An interesting May 22 order from the court in the Justin Fairfax child custody trial, Fairfax v. Fairfax (Judge Timothy… The post Court Refuses to Release Auto-Generated Transcript in Justin Fairfax Child Custody Trial, Citing AI Transcription Errors appeared first on Reason.com.
The Florida Supreme Court declined to block the newly enacted congressional map that could net Republicans up to four seats in the Sunshine State. In a 6-1 ruling, the state’s high court ruled it lacks the jurisdiction to rule on a case currently being litigated in a lower court. The ruling does not end the […]
In April, the Supreme Court handed down a controversial decision which critics say “eviscerated” the Voting Rights Act. Now, according to new reporting from Vox, the impact of this decision is about to spread from the voting box to the workplace. Per Vox, “President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice released an opinion on Tuesday that, in the likely event it is embraced by a Republican-controlled federal judiciary, would make it significantly harder for plaintiffs who face employment discrimination to prevail in court.” It was notable that the opinion was signed by T. Elliot Gaiser, head of the Office of Legal Counsel and a former law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, author of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Essentially, Gaiser’s opinion argues that the same logic Alito used to attack voting rights can be applied to employment anti-discrimination law. According to Vox senior Supreme Court correspondent Ian Millhiser, “if you accept Alito’s opinion in Callais as legitimate, then Gaiser’s approach to employment discrimination is hardly a stretch. Indeed, it is the next logical move in the Republican Party’s broader campaign to weaken civil rights protections for racial minorities.”As Millhiser explains, “The 1982 law that Alito targeted in Callais provided that voting rights plaintiffs who challenged a state election law did not need to prove that state lawmakers acted with racist intent in order to prevail. Under that law, which was repealed by Callais, a state law that ‘results’ in voters having their right to vote diminished due to their race may also be challenged.” Now, because of the Supreme Court’s decision, voting districts can more or less be gerrymandered at will, even scrubbing Black districts entirely out of existence, because the language in Alito's opinion makes it nearly impossible to prove racist intent.Gaiser’s decision concerns a similar law regarding employment, and he’s making essentially the same argument raised by conservative justices: that a discrimination case can prevail only if racist or sexist intent is explicit. And given these similarities, says Millhiser, Gaiser’s claim “is likely to prevail before a Republican Supreme Court.”According to Millhiser, there are two upshots to this conclusion: “One is that it should be significantly harder for many employment discrimination plaintiffs to prevail. The other, which is potentially even more significant, is that elected officials should lose much of their power to remedy discrimination of all kinds, and the scope of civil rights law should be determined primarily by the Supreme Court.”As Millhiser explains, “both the Voting Rights Act’s results test and employment discrimination’s disparate impact test, after all, were enacted into law by Congress. But the Republican Party’s consistent position on civil rights laws is that democratically enacted civil rights laws must bow to the whims of Republican justices.”In essence, it is the position of conservatives on the court that “these difficult policy questions should be removed from the democratic process and given to a Republican judiciary.” Millhiser asserts that this should raise troubling questions as to “why six Republican lawyers in black robes have more insight into US civil rights policy than the people American voters elected to make these decisions.”
In 2018, David Tyson Jr., an African American, sued Richardson Independent School District in Texas for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In the district’s 164-year history, Tyson was the only person of color ever to serve on the school board. Yet, at the time of the lawsuit, white students made up less than 30 percent of the district while Black and Hispanic students made up nearly 60 percent.When Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, it gave communities the tools to combat these kinds of racial harms. Section 2 of the act outlaws state and local governments from enacting voting rules that result in racial discrimination. One of the undersung aspects of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais—for which there has been much hue and cry over the way it’s paved the path for right-wing state governments to draw majority-minority federal districts out of existence—is that it cuts away at this protection for local governments, as well, rendering it “all but a dead letter,” as Justice Kagan laments in her dissent.While the media has focused on Callais’s impact on Congress in the 2026 midterms, its darkest mark will be on local governments. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been most frequently applied to address and remedy local electoral practices, not state ones. Its use heralded diverse school boards and city councils where national minorities, by virtue of being local majorities, can govern.Through this phenomenon, diversity develops twice over. First, through representational diversity and second, through institutional diversity. Minorities can see themselves represented on school boards, county commissions, and city councils. And they can harness that representation to institute local governments that do not look like state or national government. These more representative governments are more likely to become local laboratories willing to conduct policy experiments or try alternative governance approaches that the broader polity dismisses or ignores. This is why diversity at the level of individuals and institutions cultivates a rich democracy. Callais endangers these sites of local democracy by hollowing out Section 2 protections.But back in 2018 when Tyson filed his lawsuit, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was still intact. We can look back in time to see its salutary effects. Tyson told a “tale of two districts,” where—unsurprisingly—a ceaselessly homogeneous school board had harmful consequences for the Richardson