limits

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday sharply limited a part of the Voting Rights Act that has forced states to draw voting districts to help elect Black or Latino representatives to Congress as well as state and local boards.

In a 6-3 decision in Louisiana vs. Callais, the court ruled that creating these majority-minority districts may amount to racial discrimination that violates the 14th Amendment.

When weighing what the Voting Rights Act requires, “we start with the general rule that the Constitution almost never permits the federal government or a state to discriminate on the basis of race,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the court.

Alito said states may draw election districts for partisan advantage but may not use race as a basis for redistricting.

The ruling in a Louisiana case appears to clear the way for Republican-led states across the South to redraw their election maps and eliminate voting districts that favor Black or Latino candidates for Congress, state legislatures and county boards.

UCLA law professor Rick Hasen said, “It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics,” adding that the decision makes the Voting Rights Act a “much weaker, and potentially toothless law.”

Hasen said it’s unclear how the decision will affect the November election because in many states early voting has already started and primaries have already taken place.

But the ruling’s long-term consequences for minority representation in Congress, state legislatures and local government are almost “certainly” going to be felt in 2028, Hasen said.

Republican leaders in states across the South have already signaled they intend to move quickly to redraw congressional maps in the wake of the ruling.

Alabama Atty. Gen. Steve Marshall said the state will “act as quickly as possible” to ensure its congressional maps “reflect the will of the people, not a racial quota system the Constitution forbids.” Marshall called the decision a recognition of how much the South has changed since the civil rights era.

“The court rightly acknowledged that the South has made extraordinary progress, and that laws designed for a different era do not reflect the present reality,” he said in a statement.

Florida was already in motion before the ruling came down. But Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrated the decision and said it was all the more reason for state lawmakers to redraw its congressional maps, in a manner that could give Republicans up to four more seats in Congress.

The proposed congressional maps, drawn by DeSantis’ office, were first unveiled to Fox News on Monday. On Wednesday, both chambers approved the maps, and readied them for DeSantis’ final approval.

In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves had already called lawmakers into a special session at the end of May in anticipation of a court ruling on the Voting Rights Act. In a post on X, Reeves underscored the ideological underpinnings to the ruling’s potential implications.

“First Dobbs. Now Callais. Just Mississippi and Louisiana down here saving our country!” Reeves wrote.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) speaks at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol after the Supreme Court ruling.

(Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call / Getty Images)

At issue was how to ensure equal representation for Black and Latino citizens.

About one-third of Louisiana’s voters are Black, but the state seeks an election map that will elect white Republicans to five of its six seats in the House of Representatives.

Lower courts said that map violated the Voting Rights Act because it denied fair representation to Black residents.

The state had one Black-majority district, in New Orleans.

Two years ago, judges upheld the creation of a second Black-majority district that stretched from Shreveport to Baton Rouge on the grounds that it was required under the law.

The state’s Republican leaders appealed and argued that race was the motivating factor in drawing the second district.

Alito and the conservatives agreed and called that district an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

The three liberals dissented. The consequences of the ruling “are likely to be far-reaching and grave,” said Justice Elena Kagan, adding that it will allow “racial vote dilution in its most classic form.”

She said the decision means “a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power. Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic.”

But she said states across the South may draw electoral districts that deprive Black voters of equal representation. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.

The decision was the latest example of a partisan political dispute in which the court’s six Republican appointees vote in favor of the Republican state plan, while the three Democratic appointees dissent.

The ruling is likely to have its greatest impact in the Southern states, where white Republicans are in control and Black Democrats are in the minority.

The court’s divide over redistricting is similar to the long dispute over affirmative action.

For decades, university officials said they needed to consider the race of applicants to achieve diversity and equal representation.

But in 2023, the court by a 6-3 vote struck down college affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina and ruled race may not be used to judge applicants.

The historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 succeeded in clearing the way for Black citizens to register and vote across the South, but it took longer for Black candidates to win elections.

