The Trump administration is trying to wriggle out of a legal requirement to end its war with Iran, experts told TPM — and to do so, it’s trying to convince everyone to focus on the wrong thing.
Continue reading “White House Claims Iran War Has Been ‘Terminated,’ Despite Ongoing Blockade. Experts Say That’s Absurd.”Dems Game Out Plan for More Redistricting Ahead of 2028
With the Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court this week and Republican officials in red states in the South jumping to redraw their maps before the 2028 election cycle — and with some going to extremes to redraw district lines ahead of the upcoming midterms — Democratic leadership is planning new counter moves in a handful of states.
“All options are on the table as we get through the 2026 election and look to the future,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told Politico Thursday. “As many governors have already indicated, we will be prepared to respond in states like New York, Illinois and Maryland, as well as in Colorado, in advance of the 2028 election.”
Continue reading “Dems Game Out Plan for More Redistricting Ahead of 2028”Trump Withdraws His Nomination of MAHA Influencer for Surgeon General
This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.
President Donald Trump on Thursday withdrew his nomination of Casey Means, a wellness influencer, for surgeon general after key Senate Republicans declined to support her.
Means, a doctor without an active medical license, had been poised to elevate Trump’s vague but politically potent message to “Make America Healthy Again” and alternative forms of medicine. Pulling her nomination represents a defeat for the president and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had recommended her for the job.
Continue reading “Trump Withdraws His Nomination of MAHA Influencer for Surgeon General”What’s Happening on the Ground After SCOTUS’ ‘Radical Rebalancing’ of Power
Hello, and welcome back to The Franchise!
By now you’ve heard about the Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday that struck down Louisiana’s second Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana v. Callais, dealing a major blow to the Voting Rights Act and making it almost impossible to prove that racial discrimination has taken place in future redistricting efforts.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research described the decision as a “radical rebalancing of the balance of power between the three branches of government” that greatly limits the use of consideration of race in future maps.
At this point, there are really only a few states that have filing deadlines late enough in the game to allow for the redrawing of congressional district lines ahead of the midterms. But red states officials across the nation are already calling for changes to congressional maps to be made as soon as possible — meaning the decision can and likely will still have an impact on President Trump’s push to predetermine the results of the midterms.
Of particular interest is, of course, Florida, whose legislature had already convened a special session on redistricting this week and on Wednesday approved new gerrymandered maps that are poised to give Republicans four additional congressional seats.
We’re also keeping a close eye on Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina where election administration deadline schedules might still allow for some wiggle room for maps to be redrawn ahead of primaries. Republicans in those states have already put out calls for new maps in light of the SCOTUS ruling.
But it might not stop there. The governor of the state of Louisiana, whose second majority Black district was the subject of Wednesday’s ruling, has already told Republican House candidates in the state that he plans to suspend the upcoming May 16 primaries while maps are redrawn.
We will get into all of this and more below. Let’s dig in.
The Callais Decision and the Latest in Redistricting
Against the backdrop of the Louisiana v. Callais decision, the future of the redistricting war that Trump started last year remains to be seen.
But here’s what’s currently happening.
Only hours after the Supreme Court announced its decision, Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a new gerrymandered congressional map that could give Republicans as many as four additional seats in the U.S. House. The new map will primarily impact Democratic-leaning districts in areas near Tampa Bay and Orlando, and the new lines were drawn even before the ruling on Wednesday. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis admitted in the wake of the decision that he had redrawn lines with the potential implications of such a SCOTUS ruling in mind.
The new map could give Republicans 24 seats in the state, leaving only four for Democrats. Some experts and even some Republicans, though, have noted that attempts to further gerrymander congressional lines, especially in the southern half of that state, could actually backfire.
A Florida special session on redistricting began on Tuesday, just a day after DeSantis revealed the new map. The session started off a little rough, though, as a strategist for DeSantis and author of the map, Jason Poreda, admitted that he used partisan data to draw the map, even though in 2010, Florida voters banned partisan gerrymandering when voters approved new Fair Districts amendments to the state constitution.
“Partisan or electoral performance data was considered, but certainly not at the exclusion of all of the other standards,” Poreda said during this week’s special session, prompting Democrats and advocates to vow to bring legal challenges once that map passed.
But an attorney for DeSantis, David Axelman, argued on Wednesday that the Callais decision actually nullifies the Fair Districts amendments, according to reporting from the Florida Phoenix.
