The Supreme Court should not have reinstated the Virginia maps

The Supreme Court rejected without comment the Hail Mary appeal brought by Virginia Democrats. I’ve seen this described as another case of shadow docket hackwork, but in fact it is a rare case of the Supreme Court acting like a court of law:

1)The “independent state legislature” theory underpinning the appeal is an incredibly stupid and pernicious argument.

2)More to the point, it’s the increasingly rare “theory” generated by the wingnut legal-industrial complex that is so outlandishly wrong that it can’t get five votes from the Roberts Court even when if would benefit Republicans.

If the Court had applied this theory when it helped Republicans, then the outrage would be justified, but it hasn’t, and if it started now you definitely would not like the results going forward.

The decision by the Virginia Supreme Court was outrageous, but the remedy is to change the personnel of that court as soon as is legally possible, not to have the Supreme Court overrule a state court on a matter of state law that poses no federal question.