Representation

Oct. 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing a decision in the case Louisiana vs. Callais that may guide how the Voting Rights Act is enforced.

The high court heard rearguments last week in the case over the Louisiana legislature’s redistricted congressional map. A decision may be weeks, if not months, away.

The legislature redrew its congressional map in 2024 to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The new map included two districts where a majority of voters are Black out of six districts total.

Plaintiffs in Louisiana vs. Callais argue that the redrawn map violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because race was a guiding consideration in redistricting.

The Supreme Court has broadened the scope of this case with reargument under a supplemental question: Is Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act constitutional?

The collision between these two pieces of doctrine, both intended to insure equality in political participation, raises a critical question about how race and representation should be approached, one that the court is now poised to answer.

“The court is signaling that there has to be some reconciliation that happens beyond the status quo,” Atiba Ellis, Laura B. Chisholm Distinguished Research Scholar and professor of law in the Case Western Reserve School of Law, told UPI. “It’s hard to predict exactly how far that will go.”

One goal, different approaches

Section 2 and the Equal Protection Clause may share an underlying purpose but they take different approaches to meeting that goal.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits racial discrimination in election practices.

The extremes, according to Ellis, are that the court could determine Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional or it could reinterpret the test that it has long used in addressing concerns about race in redistricting cases.

Somewhere between the extremes is the court striking down the map at question but preserving Section 2.

“On the scale of possible solutions, it demonstrates that the court, informed by its colorblind jurisprudence that we saw in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard College, is wanting to further restrict if not all but abolish the use of race-conscious remedies in the elections context,” Ellis said.

Legal tests, cases

In the 2023 case Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, the Supreme Court ruled that using race as a factor in college admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause.

The test that guides Section 2 enforcement, referred to as the Gingles test, is the criteria required to prove vote dilution under Section 2. It is based on the court’s decision in the case Thornburg vs. Gingles in 1986.

The Gingles test is a “results test,” Ellis said.

“We simply look at a practice like redistricting in its context and the results that it has,” he said. “Thornburg v. Gingles basically created a roadmap for the inquiry. Then a court can make an inquiry within the totality of the circumstances, including the impact, the history, the background and determine whether that practice violates Section 2.”

Equal Protection Clause enforcement is guided in part by a precedent established in the case Shaw vs. Reno. This case in 1993 was over an oddly shaped majority-Black congressional district drawn in North Carolina.

The Supreme Court struck down this map, ruling that it violated the Equal Protection Clause because race was a predominant factor in its creation.

Unlike the Gingles test, the Shaw test is based on intent, according to Ellis.

“From the Shaw line to today, legislatures have had to basically walk this balance between not making race the predominant factor in redistricting — but you also can’t use race divisively by subsuming a minority group’s political power to the majority’s advantage,” Ellis said. “The former is what the Shaw line of precedent is out to do. The latter is what Section 2 does.”

“The problem, at least according to the Callais plaintiffs bringing the suit and other political entities that are supporting their position, is that these two precedents are inherently irreconcilable,” he continued.

John Cusick, assistant counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, serves as a member of the counsel in the Louisiana vs. Callais case arguing in defense of the Louisiana congressional map. He represents the appellants in the case Robinson vs. Landry, which was the impetus for Louisiana to redraw its congressional map.

Cusick told UPI that the case is part of a broader effort to limit race-conscious remedies to Civil Rights violations.

“What’s at stake in this case is that opponents are seeking to roll back progress while there is a simple truth that remains: that Black voters in Louisiana deserve the same fair and effective representation as many other communities throughout the country,” Cusick said. “So Louisianans have organized and legislated and litigated for the promise of a fair legislative map.”

“What’s consistent here is that decades of Supreme Court precedent make clear that districts created to remedy the type of racial discrimination against Black voters that’s at the heart of this case is clear and consistent and well-settled law,” he continued. “That Louisiana creating a first and second majority minority district is constitutional and not, per se, a racial gerrymander.”

Broader issue

Based on the Supreme Court precedents at play, Cusick believes Louisiana’s congressional map will be found to be permissible. However, the supplemental question over whether the constitutionality of Section 2 as a whole could send ripples across Civil Rights law.