It’s all part of a bigger gerrymandering battle that Trump has been waging for months, pressuring red states across the country to engage in the once-unprecedented practice of mid-cycle redistricting, as a way to ensure that Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House this year.
The push for Florida to adopt new maps followed a significant Democratic win in Virginia last week, after voters approved a Dem-endorsed redistricting proposal that is poised to give Democrats four additional congressional seats in the state, though it has been aggressively challenged by Republicans in court. Virginia’s initiative was introduced as a way to offset the damage of Trump’s gerrymandering overreach.
Up until yesterday, pressuring Florida to adopt new maps for the midterms was seen as Trump’s last hope to gain a few more seats and, at least, in part, save Trump’s floundering campaign. Now, things are different.
Antrim County is Embroiled in Another Election Denial Saga
Antrim County, Michigan, which was ground zero for election conspiracy theories following the 2020 election, is once again embroiled in more possible election denial activity as the county clerk reportedly tries to cancel voter registrations — something she is not entitled to do.
Here’s the backstory.
Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop — a Republican who is very closely associated with the 2020 election denialism crowd and has herself spread lies about the 2020 election — was elected county clerk in 2025 and ran on the following slogan: “Restore election integrity in Antrim County.”
Bishop’s husband, Randy Bishop, is a conservative talk radio host who was also Bishop’s campaign manager, has also previously said he had evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, per reporting from Votebeat. During her campaign, Votebeat noted, Bishop repeated a classic MAGA election lie: that “we still have dead people and people who no longer live in Antrim County” on the voter rolls.
So, the Michigan Bureau of Elections sent a letter to Bishop earlier this month saying it received information that indicated that she was changing and canceling registrations for voters in the county. Municipal clerks are the only ones with this authority.
“The Bureau of Elections has received information indicating you may be taking actions related to voter registration and voter record maintenance that fall outside the scope of your statutory authority and fail to comply with the law,” the letter said. “Under the Michigan Election Law, responsibility for updating voter registration records and issuing related notices rests with the city or township clerk.”
The letter requested that Bishop give a “detailed explanation” of how and why she canceled or changed people’s voter registrations, including offering a “legal basis” for doing so, as well as a comprehensive list of every voter who received a notice from the county this past year.
The letter, which was sent on April 14, demanded a response from Bishop by April 23 — a deadline that has come and gone with no formal response.
In a statement on April 19, Bishop said that both the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act give her the authority to conduct what she calls a “corrective audit to identify ineligible registrants.”
A spokesperson for the Michigan Department of State told Votebeat that the statement didn’t count as a response to the state’s letter.
While this is a minor and bizarre episode in an already chaotic midterms cycle, wonkiness in Antrim County is notable because it was one of a handful of conspiracy theory hotbeds in 2020.
Back in 2020 there was an accidental reporting error in Antrim County on election night. It was not a software error, but an honest human mistake that led to a brief misreporting of votes in the county, leading to an inaccuracy in the unofficial election results being reported. The error was spotted and quickly corrected and in no way impacted tabulation.
Despite the fact that it was corrected, the error became fodder for Trump and his allies who referenced it repeatedly as a way to prove that the voting machines were hacked and the election was stolen.
Stay tuned for more on this.
The DOJ is Now O for 7 in Its Failing Voter Seizure Campaign
Another day, another defeat for the DOJ’s flailing campaign to seize sensitive voter data from the states.
For many many months now, the Trump administration has been trying to force 48 states and Washington D.C. to hand over sensitive voter information, including Social Security numbers and driver license numbers, to the federal government, a move widely considered an overreach.
Few states have complied, so, in response, the DOJ has sued 30 states and D.C. And so far, the DOJ has lost every single case that has gone to court. The latest loss is in Arizona.
This week, a Trump-appointed judge, district judge Susan Brnovich, dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit against Arizona with prejudice (so that the DOJ cannot refile), saying that the Trump administration has no right to Arizona’s voter data, marking the administration’s seventh loss thus far.
“The Court will dismiss the Attorney General’s claim with prejudice because amendment would be legally futile,” the order reads.
In its request for Arizona’s statewide voter registration list, the DOJ relies heavily on the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act.
In her order, Brnovich noted that these statues do not give the DOJ the right to this information. More specifically, she noted that even if the Civil Rights Act of 1960 is “sweeping,” it is not “limitless.”
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, both Democrats, released a joint statement on Tuesday praising the decision.
“This is now the sixth federal court to reach the same conclusion,” they wrote in a statement. “Arizona acted correctly in refusing this request, and today’s ruling vindicates that decision. Our offices will continue to defend the privacy of Arizona voters against federal overreach.”
