districts

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Missouri judge has allowed new U.S. House districts backed by President Trump to be used in the November elections, rejecting a bid by to put the Republican-friendly districts to a statewide vote of the people.

The ruling Wednesday by Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green is a victory for Republicans seeking to hold onto their slim majority in the U.S. House. But the case is likely to end up in the state Supreme Court.

Missouri’s new districts already were used in the August primaries. On that same day, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected a petition with thousands of signatures seeking to force a November referendum on the map. Hoskins asserted that Missouri’s Constitution doesn’t allow a referendum on congressional redistricting.

The judge agreed with Hoskins and other Republicans, who joined in defense of the new map.

“The Missouri Constitution does not supply any statement — let alone a clear one — reallocating authority over congressional redistricting away from the General Assembly to a referendum process,” Green wrote in the ruling.

Opponents of the redistricting plan quickly announced an appeal.

“Everyone knows that Cole County is not the final decision here,” said Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians, who sued to try to place the new map on the ballot. “After months of delay, we are pleased to be moving forward to the Missouri Supreme Court to enforce our constitutional rights.”

Missouri’s redistricting targeted Democratic congressman

Missouri’s current U.S. House delegation is made up of six Republicans and two Democrats who were elected from districts with boundaries drawn after the 2020 census.

But Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe called the Legislature into a special session on redistricting last year after Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw congressional boundaries to their advantage ahead of the midterms.

Missouri’s revised map is designed to help Republicans defeat Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. It reassigns portions of Kansas City to two neighboring districts represented by Republicans and stretches the remainder of Cleaver’s 5th Congressional District far eastward into Republican-heavy rural areas. About 59% of its voters are new to the 5th District, according to an Associated Press estimate.

State Sen. Rick Brattin won a Republican primary in the reshaped district in early August. Cleaver was unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

Republicans had argued that the new districts should be used in the November elections even if a voter referendum on the map was allowed to occur at the same time.

Lawsuit highlights dispute about referendum rights

The Missouri Constitution does not specifically say that a referendum can be used to decide congressional redistricting, nor does it forbid it, which is why the issue ended up in court.

Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office, which represented the secretary of state in court, argued that congressional redistricting is a legislative duty not subject to referendum without specific constitutional permission.

The attorney general and the Republican Party also argued it was too late to switch district boundaries before the November election. Changing districts after the primary would cause “widespread voter confusion” and an “erosion in confidence in the integrity of the state’s elections,” said John Gore, an attorney for national, congressional and state Republican committees.

The judge agreed, ruling that a district swap after the primary would violate federal law.

It’s been more than 100 years since a Missouri redistricting plan faced a referendum. In 1922, voters rejected a new congressional map passed by the Republican-led Legislature. The legitimacy of that referendum petition was not challenged in court.

Redistricting battle spread to numerous states

Missouri’s mid-decade redistricting effort has been among the most litigated nationally, triggering about a dozen lawsuits over the past year.

The Republican-led state was the second, after Texas, to respond to Trump’s call to redraw congressional districts. Several other states followed. All told, Republicans hope to win as many as 16 additional seats from new House maps enacted in eight states: Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama. Democrats, whose counterattack faced several setbacks, think they could win up to six additional seats from new districts in California and Utah.

It remains to be seen whether the redistricting works as intended for Republicans. The president’s party historically has lost congressional seats in the midterms, and Trump’s poor approval ratings could provide an extra hurdle for Republican candidates.

Lieb writes for the Associated Press. AP journalist Hannah Recht contributed to this report from Washington.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon speaks in June during a roundtable event on at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. On Monday, the Departments of Education and Justice said they are targeting two school districts for policies protecting students’ gender identity. Photo by Daniel Heuer/UPI | License Photo

July 27 (UPI) — The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice said Monday that they’re taking “significant action” against school districts in Maryland and Michigan because of policies allowing school personal to protect students’ personal gender identity.

In a press release, the departments said Anne Arundel public schools in Maryland and Ann Arbor public schools in Michigan were “hiding sensitive information about children’s health well-being from their own parents.” They cited parental rights in the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office received complaints from Maryland parents who said that the school was helping their child “pretend to be male.” The principal declined to give the parents information about their student, and the assistant principal refused to turn over records, the release said. It said the SPPO and the Just Department’s Civil Rights Division will start applicable judicial proceedings and the district may face the loss of federal funding.

