Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear tells South Carolina Democrats his record is a red state success story
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Winnipeg Free Press
3 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
How redistricting in Texas and other states could change the game for US House elections
WASHINGTON (AP) — Redistricting usually happens after the once-a-decade population count by the U.S. Census Bureau or in response to a court ruling. Now, Texas Republicans want to break that tradition — and other states could follow suit. President Trump has asked the Texas Legislature to create districts, in time for next year's midterm elections, that will send five more Republicans to Washington and make it harder for Democrats to regain the majority and blunt his agenda. The state has 38 seats in the House. Republicans now hold 25 and Democrats 12, with one seat vacant after the death of a Democrat. 'There's been a lot more efforts by the parties and political actors to push the boundaries – literally and figuratively – to reconfigure what the game is,' said Doug Spencer, Rothgerber Jr. Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado. Other states are waiting to see what Texas does and whether to follow suit. The rules of redistricting can be vague and variable; each state has its own set of rules and procedures. Politicians are gauging what voters will tolerate when it comes to politically motivated mapmaking. Here's what to know about the rules of congressional redistricting: When does redistricting normally happen? Every decade, the Census Bureau collects population data used to divide the 435 House seats among the 50 states based on the updated head count. It's a process known as reapportionment. States that grew relative to others might gain a seat at the expense of those whose populations stagnated or declined. States use their own procedures to draw lines for the assigned number of districts. The smallest states receive just one representative, which means the entire state is a single congressional district. Some state constitutions require independent commissions to devise the political boundaries or to advise the legislature. When legislatures take the lead, lawmakers can risk drawing lines that end up challenged in court, usually for violating the Voting Rights Act. Mapmakers can get another chance to resubmit new maps. Sometimes, judges draw the maps on their own. Is midcycle redistricting allowed? By the first midterm elections after the latest population count, each state is ready with its maps, but those districts do not always stick. Courts can find that the political lines are unconstitutional. There is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade and to do it for political reasons, such as increasing representation by the party in power. 'The laws about redistricting just say you have to redistrict after every census,' Spencer said. 'And then some state legislatures got a little clever and said, well it doesn't say we can't do it more.' Some states do have laws that would prevent midcycle redistricting or make it difficult to do so in a way that benefits one party. Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., has threatened to retaliate against the GOP push in Texas by drawing more favorable Democratic seats in his state. That goal, however, is complicated by a constitutional amendment that requires an independent commission to lead the process. Is Texas' effort unprecedented? Texas has done it before. When the Legislature failed to agree on a redistricting plan after the 2000 census, a federal court stepped in with its own map. Republican Tom DeLay of Texas, who was then the U.S. House majority leader, thought his state should have five more districts friendly to his party. 'I'm the majority leader and we want more seats,′′ he said at the time. Statehouse Democrats protested by fleeing to Oklahoma, depriving the Legislature of enough votes to officially conduct any business. But DeLay eventually got his way, and Republicans replaced Democrats in five seats in 2004. What do the courts say about gerrymandering? In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts should not get involved in debates over political gerrymandering, the practice of drawing districts for partisan gain. In that decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said redistricting is ' highly partisan by any measure. ' But courts may demand new maps if they believe the congressional boundaries dilute the votes of a racial minority group, in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Could other states follow suit? Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene, who leads House Democrats' campaign arm, indicated at a Christian Science Monitor event that if Texas follows through on passing new maps, Democratic-led states would look at their own political lines. 'If they go down this path, absolutely folks are going to respond across the country,' DelBene said. 'We're not going to be sitting back with one hand tied behind our back while Republicans try to undermine voices of the American people.' In New York, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul recently joined Newsom in expressing openness to taking up mid-decade redistricting. But state laws mandating independent commissions or blunting the ability to gerrymander would come into play. Among Republican-led states, Ohio could try to further expand the 10-5 edge that the GOP holds in the House delegation; a quirk in state law requires Ohio to redraw its maps before the 2026 midterms. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he was considering early redistricting and 'working through what that would look like.'
