A major redistricting case returning to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday could not only determine the fate of the federal Voting Rights Act, but also unlock a path for Republicans to pick up a slew of additional congressional seats.
More details: If the high court overturns the act's Section 2 — a provision that bans racial discrimination in voting — GOP-controlled states could redraw at least 19 more voting districts for the House of Representatives in favor of Republicans, according to a recent report by the voting rights advocacy groups Black Voters Matter Fund and Fair Fight Action.
Why it matters: And depending on when the court rules in the case, known as Louisiana v. Callais, some number of the seats could be redistricted prior to next year's midterm election. The analysis comes as President Trump continues to lead a GOP push for new maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and other states that could help Republicans preserve their slim House majority after the 2026 election. The GOP effort could be bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling that eliminates longstanding Section 2 protections against the dilution of the collective power of racial minority voters.
Read on... how a Supreme Court ruling could lead to a redistricting "free for all."
A major redistricting case returning to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday could not only determine the fate of the federal Voting Rights Act, but also unlock a path for Republicans to pick up a slew of additional congressional seats.
If the high court overturns the act's Section 2 — a provision that bans racial discrimination in voting — GOP-controlled states could redraw at least 19 more voting districts for the House of Representatives in favor of Republicans, according to a recent report by the voting rights advocacy groups Black Voters Matter Fund and Fair Fight Action.
And depending on when the court rules in the case, known as Louisiana v. Callais, some number of the seats could be redistricted prior to next year's midterm election.
The analysis comes as President Donald Trump continues to lead a GOP push for new maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and other states that could help Republicans preserve their slim House majority after the 2026 election.
The GOP effort could be bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling that eliminates longstanding Section 2 protections against the dilution of the collective power of racial minority voters.
Many of the landmark law's supporters fear such an outcome after the conservative-majority court didn't rule last term on the Louisiana case, and instead scheduled a rare second round of oral arguments, which is expected to focus on the constitutionality of Section 2's redistricting requirements.
A ruling gutting Section 2 could have a cascading effect on congressional maps in mostly Southern states where Republicans either control both legislative chambers and the governor's office or have a veto-proof majority in the legislature — and where voting is racially polarized, with Black voters tending to vote Democratic and white voters tending to vote Republican.
If mapmakers in those states are no longer required under Section 2 to draw districts where racial minority voters have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidate, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas could end up with fewer Democratic representatives in Congress. Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee could lose all of theirs, the report finds.
As much as 30% of the Congressional Black Caucus and 11% of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus could also be lost.
It all leads to a possibility of Republicans cementing one-party control of the House for at least a generation, says Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter Fund.
Demonstrators hold signs and wear shirts for Black Voters Matter Fund outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
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"Part of the point that we're trying to make with this report is that what happens in the South doesn't just stay in the South," Albright adds. "This racial gerrymandering has the ability to not just disempower, disenfranchise Black voters and to eliminate Black elected officials and Latino elected officials. What happens in these states impacts the entire country."
How the Supreme Court overturning Section 2 could lead to a redistricting "free-for-all"
In the Louisiana case, a lower court ordered the state's Republican-controlled legislature to draw a new congressional map after a group of Black voters sued under Section 2.
Section 2 "ensures all communities of color can still participate equally in the voting process and elect candidates who reflect their interests," says Alanah Odoms, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, whose attorneys are helping to represent those Black voters. "And if communities of color are not able to do that, we stand to lose what I think most of us believe is so fundamental to our democracy, which is equal participation, equal opportunity."
A group of self-described "non-African American" voters, led by Phillip Callais, has argued, however, that the race-based redistricting the court ordered to get in line with Section 2 is unconstitutional. Just as the Supreme Court ruled against race-based affirmative action at colleges and universities in 2023, they argue, the court should put an end to race-based political mapmaking under Section 2.
In seeking a rehearing in the Louisiana case, the Supreme Court asked all sides in the case to consider whether the state's "intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution."
In one of their latest briefs to the high court, Republican state officials in Louisiana now argue against using race "in any form" when redistricting.
And in a major shift from past administrations, the Justice Department under Trump agrees that Section 2's protections against racial discrimination are no longer constitutional.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court rejected a similar argument by Alabama Republicans.
"The court could reaffirm the Voting Rights Act as it did in 2023 in Allen v. Milligan," says Atiba Ellis, a professor and an associate dean at Case Western Reserve University's law school. "But many observers — and I am one of them — have been concerned about the court becoming more and more cynical about race-conscious remedies to address longstanding civil rights wrongs. And this decision has the potential to be the tipping point where the court declares unconstitutional or heavily restricts the ability for Congress to create remedies that promote multiracial democracy."