“The Voting Rights Act is the crown jewel of Civil Rights legislation,” Cusick said. “It has the greatest effect on this country’s promise of full and equal citizenship for all Americans. We are seeing efforts throughout the country to attack many of the tools that Civil Rights legislatures have relied on, whether they are constitutional protections, whether they are statutory protections, that identify racial discrimination, that root it out and provide fair and effective remedies in doing so.”

Cusick adds that attempts to peel away Section 2 can also have effects beyond Civil Rights protections against racial discrimination. Protections for people based on gender identity and disability are also at risk.

“If the court is adhering to the supplemental question presented, this case shouldn’t have a broader impact on the Voting Rights Act, specifically Section 2, let alone other areas of the law,” Cusick said. “While we’re hopeful of that, we’re not naive.”

Authors, readers and publishing industry experts lament the underrepresentation of Hispanic stories in the mainstream world of books, but have found new ways to elevate the literature and resolve misunderstandings.

“The stories now are more diverse than they were ten years ago,” said Carmen Alvarez, a book influencer on Instagram and TikTok.

Some publishers, independent bookstores and book influencers are pushing past the perception of monolithic experience by making Hispanic stories more visible and discoverable for book lovers.

The rise of online book retailers and limited marketing budgets for stories about people of color have been major hurdles for increasing that representation, despite annual celebrations of Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 in the U.S. There’s been a push for ethnically authentic stories about Latinos, beyond the immigrant experience.

“I feel like we are getting away from the immigration story, the struggle story,” said Alvarez, who is best known as “tomesandtextiles” on bookstagram and booktok, the Instagram and TikTok social media communities. “I feel like my content is to push back against the lack of representation.”

Latinos in the publishing industry

Latinos currently make up roughly 20% of the U.S. population, according to Census data.

However, the National Hispanic Media Coalition estimates Latinos only represent 8% of employees in publishing, according to its Latino Representation in Publishing Coalition created in 2023.

Brenda Castillo, NHMC president and CEO, said the coalition works directly with publishing houses to highlight Latino voices and promote their existing Latino employees.

The publishing houses “are the ones that have the power to make the changes,” Castillo said.

Some Hispanic authors are creating spaces for their work to find interested readers. Award-winning children authors Mayra Cuevas and Alex Villasante co-founded a book festival and storytellers conference in 2024 to showcase writers and illustrators from their communities.

“We were very intentional in creating programming around upleveling craft and professional development,” Cuevas said. “And giving attendees access to the publishing industry, and most importantly, creating a space for community connection and belonging.”

Villasante said the festival and conference allowed them to sustain themselves within the publishing industry, while giving others a road map for success in an industry that isn’t always looking to mass produce their work.

“We are not getting the representation of ourselves,” Villasante said. “I believe that is changing, but it is a slow change so we have to continue to push for that change.”

Breaking into the mainstream

New York Times bestselling author Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a Mexican-Canadian novelist known for the novels “Mexican Gothic” and “The Daughter of Doctor Moreau,” is one of few Hispanic authors that has been able to break to mainstream. But she said it wasn’t easy.

Moreno-Garcia recalled one of her first publisher rejections: The editor complimented the quality of the story but said it would not sell because it was set in Mexico.

“There are systems built within publishing that make it very difficult to achieve the regular distributions that other books naturally have built into them,” Moreno-Garcia said. “There is sometimes resistance to sharing some of these books.”

Cynthia Pelayo, an award-winning author and poet, said the marketing campaign is often the difference maker in terms of a book’s success. Authors of color are often left wanting more promotional support from their publishers, she said.

“I’ve seen exceptional Latino novels that have not received nearly the amount of marketing, publicity that some of their white colleagues have received,” Pelayo said. “What happens in that situation (is) their books get put somewhere else in the bookstore when these white colleagues, their books will get put in the front.”

Hispanic Heritage Month, however, helps bring some attention to Hispanic authors, she added.

