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The Redistricting War Rages On

Prominent members of the Texas state government continue to scream very loudly about the Democrats' quorum-jumping. The fact that there are so many words, and yet there is so little action, would appear to confirm that all the threats of arrest warrants and FBI involvement and yadda, yadda, yadda were all just a bunch of hot air.

Texas AG—and aspiring U.S. Senator—Ken Paxton was probably squawking the loudest yesterday. He is in a battle of wills with Beto O'Rourke, who has been fundraising off the situation. At first, O'Rourke was specifically raising money for the quorum-jumpers, but then a Texas court issued a restraining order and told him to knock that off. So, this weekend, O'Rourke shifted to raising money to fight gerrymandering in general. Paxton believes that a couple sentences' worth of O'Rourke's speech at a rally on Saturday violated the restraining order, and so the AG is pushing to have O'Rourke arrested and imprisoned.

Obviously, we understand that Paxton is gunning for a promotion, and so he needs to engage in every possible bit of political theater to show that he's owning the libs. However, we are absolutely certain that O'Rourke would love, love, love to be arrested, as that would make him into a martyr. After two high-profile election losses, he badly wants to get back into the game, and becoming the face of the anti-Paxton resistance would help that cause immeasurably.

Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) also did some fist-shaking and yelling at clouds yesterday. He appeared on the show of CNN's answer to Fox, Jake Tapper, and said that if he really wanted to, he could turn 10 Democratic seats into Republican seats. Undoubtedly, he stopped at five because he's such a kindhearted soul who loves democracy so very much. The Governor also took to eX-Twitter to promise that he would call special session after special session, if he has to, in order to get around the 30-day limit imposed by Texas law. Oh, and he joined Paxton in calling for O'Rourke to be arrested.

And Abbott wasn't the only governor to get on eX-Twitter to perform a little gerrymandering theater yesterday. Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D-CA) press operation, surely with his full approval and participation, posted this:

FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON'T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.

It's a little hamfisted, but we've seen worse Trump parodies. (Z)

Confirmed: E.J. Antoni Is the Baghdad Bob of Labor Statistics

Yesterday, we wrote a very critical assessment of E.J. Antoni, Donald Trump's pick to be the new head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The whole world, including people who know the field of economics far better than we do, has now had a chance to weigh in. It would seem we were on to something.

To start, if you take a look at Antoni's ex-Twitter feed, it is chock-full of political propaganda masquerading as serious economic analysis. That is also true of Antoni's CV; he's published several papers, and they are all partisan nonsense. To take one example, he co-wrote a paper last year in which he claimed the U.S. has been in a recession since 2022. That paper was absolutely shredded by the real economists; see here for one example.

There was also much criticism of Antoni and his credentials, from both left-leaning and right-leaning folks. Here's a rundown of some of the scathing critiques from the right:

If you would like some bonus scorn, here is Paul Krugman's absolutely scorching takedown of Antoni's colleague Stephen Moore, the fellow who appeared in the Oval Office last week to claim that the jobs numbers are actually great right now, and who recommended Antoni to Trump.

And in case there was any doubt that Antoni is an unqualified stooge, he outed himself yesterday. It will be none too easy for him to twist the BLS numbers in the short-term, since they are produced by a staff of thousands of economists, and the commissioner doesn't even get the numbers until they are finalized. This being the case, and since the numbers are likely to be pretty poor next month, and the month thereafter, Antoni yesterday floated the only possible solution to his problem: not issuing the jobs data at all, for several months, until they can be "corrected."

Trump is only concerned with his own image, and even then, he only thinks short-term. So, he either doesn't understand or doesn't care about the harm that will be done if the figures produced by the government become untrustworthy. However, every single one of the members of the Senate knows. The Commissioner of Labor Statistics is a Senate-approved position, so Antoni has to get the backing of at least 50 senators. While we would not suggest holding your breath, it is at least possible that this is another case, like that of Matt Gaetz, where confirmation is a bridge too far, and Trump will be "encouraged" behind the scenes to withdraw the nomination. (Z)

Legal News, Part I: The Voting Rights Act on Life Support

Much like fire seasons that are now year-round thanks to climate change, the Supreme Court no longer confines itself to an October to June regular session. Through the use of the shadow docket and the reopening of cases to decimate what had been well-settled areas of the law, the Roberts Court is open for business year-round, at least for those operating at Donald Trump's behest.