That kind of decision coming amid the ongoing mid-decade congressional redistricting war between Republicans and Democrats, Ellis adds, could set the stage for a true "free-for-all" — pointing also to the court's 2019 ruling that partisan gerrymandering is not reviewable by federal courts.
"It is one thing for politicians on both sides of the aisle to use the power that they have to engage in unprecedented power grabs. But the most important check on those grabs has been the prevention of racial discrimination," Ellis says about Section 2. "Absent the federal law that would prevent that discrimination, I think the consequences could be tremendous and could be felt for decades."
The window of time to pass new congressional maps before the midterms is closing as state deadlines draw nearer. Louisiana's top election official, Secretary of State Nancy Landry, has asked the Supreme Court to rule in this case by early January 2026 to avoid disrupting the state's current schedule.
But the timing remains unclear for the Supreme Court, which usually releases decisions for major cases toward the end of its term in June.
The court has confirmed that it plans to discuss early next month if it will take up a North Dakota case about whether private individuals and groups — whose lawsuits have been the main way of enforcing Section 2 — can continue to sue. Republican state officials in Mississippi have also raised that issue in another redistricting case on direct appeal to the high court.
Makenna Cramer
covers the daily drumbeat of Southern California — events, processes and nuances making it a unique place to call home.
Published April 29, 2026 5:01 PM
Workers repair potholes and skim a large portion of street in Los Angeles on Jan. 13.
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Topline:
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, had a makeover last year, but since then, some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems. City officials say they're working to make fixes.
Why now: Councilmembers Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues concerning the system’s overall functionality and accountability. The City Council approved that motion Wednesday.
Why it matters: “Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during the council meeting.
The backstory: MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
What's next: The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, got a makeover last year, but since then some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems.
The city has received “numerous complaints” about the updated website and app, including issues with GPS and logging work, according to officials.
MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
Staffers within the city’s Department of Public Works have said they’ve been frustrated by the rollout, according to city officials. They say it now takes longer to add their responses to service requests, and the city can’t record completed work that doesn’t have a service request connected to it.
City Council members Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues, saying they’ve caused concerns about the system’s overall functionality and accountability.
“Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during Wednesday’s council meeting.
The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
It was approved in a 12-0 vote Wednesday. Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Eunisses Hernandez and Adrin Nazarian were absent.
How we got here
Bass announced the launch of the new MyLA311 last year, saying the previous website and app were outdated and had lasted years past their lifecycle.
In a 2023 directive, she’d called for the system to be modernized with the goal of providing better customer service and communication about the status of residents’ requests.
“This new and improved way to request and receive city services is another example of how we are breaking away from the old way of doing things to make our neighborhoods cleaner and safer,” Bass said in a March 2025 statement.
But some people say the new system is falling short.
The Sylmar Neighborhood Council agreed the system needs improvements, writing in a community impact statement that MyLA311 fails to serve L.A. taxpayers effectively if it’s difficult to use or inaccurate.
In public comments, some residents cited “major issues” with the system, including GPS and location accuracy, invalid addresses and missing or incomplete service categories. One commenter wrote that addresses were being routed to other areas, some of them outside the city.
“As a result, they frequently lead to confusion in the field, delays in response and, in some cases, requests going unaddressed due to the difficulty in locating the reported issue or misdirection caused by inaccurate data,” the commenter said.
What’s ahead
The City Council approved several instructions aimed at improving MyLA311, including the following:
Public Works is expected to report back on its issues with the system.
The city’s Information Technology Agency is expected to report on system performance, including operational issues, and provide solutions as needed.
Public Works and IT are expected to provide quarterly reports on service request data, including backlogs, average response times and requests received and closed.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
How we got here: Until now these individuals have been accorded temporary legal status because their safety is imperiled by war or natural disasters in their home countries. Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Trump, however, is trying to end it. On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either.
Read on . . . for more on today's court proceedings.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Donald Trump, however, is trying to end it.
On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either. Pressed by the court's three liberal justices, Sauer insisted that the courts cannot review anything.
"None of those procedural steps required by the statue are reviewable. That's your position?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
"Correct," responded Sauer.
"What you're basically saying is that Congress wrote a statute for no purpose," Sotomayor said.
Justice Elena Kagan noted that under the statute the secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to consult with the U.S. State Department about what the conditions are in those countries that people have been forced to flee. What if she didn't do that at all, Kagan asked. Or what if she asked, but the response from the State Department came back: "Wasn't that baseball game last night great!"