Independent bookstores

Independent bookstores remain persistent in elevating Hispanic stories. A 2024 report by the American Booksellers Association found that 60 of the 323 new independent bookstores were owned by people of color. According to Latinx in Publishing, a network of publishing industry professionals, there are 46 Hispanic-owned bookstores in the U.S.

Online book retailer Bookshop.org has highlighted Hispanic books and provided discounts for readers during Hispanic Heritage Month. A representative for the site, Ellington McKenzie, said the site has been able to provide financial support for about 70 Latino bookstores.

“People are always looking to support those minority owned bookstores which we are happy to be the liaison between them,” McKenzie said.

Chawa Magaña, the owner of Palabras Bilingual Bookstore in Phoenix, said she was inspired to open the store because of what she felt was a lack of diversity and representation in the books that are taught in Arizona schools.

“Growing up, I didn’t experience a lot of diversity in literature in schools.” Magaña said. “I wasn’t seeing myself in the stories that I was reading.”

Of the books for sale at Palabras Bilingual, between 30% to 40% of the books are Latino stories, she said.

Magaña said having heard people say they have never seen that much representation in a bookstore has made her cry.

“What has been the most fulfilling to me is able to see how it impacts other people’s lives,” she said. “What motivates me is seeing other people get inspired to do things, seeing people moved when they see the store itself having diverse books.”

Figueroa writes for the Associated Press.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Rev. Emanuel Cleaver III wants a second civil rights movement in response to President Trump and his fellow Republicans who are redrawing congressional district boundaries to increase their power in Washington.

In Missouri, the GOP’s effort comes at the expense of Cleaver’s father, Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, and many of his Kansas City constituents, who fear a national redistricting scramble will reverse gains Black Americans won two generations ago and will leave them without effective representation on Capitol Hill.

“If we, the people of faith, do not step up, we are going to go back even further,” the younger Cleaver told the St. James Church congregation on a recent Sunday, drawing affirmations of “amen” in the sanctuary where his father, also a minister, launched his first congressional bid in 2004.

Trump and fellow Republicans admit their partisan intent, emboldened by a Supreme Court that has allowed gerrymandering based on voters’ party leanings. Democratic-run California has proposed its own redraw to mitigate GOP gains elsewhere.

Yet new maps in Texas and Missouri — drafted in unusual mid-decade redistricting efforts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — are meant to enable Republican victories by manipulating how districts are drawn.

Civil rights advocates, leaders and affected voters say that amounts to race-based gerrymandering, something the Supreme Court has blocked when it finds minority communities are effectively prevented from electing representatives of their choice.

“It’s almost like a redistricting civil war,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson, whose organization is suing to block the Texas and Missouri plans.

‘Packing and cracking’

In redistricting lingo, it’s called “packing and cracking.” Those maneuvers are at the heart of Trump’s push for friendlier GOP districts as he tries to avoid reprising 2018, when midterms yielded a House Democratic majority that stymied his agenda and impeached him twice.

Because nonwhite voters lean Democratic and white voters tilt Republican, concentrating certain minorities into fewer districts — packing — can reduce the number of minority Democrats in a legislative body. By spreading geographically concentrated minority voters across many districts — cracking — it can diminish their power in choosing lawmakers.

The elder Cleaver, seeking an 11th term, said the Trump-driven plans foster an atmosphere of intimidation and division, and he and fellow Kansas City residents fear the city could lose federal investments in infrastructure, police and other services.

“We will be cut short,” said Meredith Shellner, a retired nurse who predicted losses in education and healthcare access. “I just think it’s not going to be good for anybody.”

Missouri’s U.S. House delegation has six white Republicans and two Black Democrats. The new map, which could still require voter approval if a referendum petition is successful, sets the GOP up for a 7-1 advantage.

Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe says the new map better represents Missouri’s conservative values. And sponsoring state Rep. Dirk Deaton says it divides fewer counties and municipalities than the current districts.

“This is a superior map,” the Republican legislator said.

Cleaver’s current 5th District is not majority Black but includes much of Kansas City’s Black population. New lines carve Black neighborhoods into multiple districts. The new 5th District reaches well beyond the city and would make it harder for the 80-year-old Cleaver or any other Democrat to win in 2026.