The DOJ has lost similar lawsuits in Oregon, California, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. A federal judge also dismissed a case in Georgia because the DOJ filed the lawsuit in the wrong city.
In Other Election News:
Reuters: How Trump is moving to control U.S. elections, one state at a time
CNN: Indiana GOP lawmakers defied Trump on redistricting. Now GOP voters may thwart his push for revenge
Democracy Docket: Fulton County again turns Harmeet Dhillon’s comments against DOJ in ballot seizure case
Trump Admin, GOP Leadership Scramble To Explain Why Iran War is Not War
With a hard deadline bearing down on them, Trump and his allies are scrambling for a way to argue that contrary to the shooting, ship boardings, and an ongoing naval blockade, the U.S. is not engaged in hostilities with Iran.
Continue reading “Trump Admin, GOP Leadership Scramble To Explain Why Iran War is Not War”You Can Have Democratic Self-Government or the Corrupt Court — Not Both
It’s a good day to return to the question of the Supreme Court’s corruption and the necessity of reforming it in order to make democratic self-government possible again in the United States. The federal constitution is an expansive document. Within the system begun with Marbury v. Madison – which is subject to many reasonable critiques – it is possible to have more liberal or conservative jurisprudences, loosely tethered to the progress of presidencies and senates. The Roberts court is a different beast. It is the product of a decades-long effort to corrupt the federal judiciary. That degree of corruption first came into full view in the second decade of this century when the Court openly began to do three closely interrelated but conceptually distinct things.
First, The Meaning of Words is For Little People.
The Court has, with increasing boldness, manufactured new doctrines and text out of the constitution which simply do not exist in the document. Often they are implicitly or even explicitly ruled out by the plain text itself. The greatest example is the 2024 presidential immunity decision, a ruling contradicted by all the history of the document as well as its clear language. The framers knew how to create immunity. They did it for the work of Congress. They declined to do it for Presidents. The entirety of the decision is manufactured out of whole clothe. Whether the majority falsified this immunity because they thought it should exist or specifically for the benefit of Donald Trump hardly matters. It is corrupt, illegitimate and a wholesale attack on the constitution itself. The Court have also increasingly resorted to plainly absurd textual analysis to change the meaning of constitutional language the meaning of which has never been in doubt. The current birthright citizenship case, whatever the majority decides, is another example.
Second, The Choose Your Own Adventure Constitution.
Closely related to point one, the Court no longer has any consistent or even comprehensible jurisprudence. It simply has political goals it seeks to achieve – presidential immunity, an increasingly absolute right to firearms, a 14th amendment focused primarily on race not actually existing. Arguments are chosen by convenience simply as backfill to arrive at the desired end. The corruption often emerges most clearly in those brief moments when the logical conclusions of the Court’s own arguments are too much for even it to bear. Again, we have a recent example. Presidents can fire anyone in the executive branch based on nothing more than the presidential will, even when Congress has specifically given them protections against such dismissals. Except the Federal Reserve, even thought it is by every measure an independent federal agency constitutionally indistinguishable from the rest. Why is it different? Because Federalist Society ideologues actually don’t like inflationary monetary policy. So in this one case, it’s different … even when it’s not.
Third, Political Power if For Republicans Only.
While the corrupt majority has consistently advanced and enforced an ideological vision of how the country should be run it has another simpler brief: not allowing Democrats to govern when they are in power. When Republicans are in power the powers of presidency are almost limitless; when it’s Democrats the office is feeble and hemmed in by a cobweb of invented doctrines. We had the ironic benefit of two Trump presidencies sandwiching a Biden presidency to make this principle of action crystal clear. Quite simply, the corrupt majority ensures that only Republicans actually get the fruits of political victories.
In our thinned out political discourse people often use the term “corruption” to refer only to venal corruption – bribes, conflicts of interest mostly involving money, kept Justices like Clarence Thomas. That is neither the only nor the most significant form of corruption. In most cases venal corruption is significantly self-correcting. It gets exposed and prosecuted. The more general meaning of corruption is when a form of rot takes over an office or institution because of systemic and ingrained abuses of power. That is the case with the Supreme Court and it’s especially dangerous with the Supreme Court because a mix of history and restraint have left very few checks on its abuses. The Supreme Court is given specific powers to achieve specific ends. Over the last 15 years it has assumed vast new powers and used them consistently for anti-constitutional ends. Far from interpreting or defending the constitution it is at war with it. An orderly, proper and essential process of reform is entirely possible by simple statute law on simple majority votes.
