Gov. Ralph Northam and Herring had voted for the 2011 redistricting plan as members of the state Senate.

The case began in 2014, when several Virginia voters challenged the legality of the House map passed in 2011.

A year ago, a panel of judges from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that state lawmakers used improper racial targets in 2011 to draw black voters into certain districts, which had the effect of weakening black voting power in neighboring districts.

Republican leaders, who spent millions to defend against a lawsuit led by Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, argued they had to take race into consideration in order to comply with civil rights protections in the Voting Rights Act. Cox and others have routinely noted that the 2011 map passed with bipartisan support and was cleared by President Barack Obama’s Justice Department.

Because the appeal was dismissed on technical grounds, the Supreme Court did not wade into the debate over how the state legislature can balance the need to preserve majority-minority districts without using unconstitutional racial quotas to pack black voters into certain areas.