In Michigan, the release said, SPPO has found an Ann Arbor district policy requiring school employees to protect a student’s gender identity from their parents “likely violates FERPA.” The departments have given the district until Aug. 10 to “demonstrate why ED and DOJ should not move forward with enforcement.”

“This is not only an affront to basic moral principles, but also to parents’ rights under federal law,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Today, ED and DOJ are putting districts on notice that we will use every tool available to hold them to account for this egregious behavior.”

On the ballot this year is an entirely new congressional map.

Redrawn with the passage of Proposition 50, the new districts favor Democrats in November. But those gains aren’t guaranteed. Candidates have to make it through California’s primary, where the top two vote-getters move on to the general election regardless of party preference.

While many districts shifted only slightly, some Republican districts were split, some Democrat districts were strengthened, and in one district lines were redrawn with no overlap at all with their 2024 boundary.

Several seats are competitive — either with a tight race between Republicans or because the seat is expected to flip from red to blue. With redistricting, only four seats are considered solidly Republican, according to the Cook Political Report, down from the nine GOP seats won in 2024.

The 1st Congressional District — which was redrawn farther south to cover portions of Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, and Yuba counties — is one to likely flip.

Rep. Ken Calvert’s 41st District in the Inland Empire was eliminated and completely redrawn in Los Angeles County. Calvert is now challenging Republican incumbent Young Kim in the 40th District. Both are marked as incumbents in the results below.

In its new position, the 41st District was carved, in part, out of the previous 38th District. The current representative for the 38th District, Democrat Linda Sánchez, is running in the 41st District and is marked as an incumbent.

Several seats, such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 11th District, are competitive between candidates from differing wings of the Democratic party. While in District 22, Democrats are competing to challenge Republican Rep. David Valadao in a redrawn, Latino-majority swing district.

Also on this page are noncompetitive local districts that may still be of interest to Times’ readers in Southern California.

Not seeing the race you’re looking for? See all of California’s U.S. House races on the statewide election page.

Federal judges on Tuesday blocked Alabama’s plan to use a congressional map that could give Republicans an advantage in a key U.S. House race in the midterm elections.

A three-judge panel in the state’s long-running redistricting case issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the state from switching maps, ruling that the Republican-backed plan “intentionally discriminated based on race” by including only one Black-majority district. The judges instead required Alabama to continue using a court-ordered map in place for the 2024 elections that includes two districts where Black residents comprise a majority or close to it.

“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the judges wrote.

The ruling is a setback for Republicans, who want to use a map for the November midterms that would give the GOP a chance to reclaim the seat now held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures. However, the state could appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Figures said he is pleased with the ruling but expects an appeal. “This is a significant step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before this fight is settled,” Figures said.

The court order is the latest development in the twisting legal and political saga following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana and weakened the federal Voting Rights Act. That ruling has led Republicans in several Southern states, including Alabama, to take steps to reshape voting districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats.

The redistricting frenzy is part of a broader push by President Trump to try to hold on to Republicans’ slim House majority in the November elections.

Alabama court fight stretches back several years

The three-judge panel in 2023 ruled that a map drawn by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court said the state, which is about 27% Black, should have two districts where Black voters are the majority or close to it. The court-selected map was used in 2024.

After the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Louisiana case, Alabama officials moved to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed to lift the injunction that had blocked the map’s use and sent the case back to the three-judge panel for reconsideration in light of the Louisiana ruling.

In the meantime, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set Aug. 11 special primaries using the new map.

Upon further review, the panel said there was “undisputed evidence” of intentional racial discrimination. It said the special congressional primaries should instead proceed under the previous court-approved districts.

The decision to temporarily block the map switch came after a seven-hour court hearing Friday in which judges sharply questioned state lawyers about the timeline and the impact of the Louisiana ruling.

Using the same districts that had been in place for the previous election would prevent “an expensive, aggressive, and perhaps logistically impossible voter reassignment effort,” the judges wrote.

