Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
Is What’s Good for Texas Good for California?
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Texas does not have to redraw its maximal gerrymander, finding that the map is not illegally race-based, and that it’s too close to the election (in 11 months) to require a redraw.
The decision, from an unsigned majority plus a concurrence written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, comes as no surprise to those who have watched the Roberts Court steadily hack away at anti-gerrymandering protections.
After the 2019 death knell of Rucho v. Common Cause, when the majority ruled that partisan gerrymandering claims can’t be litigated in federal court, it became even harder to demonstrate the existence of a theoretically still-illegal racial gerrymanders, as race and partisan allegiance are often intertwined (for what it’s worth, the district court in the Texas case, in a nearly 200-page ruling, found bountiful evidence that the new maps were predicated on race). And on top of that, the right-wing justices have been messing with the Purcell principle for years, selectively ruling that changes to voting procedures impermissibly encroach on coming elections to uphold Republican-friendly maps.
Now the question lingers: Will the Supreme Court’s open arms policy to maps that let candidates choose their voters extend to the party they oppose? California, the poster child for blue state reactivity to the Trump-ordered Republican gerrymanders, is mentioned twice in the brief ruling.
Once, from the unsigned majority: “Texas adopted the first new map, then California responded with its own map for the stated purpose of counteracting what Texas had done.”
And once, in Alito’s concurrence: “First, the dissent does not dispute — because it is indisputable — that the impetus for the adoption of the concurring map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple.”
Both of these crumbs seem to lead to the same place: The nameless conservatives (the three liberals all signed onto a dissent) and Alito/Gorsuch/Thomas use constructions that equalize the actions of Texas and California. Texas acted out of partisan interest (legal), so California did the same.
It’s a cold comfort, as states free of pesky redistricting reforms race to erase voter choice from the process of selecting U.S. representatives. And you can bet that the California Republican Pparty (joined by the Trump Justice Department) will try to find some race-based idiosyncrasy to set that stateit apart from Texas’ process.
The Court has shown itself to be staunchly anti-democratic. The only remaining question is whether it’ll be consistently so.
— Kate Riga
Trump’s Institute of Peace, Taken with Guns
President Trump has stamped his name on the distinct building that once housed the U.S. Institute of Peace, which DOGE commandeered and hollowed out in the early days of his term.
Trump hanging his shingle on the headquarters of an effort to globally spread diplomacy and charitable works would be ironic enough without the backstory of how his people took it over.
Back in March, DOGE stormed the building with a panoply of armed officers. FBI agents arrived unannounced at the home of the Institute’s security chief, as DOGE tried to force its way into the building. DOGE members threatened the federal contracts of all of the Institute’s ex-security contractors to get them to fork over the key.
“This conduct of using law enforcement, threatening criminal investigations, using armed law enforcement from three different agencies — the Metropolitan Police Department, Department of State security police, the FBI — to carry out Executive Order 14217 — all of that targeting, probably terrorizing, the employees and the staff at the Institute when there are so many other lawful ways to accomplish the goals,” a federal judge said in a hearing over the Institute’s seizure. “Why?”
The case is still pending at the appellate level, though the government has been granted access to the Institute in the meantime.
The building, steps away from the Lincoln Memorial and topped by sweeping, white, dove-like wings, sits as a monument to Trump’s destruction both at home and abroad — his own Ministry of Peace.
— Kate Riga
The ‘Affordability President’ No Longer Believes in Affordability
Last weekend, President Donald Trump was branding himself “THE AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT” and suggesting this message should be the center of Republicans’ midterm election strategy. By Tuesday, Trump had changed his tune.
“Affordability is a hoax that was started by Democrats,” Trump said in a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The flip-flop messaging has come amid increasing dissatisfaction over the economy and rising prices. Democrats and, notably, New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani, have homed in on the issue, and swept the November elections. Trump quickly moved to embrace the issue.
Trump indicated the area was one where he and Mamdani had common ground when they met in the Oval Office last month. However, on Monday, when TPM asked Mamdani about Trump’s efforts to take the mantle of “affordability,” the mayor-elect offered a decidedly diplomatic and non-committal response.
For his part, Trump clearly seems finished with his brief romance with the concept
“They just say the word,” Trump said of Democrats. “It doesn’t mean anything to anybody. They just say it — ‘affordability.’ I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. Nobody could afford anything.”
And what about now that he’s president? Well, even as he rejected the notion that people are worried about prices, Trump conceded, “There is still more to do.”
— Hunter Walker
Mike Lindell Runs for Governor
The MyPillow Founder and energetic public face of the “Stop the Steal” movement filed paperwork this week to run for governor of Minnesota.
Although he has not yet formally announced his gubernatorial run, in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio on Wednesday, Mike Lindell said that he was “98 percent sure” that he will run for governor.
For years following the 2020 election, the close Trump ally and conspiracy theorist has been spreading elaborate and nonsensical lies about the integrity of the 2020 election, claiming, without a shred of evidence, that a foreign entity had systematically flipped votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, and that Trump is in fact the true winner of that election.
Most recently, in September, a federal judge ruled that Lindell had defamed the voting technology company Smartmatic by spreading lies about the company and its supposed role in stealing the 2020 election.
— Khaya Himmelman
