Cross posted from Blue Virginia
The reason I'd say this tweet by Marc Elias is credible is that Elias is the attorney "for the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, represent[ing] two Virginia voters in a lawsuit that accuses the General Assembly of 'racial gerrymandering' by improperly packing African-Americans into the state's only black-majority congressional district to make adjacent districts safer for GOP incumbents." If true, this is potentially excellent news, but stay tuned for more news from the Eastern District Court of Virginia.
UPDATE 3:51 pm: RTD reporter Graham Moomaw tweets: "Court opinion on 3rd Congressional District: 'constitutional rights have been injured by improper racial gerrymandering'." Also: "Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions" and "...it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters."
UPDATE 3:58 pm: Here's a link to the decision. Also see BREAKING: Federal Court Strikes Down One Of The Most Aggressive Gerrymanders In The Country.
UPDATE 4:02 pm: Apparently, all three judges (Liam O'Grady, Allison Kay Duncan and Robert E. Payne) were Republican appointees. The George HW Bush appointee (Payne) dissented, but the other two judges (O'Grady and Duncan) - both George W. Bush appointtes - held that "the maps that produced this result are unconstitutional and the legislature must 'act within the next legislative session to draw a new congressional district plan.'"
UPDATE 4:06 pm: The Richmond Times Dispatch is up with its story, which notes, "Changes to the 3rd will trigger revisions elsewhere, possibly jeopardizing the GOP's 8-3 advantage in the state's House delegation." Good!
FYI, here's the current map. Note that Rep. Bobby Scott (D) won the heavily African-American 3rd with 81% of the vote in 2012 -- a margin of over 200,000 (!) votes. Put some of that into the 2nd, where Rep. Scott Rigell (R) won reelection by just 24,000 votes, and/or into the 4th, where Rep. Randy Forbes (R) won reelection by just 49,000 votes (over an underfunded Dem opponent) and see what happens.