“Candidate and voter confusion is troublesome and warrants significant consideration, but we do not see that a preliminary injunction will worsen it. To the contrary, we expect a preliminary injunction to lessen it,” the judges said.

Deuel Ross, director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the court ruling “again vindicated the constitutional rights of voters in the Black Belt, and our clients look forward to voting under a fair map this fall.”

Redistricting changes affect primaries in several states

Other states also have considered adjustments to their primary elections to allow time for congressional redistricting after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision affecting the Voting Rights Act. Louisiana’s congressional primaries, scheduled for May 16, were postponed until later this summer by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry so that state lawmakers could consider a new U.S. House map that would eliminate a majority-Black district.

In South Carolina, the Republican-led legislature is considering a plan that could throw out the votes from its June 9 congressional primary and instead hold a new primary in August under revised districts that could improve Republicans’ chances of winning an additional seat.

Tennessee also moved quickly to enact new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court’s ruling, carving up a Black-majority district based in Memphis that had elected the state’s only Democratic representative. The new map gives Republicans a chance to sweep all nine of the state’s seats. As part of the plan, Tennessee temporarily reopened the candidate qualifying period for its August congressional primaries, allowing new candidates to enter the race and existing ones to either switch districts or drop out.

Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its U.S. House districts last summer, about a half-dozen Republican-led states have enacted new voting districts, though some still face legal challenges. Democrats countered with new districts in California and also expect to gain a seat from new court-imposed districts in Utah.

Chandler and Lieb write for the Associated Press.

Los Angeles voters will cast ballots in eight City Council district elections next week, including for two open seats where incumbents are leaving because of term limits.

The contests for the seats being vacated by Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield and Curren Price have drawn large fields of candidates, but the biggest spending has been in the Westside’s District 11, where incumbent Traci Park is facing challenger Faizah Malik, a public interest attorney and one of four council candidates backed by the local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.

Park has raised $1.3 million, according to the latest campaign finance reports filed Friday, while challenger Faizah Malik reported about $520,000 in contributions. In addition, more than $3 million has been spent in the race by so-called independent expenditure committees that spend money to elect or defeat candidates but which are barred from coordinating their activities with the campaigns.

The district includes Venice, Mar Vista, Brentwood and Pacific Palisades, which was devastated by wildfire in January 2025.

Malik said Friday she is confident heading into the primary election, saying most of her donations are under $100 each, and that she hasn’t taken money from corporations.

“This is what it means to be a grassroots candidate, and it is just more evidence that the people of CD11 believe in our vision for a Westside that is affordable for everyday people,” Malik said.

A Park campaign aide said Park’s haul is indicative of the councilmember’s record of getting results.

“But no one is taking anything for granted,” the aide said in a statement. “We’re working until the final vote is cast because this election will determine whether the Westside keeps moving forward or gets pulled backward into the same failed ideological politics Angelenos are exhausted by.”

Park has emphasized her advocacy for fire recovery efforts, including pushing for permit fee waivers for residents wanting to rebuild. Malik has said Park has been too focused on single-family homeowners and said she would focus more energy on renters.

They have contrasting views on policing: Malik said she opposes expanding the size of the Los Angeles Police Department and instead supports shifting more resources to the city’s unarmed crisis response program. Park said the Police Department should have about 10,000 sworn officers, up from about 8,700 currently. She voted in favor of a 2023 LAPD contract that gave raises to officers and increased salaries to new hires.

They stand in contrast of each other on the Venice Dell housing development project, which would turn a city lot into 120 housing units for low-income and homeless people. Park opposed the completion and instead wants to turn it into a “mobility hub” and move the housing project to an adjacent lot. Malik, who represented the developer that filed a suit against the city claiming Park and others sought to kill the project, said the project was a motivating factor for her campaign.

District 9

Six candidates are vying to replace Councilman Curren Price, who hit the 12-year limit, in District 9. The district includes the Convention Center, USC and communities along the Harbor Freeway.

The candidates vary on key issues, including policing and housing. Estuardo Mazariegos, co-director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Los Angeles, is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. He has called for reducing the LAPD budget and redirecting funds to other city departments.

Two other candidates — Jorge Hernandez Rosas, an educator, and Jose Ugarte, who previously worked for Price — said they support hiring more police officers. Another hopeful, Elmer Roldan, executive director of Communities in Schools of Los Angeles, said he believes in keeping the LAPD at its current size.