With respect to Louisiana v. Calais, the case involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act that the Court has asked the parties to re-argue, there are more reasons to be alarmed than we addressed last week. As we approach the 60th anniversary of the VRA, Politico wonders if it will reach 61. It's a reasonable question. The law has already been significantly watered down, with the Roberts Court in 2013 striking down Section 5, which required pre-clearance for any changes to voting laws from those states with a history of discrimination. In Ruth Bader Ginsburg's famous dissent, she was astonished that the law's success was causing its demise: "It's like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet." Interestingly, the preclearance requirement was reauthorized in 2006 with a 98-0 vote in the Senate and signed in a Rose Garden ceremony by George W. Bush. Since that 2013 ruling in Shelby v. Holder, we've seen the states that had been covered by Section 5 enact all manner of laws to suppress minority votes: voter ID laws, reduced polling places, fewer early voting days, and laws prohibiting groups from giving water to those waiting in the now-long lines to vote.

In the Louisiana case, the events that led us here are a little convoluted, but are important to understand. In 2022, Louisiana's state legislature drew a map that contained only one majority-Black district. They were sued on the grounds that minority votes were being unlawfully diluted in violation of Section 2. The district court agreed, so in 2024, another map was drawn that contained 2 majority-minority districts. This time a group of white voters (describing themselves as "non-African American") sued and claimed that this map was unlawfully created based on race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. A 3-judge federal district court agreed and invalidated the 2024 map; Louisiana appealed to the Supreme Court and argued that it can satisfy both the VRA and the Fourteenth Amendment, which allows race-based government action if there is a compelling reason.

Now, the Supreme Court has asked for briefing on a question no one asked to be answered: whether Louisiana's intentional creation of a second majority-Black district violates either the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause or the Fifteenth Amendment, which bars both the federal government and states from denying or abridging the right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Even though the question doesn't mention Section 2 of the VRA, if the answer is "yes" to either of these two questions, then it means that Section 2 itself violates the Fourteenth and/or Fifteenth Amendments and is unconstitutional. This is part of Chief Justice Roberts' quest to find that any government action based on race violates the Constitution because, according to him, that document requires race neutrality, even if those actions are taken to rectify discrimination. Any remedial actions or laws to address past discriminatory acts are themselves racially discriminatory, which could implicate other civil rights laws. As Rick Hasen notes, "A kind of race neutral reading of the Constitution would potentially read out Congress's power to enact race conscious remedies to protect minority voters." So, as (V) noted last week, so long as a state can credibly claim that their maps are partisan gerrymanders, if they also happen to discriminate against minorities, well, the Roberts Court will likely say you're out of luck.

Even if Section 2 manages to survive, the Court could still weaken it by finding that there's no private right of action. Section 2 is largely enforced in response to lawsuits by private civil rights groups like the ACLU. But now, the Eighth Circuit has held that Section 2 does not authorize a private right of action and only the federal government can enforce it. The Supreme Court has stayed that ruling pending an appeal, but this could be a way for the Court to get rid of Section 2 without outright killing it. Given that Trump's Department has absolutely no interest in enforcing Section 2, such a ruling "would essentially be rendering Section 2 a dead letter." (L)

Legal News, Part II: UCLA Wins in Court

The financial relationship between the federal government and private entities/universities is a very complicated area of law, covered by a very, very long list of federal rules (actually, several long lists of federal rules). That means we can hardly do justice to the subject here.

That said, we CAN point out that, generally, the government has far more power to cancel contracts and grants than any other entity. It can do so for "default," which means that the terms of the contract were not fulfilled by the contracted entity (this would generally be called for "cause" in the non-governmental world). It can also do so for "convenience," if there have been budget cuts, or the work is no longer needed by the government.

That said, there are (complicated) limits to this power of the government (and those limits are a little different if we are talking about a contract vs. a grant). Broadly speaking, the government cannot act in bad faith, and must have a clear justification for its termination decisions. Further, there is a process that must be followed, one that takes quite a bit of time and paperwork. Finally, the government generally has the duty to pay the costs of its termination decision.

The important thing, for our purposes, is that the Trump administration is long on vague explanations and arbitrariness, and short on following the rules, and so there is plenty of room for universities to go to court and try to get the administration's decisions overturned. UCLA, which we wrote about yesterday, was one among many schools that did so. And just hours after that post went live, a judge ruled in the university's favor, ordering the White House to un-cancel at least 300 of the 800 grants it had frozen.

This is probably not the final word, as this administration tends to pursue every appeal it possibly can. Still, the point is that there is some basis for fighting back in court, and some reasonable hope of success, very possibly on a fairly expedited timeline. All of these things, not to mention the fact that the UC Regents held an emergency meeting and were not inclined to approve a $1 billion bribe, suggest UCLA might become the school that decides to try to hold the line, rather than giving in.