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what would happen if the secretary used a Ouija board to make decisions?
To all these hypotheticals, Solicitor General Sauer stood firm. That prompted this from Sotomayor: "Now, we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a 'filthy, dirty, and disgusting s--thole country.' I'm quoting him. He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America. I don't see how that one statement is not a prime example … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision."
Sauer pushed back, noting that Kristi Noem, the then-DHS secretary, had not mentioned race at all. That prompted this response from Justice Jackson, the only Black woman on the court, "So the position of the United States is that we have an actual racial epithet that we aren't allowed to look at all the context."
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of two adopted Haitian children, interjected at that point to clarify the administration's position. Are you conceding that individuals with TPS status could bring a challenge based on race discrimination? she asked.
Sauer appeared to concede the point.
Representing the Haitians, lawyer Geoffrey Pipoly described the administration's review as "a sham."
"The true reason for the termination [of TPS status] is the president's racial animus toward non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular," Pipoly said. "The secretary herself described people from Haiti" and from other non-white countries as "killers, leeches, saying, 'We don't want them, not one,'" while "simultaneously enacting another humanitarian form of relief for white and only white South Africans."
That was too much for Justice Samuel Alito who asked Pipoly, "Do you think that if you put Syrians, Turks, Greeks and other people who live around the Mediterranean in a line-up, do you think you could say those people are … non-white?"
An uncomfortable Pipoly resisted categorizing each group until Alito got to his own roots.
"How about southern Italians?" Alito inquired, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Responded Pipoly: "Certainly 120 years ago when we had our last wave of European immigration, southern Italians were not considered white. … Our concept of these things evolves over time."
At the end of Wednesday's court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way. Especially in light of the court's 6-to-3 decision, announced Wednesday, which effectively guts what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act, once celebrated as a signature achievement of American Democracy.
Copyright 2026 NPR
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Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published April 29, 2026 4:14 PM
Artemis the German Shepherd is the last dog from Eaton Fire at Pasadena Humane to get adopted.
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Topline:
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Why it matters: The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the first broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
The backstory: Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
"The silver lining to all of that is — with all this tragedy — this incredible story of hope where we were able to help foster these animals we’re returning home," said Sarie Hooker, communications manager at Pasadena Humane.
During his stay at Pasadena Humane, the cream-color pup won over many hearts.
"He's just such a striking boy. He's got this really fun, loving personality. He's very regal," Hooker said.
Hooker said Artemis was adopted by a family through the shelter's foster-to-adopt program.
"He just did amazingly. And the next thing we knew, he was adopted," Hooker said. "So it's a happy story."
Artemis says hello to a new family.
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The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the fire broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
By the second week of the fire, the shelter had taken in some 600 pets, Hooker said.
" In totality, we were able to help with thousands of animals specifically for emergency boarding," Hooker said, including every kind of pet you can think of, as well as wild animals.
" We were seeing skunks, squirrels, hawks, owls, peacocks, raccoons, possums," she said.
Artemis isn't just the last dog to find a home — or return home — from the Eaton Fire.
He is the last animal.
" Artemis was our final, final animal — like dog, cat, critter. Anything else under the sun. He was the last boy. So we're very happy," she said.
Mariana Dale
reports on K-12 education, including how students exercise their civic power.
Published April 29, 2026 2:31 PM
People gathered in downtown L.A. for May Day in 2025.
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Topline:
Southern California and national organizers are calling on communities to abstain from work, school and shopping Friday in recognition of May Day.
The backstory: May Day started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
What's new: This year’s “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens. “ Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
Find a rally: What’s typically the region’s largest May Day gathering starts Friday morning at MacArthur Park, and events are planned throughout the region.
The “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens.
“Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
The organization is one of more than 100 involved in planning a Los Angeles May Day rally with the theme, “solo el pueblo shuts it down: no school, no work, no shopping.”
“Starting there really sends a message that we're here,” said Kristal Romero, press secretary for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “We're standing with this community, and if you take on one of us, you take on all of us.”
May Day’s history in LA
May Day, sometimes called International Workers' Day, started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
Romero said the Federation has offered training on de-escalation, conflict resolution and non-violent protests and that hundreds of people will act as “peacekeepers” during Friday’s rally and march.
“ A lot of times, folks can get caught in echo chambers and it may really feel hopeless,” Romero said. “The big point of these events is to inspire hope to show people we're all here, we're all fighting for the same thing.”
