In this week Elijah v. UNITED STATES, our justice correspondent examines Democrats’ strategy to fight GOP gerrymanders. Plus: A look at the next big anti-trans story.
A voting rights activist holds an American flag during a rally outside the Supreme Court as it hears the case of Callais v. Louisiana.
(Alex Wong/Getty Images) Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. CallaisRepublicans are aggressively working to eliminate the Congressional Black Caucus and eliminate black voting power in red states. In my most recent article, I wrote that it was far too late for the Democratic Party to end this racist race to the bottom before the 2026 midterm elections. But, assuming Trump doesn’t drag us into a global nuclear war while he is in China, life will go on and future elections will take place.
Democracy Docket laid out a plan for how Democratic-controlled states could reshuffle their maps ahead of the 2028 elections to offset Republican gains this cycle. This plan offers Democrats a way to win 17 to 27 seats in 2028, while Republicans only get four to five. The working theory is that Republicans are currently squeezing all the juice they can from the states they control, while Democrats have barely begun to do so. Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Virginia, and Wisconsin are all states where Democrats can make up significant ground — if voters in those states choose to abandon independent redistricting commissions, amend their state Constitutions, and fight fire with fire.
The plan is feasible and necessary. But I don’t want people to miss out on what’s still being lost, even if the Democrats manage to pull off these gerrymanders. The loss of black representation in the South cannot be made up for by a few more liberal white representatives from Wisconsin. The inability of Black Memphis to elect a fighter like Justin Pearson is not alleviated by the rejection of another corporate Democrat from Hoboken.
The great black congressman William Lacy Clay once said, “Negroes have neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies, only permanent interests.” » These interests cannot be adequately served solely by white Democrats scattered across northern suburban districts. Some of these interests cannot even be adequately served by black Democrats elected in majority-white districts.
Let me put it this way: I live in a suburb of New York. Could you restructure my district so that a guy like me could be elected? Probably. I mean, no Me more precisely, I have written far too much about [gestures broadly] America will be elected to public office. But someone with my pedigree and my profile, of course. But if you can’t differentiate between me and, say, Cori Bush, Justin Pearson, or Jamaal Bowman (who represented my district until it was taken away), then you’re not really in tune with the black community.
Current number
As I have said many times, the goal of the Supreme Court’s decision was not just to help the Republican Party win elections. Helping Republicans win elections was a side benefit. THE indicate The goal of the decision was to crush the political power of black people in America. You can’t restore that power by creating new neighborhoods where very few black people live.
The bully and the ugly
Trump is poised to make his first round of federal district court nominations in states where Senate Democrats could use what’s known as the “blue slip” process to try to block them. Blue slips allow senators to block presidentially appointed judges in their states. Republicans got rid of this tradition for circuit court appointments, but kept it for district courts. You’d think Democrats would be eager to stop one of Trump’s judicial nominees, but Michigan Senators Gary Peters and Elisa Slotkin, along with Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, were “discreet” about whether they will use their power to block Trump’s choices. On a related note, I support the stupidest political party on the entire planet. The Federal Reserve produced its annual “financial well-being” survey and concluded that blacks it gets worse in the Trump economy than any other racial or ethnic group. Everyone is doing badly, but black people are being hit the hardest. Of course, “blacks are worse off” is precisely why whites voted for Trump. Last month, the Office of Legal Counsel summarily declared the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional. Donald Trump, you know, doesn’t want the public to know what he’s actually doing. The fact is that it is not the OLC that decides whether an entire federal law is unconstitutional, and it seems that a judge will block the DOJ’s attempt to get rid of it. However, this is only the beginning of the process. I would argue that the DOJ will also lose in the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court upheld the Presidential Records Act when Richard Nixon challenged it. Then again, if this Supreme Court had existed when Nixon was president, it would have helped him cover up Watergate. Republicans in Congress look ready giving Trump $1 billion in taxpayer money for his ballroom. They’ll just say it’s for “enhanced security” and think everyone is stupid. A class of children continues Roblox for violating child labor laws. Please add this data to my ongoing campaign to get people to stop letting their kids use Roblox. Letting your kids spend 20 hours a week playing the most violent video game you can think of is arguably better than subjecting them to the predation of Roblox. Inspired Takes
Former NBA player Jason Collins died this week of cancer. Collins made news 13 years ago when he became the first openly gay professional athlete in one of the four major U.S. team sports. As The Nationby Dave ZirinAt the time, I thought Collins would usher in a new era of tolerance and acceptance, and I was bitterly disappointed. But Collins should be considered one of the bravest athletes in modern sport. I’m not really ready to delve into what’s going on with Hantavirus. I still have so much PTSD from Covid. But if you can handle it, The NationMark Hertsgaard has you covered on this one emerging plague. Slate“Susan Matthews”went deep” on Neil Gorsuch, the justice you should hate more than you do. There is also a Slow burn about his terrible career. The worst argument of the week
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals is likely to send a new anti-trans case back to the Supreme Court to further threaten trans children. The case, which the court heard on Tuesday, is called Wailes v. Jefferson County Public Schools and involves a religious family suing a Colorado school district. (Why is this always Colorado?)