The dispute was highlighted in a 1980 case from Mobile, Ala. Its three commissioners were elected to six-year terms, and each of them ran countywide.

Even though one-third of the county’s voters were Black, white candidates always won.

The Supreme Court upheld this arrangement as legal and constitutional. In dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall said Black residents were left with the right to cast meaningless ballots.

In response, Congress amended the Voting Rights Act in 1982 to say states must give minorities an opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.

Four years later, the Supreme Court interpreted that to mean that states had a duty to draw voting districts that would elect a Black or Latino candidate if these minorities had a sufficiently large number of voters in a particular area.

In recent years, the court’s conservatives, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, have chafed at the rule on the grounds it sometimes required states to use race as a factor for drawing election districts.

Alito’s opinion adopted that view and said states are not required or permitted to use race as a basis for drawing districts.

Hours after the ruling came out, President Trump met with reporters in the Oval Office and said he had not yet seen the decision. He was visibly excited, however, when a reporter explained the decision favored Republicans.

“I love it!” he said. “This is very good.”

Former President Obama said in a statement that the court’s decision “effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities — so long as they do it under the guise of ‘partisanship’ rather than explicit racial bias.”

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in Los Angeles, also denounced the decision.

“The Supreme Court’s decision blesses racially discriminatory gerrymandering, and dismantles the legal protections for minority voters,” said Nina Perales, the group’s vice president for litigation. It “openly invites states to dilute minority voting strength, and undermines our democracy.”

Despite on-again, off-again negotiations, the United States has no other option but to pursue a diplomatic solution with Iran, argues Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Nasr tells host Steve Clemons that the US-Israel war on Iran has shown the limits of military force.

“You don’t go to the table to demand surrender. The other side is not going to surrender because they haven’t lost. So you have to cut a deal,” Nasr said, adding that Iran’s objective is to make sure the US and Israel understand that “war with Iran isn’t easy”.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — By the time Hasan Piker takes the microphone at two campaign events with a Senate candidate in Michigan on Tuesday, the popular but controversial online streamer will have already generated plenty of noise inside the Democratic Party.

Some have pitched him as a gateway to young people — particularly young men — who have drifted to the right in recent years. Others fear he is a sign of the party beholden to its extremes, pointing to inflammatory rhetoric like “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, describing some Orthodox Jews as “inbred” and that “America deserved 9/11.”

Piker’s scheduled appearances with Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, have catalyzed questions of how big a tent the party wants to build as it works to regain power in the midterm elections and win back the White House.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Piker cast the reaction as part of a broader fight for the party’s future.

“There is definitely, I think, a battle right now for who gets to be more representative of the national Democratic Party,” he said.

Piker remains largely unapologetic for his past remarks, although he’s said some were poorly worded. He called the renewed focus on them “totally ridiculous, especially considering that there are far more consequential things happening in the world right now.”

“The super wealthy are picking apart the scraps of the American carcass like a bunch of vultures, and some of the Democrats are talking about their affiliations with a Twitch streamer,” Piker said. “I think Americans understand that this is totally ridiculous.”

The 34-year-old Turkish American streamer has 3.1 million followers on Twitch and 1.8 million on YouTube, making him an influential voice in a shifting media landscape where mainstream outlets are losing clout. Unlike traditional podcasts, his livestreams are often unscripted and interactive. He has hosted prominent Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Piker said he is a “megaphone” for an angry electorate, and he believes the criticism that he faces is less about him personally and more about what he represents — a younger, more populist wing of the party.

“I think they find me to be a more appropriate target than to just actively disparage the voters,” he said.

El-Sayed, who has been backed by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, is attempting to channel that appeal in appearances at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan on Tuesday. A physician and former county health official, he is locked in a competitive Senate primary with U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. It’s a critical race for a seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters and the winner of the primary will likely face former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.