There's also one other thing worth passing along. We wondered, yesterday, what finally caused the administration to set its sights on UCLA. Our guess was that it might have been that football season is about to begin. Now, we have another possible explanation. There was a speech at graduation in June where a student said some harsh, and quite crude things, about the administration. And it's been circulating in the last week or so among MAGA types on social media. For example:

The most interesting image here is the bearded UCLA administrator nodding and applauding. The Trump administration should make sure that gesture alone is extremely costly for the university pic.twitter.com/jrsIyRhCGd

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 11, 2025

If Trump saw this—and he lives much of his life on MAGA social media—it is exactly the sort of thing that would cause him to blow his top.

As chance would have it, (Z) is going to the Angels-Dodgers game tonight with the very professor who has D'Souza's knickers in a twist. That means (Z) is one step closer to his goal of being declared an enemy of the state. (Z)

Candidate News: U.S. Senate

Thus far, we've been putting these in alphabetical order, by state name. We've decided that if there's really big news in a state, we're going to move that to the top of the list, alphabetization be damned. And so:

We still need to update House race news; hopefully we can get to that on Friday. (Z)

Mamdani Is Polling Very Well, Indeed

There has been much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth over the mayoral candidacy of Zohran Mamdani, particularly from The New York Times. There has also been much raking of muck from Mamdani's past, particularly from The New York Times. It doesn't appear to be affecting his candidacy, as polls of the race have him crushing the field.

The latest poll, just released yesterday, is from Siena. It has Mamdani with 44% of the vote, followed by "independent" Andrew Cuomo at 25%, then Republican Curtis Sliwa at 12%, and "independent" Eric Adams at 7%. These numbers are not too different from the first poll taken after Cuomo got into the race, by Wick. That pollster had Mamdani at 39%, Cuomo at 21%, Sliwa at 18%, and Adams at 9%.

There's been one other major poll of the race since Cuomo got in, from Zenith and Public Progress. That one had Mamdani at 42%, Cuomo at 26%, Sliwa at 12%, and Adams at 7%, so almost identical numbers to the new Siena poll. Of greater interest, perhaps, is that Zenith and Public Progress polled various permutations of the race, if the various candidates drop out. The biggest threat to Mamdani would seem to be if everyone but Cuomo drops out, and the anti-Mamdani vote coalesces around the former governor. According to the pollster, however, Mamdani still comes out on top in that scenario, 52% to 40%.

It is 84 days to Election Day; if these polls have the right of it, that's not much time for Cuomo or anyone else to overcome a double-digit gap. If Mamdani does win, and in particular if he wins big, we can think of three possible conclusions that Democratic pooh-bahs might draw from the election:

It will be interesting to see which one or ones they choose. (Z)

Democratic Presidential Candidate of the Week, #30: Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)

We try to get to one of these a week. Some weeks, it doesn't work out. Anyhow, here are the candidates we've done so far:

  1. Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ)
  2. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
  3. Al Franken
  4. Jon Tester
  5. Jon Stewart
  6. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)
  7. Mitch Landrieu
  8. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)
  9. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)
  10. Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ)

And now, it's Mark Warner's turn to take a ride.

Mark Warner, looking cheery

Next week, it's #29, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). If readers have comments about Baldwin running for president in 2028, please send them to comments@electoral-vote.com.

Never Forget: I Remain, as Ever, Your Kinsman

Today, a blast pretty far into the past, courtesy of K.C. in El Cajon, CA:

This is a photo of my great-uncle, Private Allen M. Patton, from Palestine, IL. He was a member of "Colonel Grant's Regiment," the 21st Illinois Volunteers, Company I. He was a licensed schoolteacher. He was killed in action at the battle of Stones River, in Tennessee, shortly before his 21st birthday. The family saved his letters, and I published them in a book entitled I Remain, as Ever, Your Kinsman.

A black and white photo of a very young man in a Union uniform.

On August 11, 1862, he wrote his family from Camp Jacinto, Mississippi, concerning the Emancipation Proclamation:
The ni***rs have at last become mixed up in the war policy and I suppose will be pretty well used up before the end of the struggle, but a conservative policy was the standard for over 12 months and they would not listen to it. I was one who clung to the old policy and have always expressed myself in favor of it, but they have treated it with so much contempt and at the same time gathered so much strength that I'm now in for a more vigorous policy.

I believe this government can not exist in Republican form without Union. If the Southern Confederacy should be acknowledged, I believe the territory included in North America will eventually be ruled by different monarchs. As said Daniel Webster, the Union must, and shall be preserved. It makes no difference at what expense; even the death blow to slavery shall be no objection to Union. If the slave holders had listened to reason and 12 months of conservative policy this institution would have been safe at present, and I am opposed to any acts now interfering with it when it cannot weaken the rebels or strengthen our army. I am not yet an abolitionist, as you might infer from the above, but I'm in favor of almost any means to bring about a speedy termination of this accursed war. (Emphasis in original.)

Thanks, K.C. (Z)


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