school district. Elementary schools where at least 70 percent of the students met grade level in two or more subjects were two-thirds white—and the vast majority were not economically disadvantaged. By contrast, the lowest-performing elementary schools were predominantly made up of Black, Latino, and economically disadvantaged students. Atop the startling peak of disparity was the 60-point achievement gap between the district’s highest-performing school, which was predominantly white, and its lowest-performing school, which was predominantly Latino.These racial inequities did not go unnoticed by the Black and Latino voters of Richardson. And yet, Richardson’s school board remained persistently white for one reason: the district’s voting practices. While white students constituted a minority in the district’s schools, white voters still comprised a majority of the district’s population. These demographics, combined with an at-large, district-wide voting scheme where every voter in the district voted in every school board election, meant that minority voters would never succeed in electing a candidate of their choice. The minority vote would always be diluted against the white vote. The school board—whether under the threat of ongoing litigation or by a genuine change of heart—agreed to end this pernicious status quo. In 2019, Richardson Independent School District settled. As part of the settlement, the district moved toward a single-member district voting model. Specifically, it instituted an electoral scheme that allows voters within a predefined border to elect a board member to represent them—similar to congressional districting. Two of the five single-member districts in Richardson were drawn to ensure that Black and Latino voters were the majority. Voters from these districts later elected Regina Harris, the first Black woman, and Debbie Rentería, the first Hispanic person, to serve on the school board.Richardson was not alone in making this kind of change. In response to immigration and changing racial demographics, the late 2010s saw a spate of lawsuits across school boards in North Texas alleging violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Many of these districts settled and moved to electoral systems that gave voters of color greater voice in their representation.
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss what he heard from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates during a congressional hearing over his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The CEO and president of the Democratic fundraising portal ActBlue repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in order to avoid answering tough questions about foreign donations.At a Committee on House Administration hearing on Wednesday, Regina Wallace-Jones was challenged on whether previous statements she made to Congress were "false and misleading," but she refused to answer and cited her constitutional right.He went on to ask why ActBlue weakened fraud prevention standards twice in 2024, and Wallace refused to confirm whether that happened.Republican Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin posted his questioning of Wallace-Jones where he specifically asked about the statements that he said were "false and misleading." He focused on a letter she sent to Congress about the steps ActBlue took to prevent illegal foreign donations."Ms. Wallace-Jones, when you signed this letter to me, did you believe that this letter was false and misleading?" Steil asked."On the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer this question pursuant to my Fifth Amendment rights under the Constitution," she responded."Your letter claimed that passport information is required from donors providing an address outside the United States," Steil continued. "In November 2023 when you wrote that letter, did every ActBlue donation that provided an address outside the United States require passport information?""On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer the question pursuant to my Fifth Amendment rights under the Constitution," she replied.Steil then cited previous testimony where Wallace-Jones stated that ActBlue contacts donors to request passport information if the contribution seems to have originated from a foreign address. And if they cannot contact that person, she claimed they would return the donation."Is that correct?" he asked.She invoked her Fifth Amendment right again.He went on to ask why ActBlue weakened fraud prevention standards twice in 2024, and Wallace-Jones refused to confirm whether that happened.Steil posted video of his questioning of Wallace-Jones to social media.RELATED: ActBlue sues to block Ken Paxton lawsuit — and he fires back defiant response Wallace-Jones had written a statement published in the Washington Post explaining why she would invoke the Fifth Amendment."This is a proceeding designed to build an illegitimate criminal case against us. I cannot and will not let my words be misused in that way," she claimed.The official account for ActBlue also released a statement about the testimony."The House Administration Committee has called our President and CEO, Regina Wallace-Jones, to testify," the statement reads. "Not because ActBlue has done anything wrong, but because we are the backbone of small-dollar Democratic fundraising in America."Wallace-Jones isn't the only ActBlue official who refused to answer tough questions. In April 2026, two ActBlue employees cited the privilege against self-incrimination a stunning 146 times while testifying about alleged donor fraud."Not a single employee offered testimony that could help ensure that American elections are free, fair, and decided by Americans alone," reads a staff report from the House Administration, Oversight, and Judiciary committees.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
The madman who killed his father after setting him and the family dog on fire inside their Santa Barbara County home appeared stone-faced in court as a judge sentenced him to life in prison Wednesday for the horrifying crime. Joseph Ashley Garcia learned his fate after being convicted of first-degree murder in April over the...
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been hit with a new civil lawsuit by an unnamed former child actor who is accusing the music mogul of sexually assaulting him in 2007.
Judge Roach took several key steps in making sure the trial would run like a "well-oiled machine," one attorney noted.