The three candidates have differing views on U.S. foreign policy toward Israel. Both El-Sayed and McMorrow have described the war in Gaza as a genocide. El-Sayed wants to stop all military assistance while McMorrow has pushed for a two-state solution. Stevens has described herself as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat.”

McMorrow told Jewish Insider that Piker was someone who “says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers,” and she compared him to white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Trump’s decision to dine with Fuentes between his presidencies ignited a firestorm of controversy over his association with extreme voices on the right. Stevens said El-Sayed is “choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric.”

El-Sayed responded to the backlash over Piker by saying “if we want to have a conversation where we’re actually bringing people together about the things that we need and deserve, we’re gonna have to go to unlikely and uncommon places.”

Not everyone in the party wants to go to those places. Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, who chairs the moderate New Democratic Coalition and co-chairs the Congressional Jewish Caucus, called Piker “an unapologetic antisemite.”

“We are deeply disappointed by the decision to host a speaker at the University of Michigan with a documented record of antisemitic rhetoric,” said Rabbi Davey Rosen, the CEO of Michigan Hillel. “Such invitations normalize hate and contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students.”

Piker said he is not antisemitic and describes himself as anti-Zionist. Hostility toward Israel has risen across the political spectrum and became a fault line within the Democratic Party during the war in Gaza.

Criticism has centered on Piker’s past remarks. After the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Piker argued that whether reports of sexual violence are accurate “doesn’t change the dynamic” of the conflict. He has repeatedly said the core issue is Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

Piker has drawn backlash for a comment in which he said “America deserved 9/11,” made during a 2019 livestream while discussing U.S. foreign policy. Piker has said the remark was poorly worded and added in the AP interview that he “didn’t mean that Americans deserved to die.”

Cappelletti writes for the Associated Press.

Rights groups have raised concerns about Trump’s efforts to change election administration before November’s midterms.

About two dozen Democrat-led states have filed a lawsuit against the administration of United States President Donald Trump to block an executive order setting new limits on mail-in ballots.

Friday’s lawsuit comes as voting rights groups charge that Trump is seeking to make it more difficult to vote before the consequential midterm elections in November.

Trump, meanwhile, has argued that his efforts are meant to counter rampant voter fraud in US elections.

That opinion runs counter to the findings of independent election monitors, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, whose decades-spanning database has found an exceedingly low rate of election fraud.

New ‌York Attorney General Letitia James was among the attorneys general in 23 states and the District of Columbia who filed Friday’s suit, alongside the governor of Pennsylvania.

In a statement, she argued that Trump’s executive order exceeded his presidential power.

“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and no president has the power to rewrite the rules on his own,” James said.

Trump’s latest executive order, signed on Tuesday, calls on the Department of Homeland Security to “compile and transmit” a list of United States citizens who are eligible to vote in each state.

It then requires the United States Postal Service (USPS) to “transmit ballots only to individuals enrolled on a State-specific Mail-in and Absentee Participation List, ensuring that only eligible absentee or mail-in voters receive absentee or mail-in ballots”.

Voting rights groups have said the measures would likely rely on an incomplete federal list of US citizens and would heap too much responsibility on USPS.

Mail-in voting has increased across the US, in states that lean both Republican and Democratic, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2024 elections, a third of all ballots were cast by mail.

In Friday’s lawsuit, the states argue that Trump’s order violates the US Constitution, which says that state officials decide the “times, places and manner” of elections.

The states further maintain that only Congress can pass new restrictions related to how elections are conducted. Forcing a change to election administration so close to the November elections will also create chaos, according to the lawsuit.

The midterm elections will determine which party controls the US House of Representatives and Senate.

Trump has previously voiced concern that he may face impeachment proceedings, should the Republican Party see its majorities in both chambers disappear.

For years, Trump has maintained, without evidence, that his 2020 election loss was the result of widespread fraud, and he has pledged reforms to the voting system.

He previously signed executive orders seeking to overhaul US election administration, although they have been mostly blocked by the court system.