In Texas, Abbott insists no racism is involved

A new Texas map, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law, is designed to send five more Republicans to Washington, widening his party’s 25-13 advantage to a 30-8 one.

The old map had 22 districts where a majority of voters identified as white only. Seven were Latino-majority and nine were coalition districts, meaning no racial or ethnic group had a majority. By redistributing voters, the new map has 24 white-majority districts, eight Latino-majority districts, two Black-majority districts and four coalition districts.

Abbott insists new boundaries will produce more Latino representatives. But they’ll likely reduce the number of Black lawmakers by scrambling coalition districts that currently send Black Democrats to Washington.

Democratic Rep. Al Green was drawn out of his district and plans to move to seek another term. On the House floor, the Black lawmaker called GOP gerrymandering another chapter in a “sinful history” of Texas making it harder for nonwhites to vote or for their votes to matter.

Green said it would hollow out the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “if Texas prevails with these maps and can remove five people simply because a president says those five belong to me.”

The NAACP has asked a federal court to block the Texas plan. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act broadly prohibits districts and other election laws that limit minority representation.

The NAACP’s Johnson suggested Republicans are playing word games.

“Was this done for partisan reasons? Was it done for race? Or is partisanship the vehicle to cloak your racial animus and the outcomes that you’re pursuing?” he asked.

In Missouri, the NAACP has sued in state court under the rules controlling when the governor can call a special session. Essentially, it argues Kehoe faced no extenuating circumstance justifying a redistricting session, typically held once a decade after the federal census.

Saundra Powell, a 77-year-old retired teacher, framed the redistricting effort as backsliding.

She recalls as a first-grader not being able to attend the all-white school three blocks from her home. She changed schools only after the Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional in 1954.

“It seems worse 1758147903 than what it was,” Powell said.

Hollingsworth, Barrow and Ingram write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta. AP reporter John Hanna contributed from Topeka, Kan.

Believe it or not, Vice President JD Vance has said a number of things over the years that I agree with.

For example, when he suggested “the American people will not tolerate another endless war” with regards to sending aid to Ukraine, I felt seen. When Vance told podcaster Theo Von “we need to release the Epstein list; that is an important thing,” I could not have agreed more. The sex trafficker received over $1.5 billion and 4,000 wire transfers to help pay for his operation. The American people should know who among us gave that monster money.

Recently Vance took to social media to point out that Republicans average 40% of the vote in California but under one redistricting scenario would be represented by only 9% of the state’s House seats.

“How can this possibly be allowed?” He pondered.

It’s a really good question — especially for Texas.

After Texas gained two spots because of population growth in 2021 — 95% of which is attributable to people of color — Gov. Greg Abbott signed off on a map that actually increased the number of districts in which most voters are white. In fact, 60% of the new state Senate districts were majority white despite white residents making up less than 40% of the population.

Vance is correct to point out there’s a dearth of Republican representation in California politics. But while Democrats have controlled the governor’s mansion and both state chambers for 11 consecutive years in the Golden State, in Texas the Republicans have held all three for 22 consecutive years — in large part because of the type of gerrymandering Vance denounced. (In California, it’s hard to fault partisan redistricting for the current mix of representation … because the state does not have partisan redistricting. Voters established an independent commission 14 years ago.)

Texas’ current map already seems to tilt in Republicans’ favor. Last year, the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, won more than 40% of the vote in the Lone Star State, and yet today Republicans hold nearly 70% of the state’s House seats. And Abbott and his MAGA cohorts in office want even more.

In one sense it is a full circle moment for Vance to complain about gerrymandering considering it was a former vice president — Elbridge Gerry — who started it. One of the nation’s founding fathers, Gerry was governor of Massachusetts when he approved a Senate seat map that the Boston Gazette lampooned as being shaped like a salamander. That’s because it was drawn in an odd way to rig the system so that it bent toward Republicans. What Vance is complaining about was started by his party and has been the country’s reality since 1812.

That’s not to suggest Democrats are not also guilty.