Ugarte, Roldan, Rosas and Martha Sánchez, a therapist, all support enforcing Municipal Code 41.18, which bars homeless encampments near schools and daycare centers. Mazariegos and Jorge Nuño, an entrepreneur, say the code doesn’t solve homelessness and instead just moves people around.

Ugarte has raised the most in contributions of any candidate and has been endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party in the nonpartisan race.

District 3

Three candidates are competing for an open seat in District 3, where Councilmember Bob Blumenfield has termed out of office. The district encompasses Woodland Hills, Canoga Park, Reseda, Winnetka and Tarzana.

The candidates are Tim Gaspar, who founded an insurance company, Barri Worth Girvan, district director for Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, and Christopher Robert “C.R.” Celona, a tech entrepreneur.

The three candidates are similarly positioned on public safety, backing Mayor Karen Bass’ long-term goal to increase the LAPD ranks to at least 9,500 officers. All three also support enforcing Municipal Code section 41.18.

Gaspar and Worth Girvan have both scored key endorsements. Gaspar is backed by Blumenfield, billionaire developer Rick Caruso and Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez, Tim McOsker and John Lee and billionaire developer Rick Caruso. Worth Girvan has endorsements from a long list of state Democratic lawmakers, the county Democratic Party, the Sierra Club and labor unions.

Gaspar leads in campaign contributions, followed by Worth Girvan. Celona, who has promised to resuscitate the city’s entertainment industry by fast-tracking film permits and cutting red tape, trails far behind.

District 1

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez faces four challengers in District 1, which stretches from Highland Park on the northeast to University Park on the southwest. She is backed by the local Democratic Socialists of America, and her challengers claim the district has suffered under under her leadership, pointing to MacArthur Park as emblematic of the homelessness and drug addiction crisis plaguing the city.

Hernandez counters with a list of accomplishments, including helping secure a $6.3-million state grant to house homeless individuals near the Arroyo Seco riverbed and advocating for a citywide network of unarmed crisis response teams.

She faces challenges from Maria Lou Calanche, a former Los Angeles police commissioner and founder of the nonprofit Legacy LA; Nelson Grande, an executive consultant and former president of Avenida Entertainment Group; Raul Claros, founder of California Rising; and Sylvia Robledo, a small-business owner and former council aide.

Hernandez’s campaign has also faced an onslaught of accusations of “dark money” spending. A group called Neighbors First has sent mail pieces critical of Hernandez and other leftist City Council candidates.

District 5

Incumbent Katy Yaroslavsky faces two challengers for her District 5 seat, both of whom oppose her stance on housing and public safety spending. The district includes some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, including Bel-Air, Westwood, Cheviot Hills and Hancock Park.

Challengers Henry Mantel, a tenants’ rights lawyer, and Morgan Oyler, an accountant, say Yaroslavsky hasn’t done enough to increase the district’s housing supply. Yaroslavsky, who holds a wide lead in fundraising, has said she supports increasing housing density near transit centers but cautioned against building more than the city can sustain.

District 13

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who is also backed by the Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter, faces three challengers in District 13, which includes Atwater Village, Glassell Park, Elysian Valley, Echo Park, Silver Lake and East Hollywood.

The list of challengers includes Colter Carlisle, vice president of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, Dylan Kendall, who runs Grow Hollywood, and Rich Sarian, vice president of strategic initiatives for downtown’s South Park Social District.

While Soto-Martínez supports expanding the city’s unarmed personnel program, Carlisle and Kendall would like to expand the police force. Sarian has said he supports the unarmed personnel program and wants to examine the LAPD’s current size and resources.

District 15

Incumbent Tim McOsker is facing off against community organizer Jordan River in District 15, which covers Harbor City, Harbor Gateway, San Pedro, Watts and Wilmington. McOsker has decades of experience in the political world, having worked in the mayor’s office, and the city attorney’s office before joining the City Council in 2022. Rivers, who is unemployed, is a member of the Green Party.

District 7

Monica Rodriguez is running unopposed for the District 7 seat in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Times staff writers David Zahniser, Noah Goldberg and Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.