The Department of Justice has also sued several states in an attempt to gain access to voter information, and the FBI seized ballots from the 2020 election during a raid last January in Fulton County, Georgia, further stoking concerns.

Trump, meanwhile, has been pushing lawmakers to pass the “SAVE America Act”, which would require increased proof of US citizenship when registering to vote, including a birth certificate or a passport, as well as a photo ID to cast a ballot.

Rights groups have warned the measures could disenfranchise many voters, including women who changed their last name upon marrying.

The Trump administration on Friday moved to roll back Biden-era limits on emissions of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing chemical often used in the sterilization of medical devices.

The Environmental Protection Agency said repealing the rules, which fall under the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, would “safeguard the supply of essential medical equipment” — saving approximately $630 million for companies over 20 years. California is home to about a dozen such facilities.

The government said the emissions are part and parcel of protecting people from “lethal or significantly debilitating infections that would result without properly sterilized medical equipment.”

“The Trump EPA is committed to ensuring life-saving medical devices remain available for the critical care of America’s children, elderly, and all patients without unnecessary exposure to communities,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.

An estimated 50% of sterile medical devices in the U.S. are treated with ethylene oxide, or EtO, particularly those that can’t be cleaned using steam or radiation. The colorless gas is also used to make chemicals found in products such as antifreeze, detergents, plastics and adhesives.

But EtO poses health risks. Short-term exposure by inhalation can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue respiratory irritation and other adverse health effects, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Longer-term exposure increases the risk of cancers of the white blood cells, such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as well as breast cancer. A now-deleted page from the EPA’s website stated, “EtO is a human carcinogen. It causes cancer in humans.”

Friday’s proposal specifically targets updated rules for EtO emissions that were passed by the Biden administration in 2024 following pressure from environmental justice groups, particularly those in Louisiana’s heavily industrialized “Cancer Alley.” The change sought to reduce the amount of EtO released from commercial sterilizers by 90% and lessen the hazards for nearby communities.

The tighter rules were in part based on EPA’s own scientific study that found it to be 60 times more carcinogenic than previously thought, which the agency now says should be reassessed.

If finalized, the plan would give facilities the choice between installing continuous real-time monitoring systems for EtO emissions or complying with modified pollution control requirements at facilities that emit more than 10 tons a year, the EPA said.

The proposal follows other moves by the Trump administration to rescind regulations that it says are burdensome and costly for industries, such as those governing emissions from coal power plants. Last month, the EPA repealed the endangerment finding, which affirmed the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions and underpinned the agency’s ability to regulate those emissions from vehicles.

The action around ethylene oxide would affect about 90 commercial sterilization facilities owned and operated by approximately 50 companies. Three California companies applied for and received presidential exemptions for their EtO emissions in July.

The Sterigenics facility, center, in Vernon is pictured in 2022.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

They are located in Ontario and Vernon and operated by the company Sterigenics, which provides industrial sterilization technology for medical devices and other commercial products.

In January, a coalition of environmental and community groups challenged the EtO exemptions in federal court. The lawsuit from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council argues that technology exists for facilities to comply with the tighter Biden-era standards without raising costs, and many facilities are already using it.

“EPA’s 2024 rule was an important and overdue step to reduce toxic ethylene oxide pollution and protect communities,” said Irena Como, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, in a statement Friday. “Repealing this rule that is proven to significantly lower pollution exposure and cancer risks will subject even more people who work, live, and send their children to schools located near these facilities to harm that is entirely preventable.”

Sterilization and chemical industry groups support the plan.

“The EPA rule concerning ethylene oxide use in commercial sterilizers threatens to severely restrict access to vital medical products nationwide,” the American Chemistry Council said in a statement. “We commend the EPA for their commitment to reevaluating these policies.”

The EPA will hold a 45-day comment period about the proposal after it is published in the federal register. A final decision is expected sometime this year.