Between 2010 and 2020, Illinois lost roughly 18,000 people. That reduction cost the state a House seat and required a new congressional map. For more than a decade, Republican Adam Kinzinger represented the 16th district — a swath of land that included moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats. However, after the new map was drawn by Democrats, the 16th district was erased and Kinzinger was without a district.

That is the same Kinzinger who proved to be a crucial member of the Jan. 6 committee because the war vet put his country over party. So, while Illinois Democrats were busy grabbing more power with the new map in 2021, they unknowingly forced out a moderate Republican who would prove to be one of the few conservatives in Congress to stand up for democracy. He proved not only to be an ally of democracy-oriented Democrats, but to be one of the speakers at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, a move that he and they hoped would bring out more moderates to vote against Donald Trump.

Had the Democrats kept his district intact, perhaps they would have had an ally in the House fighting President Trump’s overreach. Remember in May when Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” passed the House by a single vote?

Therein lies the true danger of gerrymandering.

It’s not about what is snuffed out today but what is prevented from happening in an unforeseen future. Kinzinger voted with Trump 90% of the time, including against the first impeachment. Looking at that, I don’t blame Democrats for seeing him as a political foe back when they eliminated his district. However, when it mattered most, he was a democracy ally. Yet by then, he was seen as a doomed political figure because of gerrymandering. Sophocles himself couldn’t have written a more tragic tale of self-defeating hubris.

So yes, JD Vance has said a number of things over the years that I agree with: no endless wars, release the Epstein files, stop the gerrymandering. I agreed with the Vance who was interested in fighting for democracy. But to appease his boss, he’s retreated from principled stances. How the world has changed, and he with it.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

The version of “Elio” that hit theaters on June 20 is not the same movie that Adrian Molina, the film’s original director, intended to put out.

Pixar removed LGBTQ+ elements from the animated feature after receiving negative feedback from test screenings with audience members and executives, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The film follows an 11-year-old boy named Elio who is mistaken for Earth’s ambassador by aliens and is beamed up to the Communiverse — an intergalactic organization — to represent the planet.

Trouble began in the summer of 2023 during a test screening in Arizona. After the film was over, audience members were asked to raise their hand if the movies was something they’d pay to see in theaters. No one did, causing Pixar executives to worry.

According to THR, Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter informed Molina after a separate screening for company executives that storyboard artist Madeline Sharafian would be promoted to co-director. Molina, who is gay, was given the option to co-direct the film with Sharafian but chose to exit the project instead after his original vision was changed. Shortly after, Docter announced internally that “Turning Red” director and co-writer Domee Shi would join “Elio” as co-director.

Changes to the film included getting rid of a scene in which Elio shows off a pink tank top made out of beach litter to a hermit crab, as well as removing picture frames from Elio’s bedroom wall that displayed a male crush. Executives also asked him to make the main character more “masculine.”

“I was deeply saddened and aggrieved by the changes that were made,” former Pixar assistant editor Sarah Ligatich, who was a member of the company’s internal LGBTQ+ group and provided feedback during the production of “Elio,” told THR.

Ligatich added that a number of creatives working behind the scenes left after the new directors went in a different direction.

“The exodus of talent after that cut was really indicative of how unhappy a lot of people were that they had changed and destroyed this beautiful work,” she said.

Actor America Ferrera was originally attached to the project as the voice of Elio’s mother, Olga. Following Molina’s departure, the “Barbie” actor left the production because the film lacked “Latinx representation in the leadership.” The character was later changed to be Elio’s aunt and was voiced by Zoe Saldaña.

In March 2025, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger announced Molina would return as co-director for “Coco 2,” a follow-up to the 2017 film he co-wrote and co-directed.

“Elio” earned Pixar its worst domestic opening after it premiered on June 20. he film made $21 million at the box office and currently holds a “fresh” 83% critics rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes.

“The Elio that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original,” a former Pixar staffer who worked on the film told THR.

“[The character] Elio was just so cute and so much fun and had so much personality, and now he feels much more generic to me,” added another Pixar staffer.

In a 2018 interview with the Huffington Post, Molina said he was “all for it” when asked what it would take for an animated studio to green light a story with a queer protagonist.

The Times reached out to Pixar for comment, but the studio did not respond.