Winnipeg Free Press
12 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Statehouses are the public's houses, but the fight for potty parity continues
For female state lawmakers in Kentucky, choosing when to go to the bathroom has long required careful calculation. There are only two bathroom stalls for women on the third floor of the Kentucky Statehouse, where the House and Senate chambers are located. Female legislators — 41 of the 138 member Legislature — needing a reprieve during a lengthy floor session have to weigh the risk of missing an important debate or a critical vote. None of their male colleagues face the same dilemma because, of course, multiple men's bathrooms are available. The Legislature even installed speakers in the men's bathrooms to broadcast the chamber's events so they don't miss anything important. In a pinch, House Speaker David Osborne allows women to use his single stall bathroom in the chamber, but even that attracts long lines. 'You get the message very quickly: This place was not really built for us,' said Rep. Lisa Willner, a Democrat from Louisville, reflecting on the photos of former lawmakers, predominantly male, that line her office. The issue of potty parity may seem comic, but its impact runs deeper than uncomfortably full bladders, said Kathryn Anthony, professor emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's School of Architecture. 'It's absolutely critical because the built environment reflects our culture and reflects our population,' said Anthony, who has testified on the issue before Congress. 'And if you have an environment that is designed for half the population but forgets about the other half, you have a group of disenfranchised people and disadvantaged people.' There is hope for Kentucky's lady legislators seeking more chamber potties. A $300 million renovation of the 155-year-old Capitol — scheduled for completion by 2028 at the soonest — aims to create more women's restrooms and end Kentucky's bathroom disparity. The Bluegrass State is among the last to add bathrooms to aging statehouses that were built when female legislators were not a consideration. In the $392 million renovation of the Georgia Capitol, expanding bathroom access is a priority, said Gerald Pilgrim, chief of staff with the state's Building Authority. It will introduce female facilities on the building's fourth floor, where the public galleries are located, and will add more bathrooms throughout to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. 'We know there are not enough bathrooms,' he said. Evolving equality in statehouses There's no federal law requiring bathroom access for all genders in public buildings. Some 20 states have statutes prescribing how many washrooms buildings must have, but historical buildings — such as statehouses — are often exempt. Over the years, as the makeup of state governments has changed, statehouses have added bathrooms for women. When Tennessee's Capitol opened in 1859, the architects designed only one restroom — for men only — situated on the ground floor. According to legislative librarian Eddie Weeks, the toilet could only be 'flushed' when enough rainwater had been collected. 'The room was famously described as 'a stench in the nostrils of decency,'' Weeks said in an email. Today, Tennessee's Capitol has a female bathroom located between the Senate and House chambers. It's in a cramped hall under a staircase, sparking comparisons to Harry Potter's cupboard bedroom, and it contains just two stalls. The men also just have one bathroom on the same floor, but it has three urinals and three stalls. Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn, who was elected in 2023, said she wasn't aware of the disparity in facilities until contacted by The Associated Press. 'I've apparently accepted that waiting in line for a two-stall closet under the Senate balcony is just part of the job,' she said. 'I had to fight to get elected to a legislature that ranks dead last for female representation, and now I get to squeeze into a space that feels like it was designed by someone who thought women didn't exist — or at least didn't have bladders,' Behn said. The Maryland State House is the country's oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use, operational since the late 1700s. Archivists say its bathroom facilities were initially intended for white men only because desegregation laws were still in place. Women's restrooms were added after 1922, but they were insufficient for the rising number of women elected to office. Delegate Pauline Menes complained about the issue so much that House Speaker Thomas Lowe appointed her chair of the 'Ladies Rest Room Committee,' and presented her with a fur covered toilet seat in front of her colleagues in 1972. She launched the women's caucus the following year. It wasn't until 2019 that House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, the first woman to secure the top position, ordered the addition of more women's restrooms along with a gender-neutral bathroom and a nursing room for mothers in the Lowe House Office Building. 'No longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic' As more women were elected nationwide in the 20th century, some found creative workarounds. In Nebraska's unicameral Legislature, female senators didn't get a dedicated restroom until 1988, when a facility was added in the chamber's cloakroom. There had previously been a single restroom in the senate lounge, and Sen. Shirley Marsh, who served for some 16 years, would ask a State Patrol trooper to guard the door while she used it, said Brandon Metzler, the Legislature's clerk. In Colorado, female House representatives and staff were so happy to have a restroom added in the chamber's hallway in 1987 that they hung a plaque to honor then-state Rep. Arie Taylor, the state's first Black woman legislator, who pushed for the facility. The plaque, now inside a women's bathroom in the Capitol, reads: 'Once here beneath the golden dome if nature made a call, we'd have to scramble from our seats and dash across the hall … Then Arie took the mike once more to push an urge organic, no longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic.' The poem concludes: 'In mem'ry of you, Arie (may you never be forgot), from this day forth we'll call that room the Taylor Chamber Pot.' New Mexico Democratic state Rep. Liz Thomson recalled missing votes in the House during her first year in office in 2013 because there was no women's restroom in the chamber's lounge. An increase in female lawmakers — New Mexico elected the largest female majority Legislature in U.S. history in 2024 — helped raise awareness of the issue, she said. 'It seems kind of like fluff, but it really isn't,' she said. 'To me, it really talks about respect and inclusion.' The issue is not exclusive to statehouses. In the U.S. Capitol, the first restroom for congresswomen didn't open until 1962. While a facility was made available for female U.S. Senators in 1992, it wasn't until 2011 that the House chamber opened a bathroom to women lawmakers. Jeannette Rankin of Montana was the first woman elected to a congressional seat. That happened in 1916. Willner insists that knowing the Kentucky Capitol wasn't designed for women gives her extra impetus to stand up and make herself heard. 'This building was not designed for me,' she said. 'Well, guess what? I'm here.' ___ Associated Press writer Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed. ____ The Associated Press' women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Toronto Star
15 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Trump claims cashless bail increases crime, but data is inconclusive
President Donald Trump speaks during a reception for Republican members of Congress in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) JE JDN flag wire: true flag sponsored: false article_type: Fact Check : sWebsitePrimaryPublication : publications/toronto_star bHasMigratedAvatar : false :