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When Jefferson Public Schools children go on overnight field trips, they are assigned housing based on their gender identity, not their sex at birth.
For completely incomprehensible reasons, this arrangement has upset some parents. Three groups of families have sued the school, and since I can’t explain their reasons without risking losing my mind, I’ll let Courthouse press service to summarize their complaints:
Three groups of parents filed a lawsuit in September 2024 after Joe and Serena Wailes’ 11-year-old daughter was assigned to a room with a transgender student from another school during a school trip to Washington, DC. Around the same time, Bret and Susanne Roller learned that a camp counselor for their son’s sixth-grade camping trip, assigned to the boys’ bunks and showers, was non-binary but was female at birth. Rob and Jade Perlman say their daughter could play on her college basketball team and they worry she could share a room with a transgender student if the team travels for tournaments.
The behavior of all these parents seems unacceptable to me, but the Perlmans take the cake. They are worried about their daughter could play basketball, and she could room with transgender girl if the team travels. They joined a federal lawsuit just in case!
This case should be thrown out of court, but it won’t be thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision In Mamhoud v. Taylorthe Supreme Court’s most important anti-trans decision until it rules next June Little versus Hecox. (Little seeks to ban young transgender athletes from playing sports.) In Mamhoudthe court ruled that parents can prevent schools from reading books about trans children to students.
The parents in Wales argue that if parents can use their bigotry to stop a school from reading stories, they can certainly use the same bigotry to change the way a school accommodates students on overnight trips.
The war on trans kids is disgusting, but it’s also very petty. These bigoted parents are indeed complaining about who gets a bunk bed – and they will win, because God forbid this country allows a trans teenager to fall asleep without feeling hounded and bullied by the entirety of American society.
And I’ll bet my money that these parents have no problem letting their kids play Roblox.
What I wrote
As I stated earlier, I wrote about the lawsuit that the Virginia Democratic Party filed in the Supreme Court to try to reclaim its gerrymandered maps. Few people will be surprised to read that Virginia will likely lose this case. What might surprise them is that winning this particular case would quickly make things very difficult. worse for all of us.
In news unrelated to the current chaos
I spent most of the evening this week in the veterinary emergency room because my dog ate grapes. Well we thought she ate grapes. One of my children left his half-eaten dinner on a low counter (it was really my fault; I interrupted the child’s dinner to talk to him about the feedback we received from his parent-teacher conference), and when he returned, the plate was empty. He didn’t remember if he had finished his grapes or not. Grapes are toxic to dogs – they disrupt their kidney function – so we went to the emergency room. (Thanks to my child for doing the right thing and telling us instead of pretending everything was okay.)
The excellent vets did some tests and made dogs vomit…where we found the remains of my child’s cheeseburger, but no grapes. I actually felt really sorry for my dog: imagine chasing down an entire cheeseburger and then having to give it back. I feel like we violated his natural rights. But, aside from this cosmic insult, everything seemed to be going well for my dog and my family.
Then the bill came – and things weren’t looking good, because it cost $569 to make my dog vomit into his ill-gotten cheeseburger.
I had the money (well, my wife had the money – or rather, her credit card had the money), and I was of course grateful for the services provided. But for some reason the bill really struck me. What do people do when they don’t have a spare $569 for grape-related emergency issues? Did the dog just die? What will I do the next time a plate of unfamiliar food items disappears? Will I go back to the ER or will I google “what are the first signs of kidney failure in dogs” and just ride it out?
I can’t really complain on pet health, because we live in a country where people have to make these terrible decisions every day regarding human health care. But in a country where 87 million households own a pet, and 97% of pet owners are like me and consider the pet a member of their “family,” it seems like we should do something to control pet health care costs.After we are responding to our embarrassing inability to provide cost-effective human health care. But maybe right after?
Anyway, in the morning we found grapes worth about $569, untouched, under the coffee table. The dog looked at me when I found them and I thought I heard him say, “See, you stupid simian. I don’t even like stupid grapes.”
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Elie Mystal Elie Mystal is The Nationjustice correspondent and columnist. He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. He is the author of two books: New York Times bestseller Let me respond: A Guide to the Constitution for Black Men And Bad Laws: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining Americaboth published by The New Press. You can subscribe to his Nation newsletter “Elie c. US » here.