SCOTUS Gifts GOP a Fighting Chance to Hold the House
A Whole New Battleground
The Roberts Court’s decision to effectively neuter the Voting Rights Act gives Republicans new life in their bid to hold on to their fragile House majority in 2026.
Consider just a few of the developments in the 24 hours since the decision in Louisiana v. Callais was handed down:
- Louisiana: Gov. Jeff Landry (R) plans to suspend next month’s primary elections so state lawmakers can pass a new congressional map that eliminates one or both of the state’s majority-Black districts.
- Florida: The GOP-controlled legislature passed its already-planned new congressional district map that could net Republicans four House seats.
- Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina: Top GOP candidates, elected officials and party chairs “called for special legislative sessions to dismantle minority-majority districts and create more aggressive gerrymanders benefitting their party,” Politico reports.
The upshot already is that Republicans have regained the lead in the mid-decade redistricting battle, seizing it back only days after Democrats had edged ahead.
The GOP advantage is small, but the already-narrow divide in the House makes any changes to the national map potentially decisive in either direction. Even if only a handful of Southern states seize on the Supreme Court decision, the gains could be enough to shift the map further in the GOP’s favor, all else being equal. (Conversely, it’s also true that these marginal shifts can be rendered largely meaningless if Democrats win in November in a wave election that washes out any structural GOP gains.)
Much of the analysis yesterday accurately noted how tight election calendars in many states may prevent the GOP from taking full advantage of an electoral map unencumbered by the Voting Rights Act. But it’s also true that it’s generally easier to redistrict in red states than in blue ones. With the the GOP’s firm control of many statehouses, its top-down hierarchical structure, and its culture of rewarding impunity, it is not just better positioned to capitalize on the current moment, it has little to lose.
Against this backdrop stands one Donald J. Trump, whose entire political existence, financial fortunes, and fractured psychology are dependent on holding onto the House. Why wouldn’t Republicans do everything in their power to push the envelope as far as they can between now and November? It’s how they got to this point. It’s what they do. Why would they stop now?
2028 and Beyond
A couple of additional points about the on-the-ground impact of the Roberts Court’s decision:
GOP’s Structural Advantage Grows
Even if the timeframe is too crunched for Republicans to maximize the effect of the Supreme Court ruling in time for the 2026 elections, the impact on the 2028 congressional district map is going to be enormous. A political playing field that already tilts structurally in favor of Republicans (thanks to the Senate, Electoral College, and partisan gerrymandering) will be a dramatically steeper climb for Democrats.
“We’re very likely to see the biggest drop in minority representation of the modern era — maybe even bigger than the drop we saw in the end of Reconstruction,” Harvard law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos told the WaPo.
(Yes, Republicans risk diluting their districts by eliminating majority-minority districts, but this is a manageable risk that frankly is often overstated. Over the long term, it might yield median candidates in red districts who are slightly less to the right, but in most cases the overall electoral advantage still goes to the GOP.)
It’s Not Just the House
The impact of the Roberts Court’s decision is far-reaching in state and local maps, too: legislatures, city councils, judicial districts, etc. Election law expert Richard Hasen calls it the “bleaching” of American politics, a whitening of elected officeholders at every level of government.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) had already called a special legislative session to address the state’s judicial maps, and now the state will get one of the first bites next month at the apple offered by the six-judge conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
With local elected offices serving as a points of entry for higher office, eliminating minority representation there snuffs out political careers before they can even begin, creating an additional structural impediment to would-be candidates of color at all levels of government.
Quote of the Day
“If you tell me I have to be white to serve in Congress from Louisiana, I can’t do nothing about that.”—Rep. Cleo Fields (D-LA), reacting to the Roberts Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act
A Sampling of the Legal Reax
- Law professor Richard Hasen: “Wednesday’s 6–3 party-line decision in Louisiana v. Callais will go down in history as one of the most pernicious and damaging Supreme Court decisions of the last century.”
- TPM’s Kate Riga: “The conservative justices know that Callais makes Section 2 cases virtually impossible to bring, that it’ll have the same effect as their previous deteriorations of the VRA. They know that they’re making minority voters vulnerable to being redistricted or restricted out of electoral power — and they also know that most of those minority voters vote Democrat.”
- Civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill: “[I]t is a mistake to consider today’s decision just a blow for the political rights of racial minorities. Today’s decision strikes a blow at the fragile infrastructure of our democracy. It casts aside the precious and noble actions undertaken by countless generations of activists, lawyers, and legislators, who worked to bring this country closer to becoming a true multi-racial democracy. It rides roughshod over the will of Congress. In its place, the Court leaves a bare-fisted zero-sum game of partisan politics and an open door to the return of full-on racial exclusion in political representation. So long as it’s dressed up as partisan gerrymandering or incumbency protection, it’s all good.”
Thread of the Day
Maine Senate: Janet Mills Suspends Campaign
Citing insufficient financial resources, Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) has suspended her Senate campaign.
Fallout From SPLC Indictment
Fidelity and Vanguard have cut off the Southern Poverty Law Center from receiving charitable donations through their donor-advised funds as a result of the bogus retributive indictment of the civil rights organization.
Jim Comey Allowed to Surrender
While an arrest warrant was issued in North Carolina for former FBI Director James Comey after his new retributive indictment by the Trump DOJ, he was allowed to make his first appearance in his home district of Virginia rather than face the spectacle of an arrest.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Fitzpatrick rejected prosecutors’ request to impose conditions on Comey’s release pending trial. “I don’t think conditions of release are necessary,” the judge said. “They weren’t necessary the last time, and I don’t see why they’d be necessary this time.”
Judge Gets Serious About Trump’s Bogus Settlement With the IRS
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of Miami, on her own initiative, appointed distinguished outside counsel to serve as friends of the court in helping her assess whether the pending settlement of Donald Trump’s $10 billion claim against the IRS.
The move comes after Williams expressed skepticism last week that Trump and the IRS were truly adverse to each other, given the president’s embrace of the unitary executive theory. Without truly adverse parties, the court would lack jurisdiction since there would no controversy for it to resolve.
Williams ordered six attorneys from three firms, including former Obama-era Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., to “assist the Court in identifying the applicable law governing an analysis of this issue.” Their legal memo is due May 21.
What Really Happened With the Broadview 6?
The Trump DOJ dropped felony charges in the Broadview 6 case and will only proceed with misdemeanor charges against the ICE protestors arising from the October incident.
The key point: The DOJ moved to drop the most serious charges on the same day it was supposed to bring grand jury transcripts to court on order of U.S. District Judge April Perry. Making the felony case go away deprives defense counsel of access to the transcripts since the misdemeanor charges aren’t dependent on a grand jury indictment.
Failson Fails Upward
Amazon, which owns The Apprentice back catalog, is considering rebooting the Trump reality TV show with Donald Trump Jr. as the host.
If the Day’s News Wasn’t Bad Enough …
WaPo: “Surging concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, have produced potent changes in the way plants grow — from increasing their sugar content to depleting essential nutrients like zinc. Experts fear the degradation of Earth’s food supply will cause an epidemic of hidden hunger, in which even people who consume enough calories won’t get the nutrients they need to thrive.”
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.
Republicans Cheer SCOTUS Ruling In States Where Maps Could Change Ahead of Midterms, And Beyond
Florida Jumps First
Republicans across the nation are cheering the sweeping and devastating Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act — and, by rendering it nearly impossible to prove that racial discrimination has taken place in redistricting, significantly diminished the likelihood that map makers who use race in drawing future congressional maps will face legal challenges.
Continue reading “Republicans Cheer SCOTUS Ruling In States Where Maps Could Change Ahead of Midterms, And Beyond”TPM Live: Gerrymandering and White Nationalism at the Supreme Court With Kate Riga and John Light
Kate Riga and I will discuss today’s Supreme Court ruling, the ominous oral arguments that followed, and, if we’ve had enough coffee, what hope there is for the future of multiracial democracy in a Substack Live tomorrow at 10 a.m. ET.
Let’s Close it Out
We’re about 90% of the way to our goal in our annual TPM Membership Drive. If you’ve somehow missed the theme of the drive, it’s that we here at TPM are chronicling the national crisis. The national crisis we’re talking about obviously includes Donald Trump, who is something akin to a great accelerator or catalyst.
But if you’ve followed our Supreme Court coverage today, you know that the crisis neither began when Trump took office nor will it end when he leaves office. There is a lot of work to do. Much of that work cannot be done by journalists. But the documenting of abuse by public officials not only can be done by journalists but must be done by journalists. So, if you’ve been putting off joining for whatever reason, make today the day and help us hit our goal so we can do our part in return.
Click here to join for 25% off. Thanks in advance, from all of us.