Nebraska is the latest state to ban transgender students from girls' sports
Pillen signed the law flanked by dozens of lawmakers, women athletes and other advocates — including former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines, who has made a name for herself as a vocal advocate of banning transgender athletes from women's sports.
The measure passed by the Nebraska Legislature last week broke a filibuster by a single vote cast along party lines. It was pared down from its initial form, which also sought to bar transgender students from using bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding with their gender identity.
Sponsors agreed to drop the bathroom and locker room ban when one Republican — Omaha Sen. Merv Riepe — declared he would vote against it otherwise.
The measure was first introduced in 2023 by then-freshman Sen. Kathleen Kauth, but failed to advance as lawmakers angrily argued over Kauth's other bill that sought to bar gender-affirming care for transgender minors under the age of 19. An amended version that banned gender-affirming surgery — but not all gender-affirming care — for minors later passed and was enacted that year.
On Wednesday, Kauth promised to revive her bathroom and locker room ban next year, reiterating her rejection that people can determine their own gender.
"Men are men and women are women," she said, and urged voters in Riepe's district to pressure him to support it.
Republicans behind the sports ban say it protects women and girls and their ability to fairly compete in sports. Opponents say with so few transgender students seeking to participate in sports, the measure is a solution in search of a problem.
Fewer than 10 transgender students have participated in middle school and high school sports in the state over the past decade, according to the Nebraska School Activities Association.
At least 24 other states have adopted similar bans. President Donald Trump also signed an executive order this year intended to dictate which sports competitions transgender athletes can enter and has battled in court with Maine over that state's allowing transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska denounced the measure.
ACLU Nebraska Executive Director Mindy Rush Chipman said the ban "slams the door shut" for some transgender students to fully participate in their school communities.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Republicans want to rig the midterm elections. Will they succeed?
If one mark of an autocratic regime is the meaningfulness of elections, you can make an argument that the United States has been backsliding away from a properly democratic form of government for a long time. In 2013's Shelby county decision, the US supreme court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, clearing the way for states to impose a slew of restrictions on the franchise that were previously banned as part of an effort to prevent the re-establishment of Jim Crow; voting quickly became more burdensome and onerous in many Republican-controlled states. Three years before, in Citizens United, the same court declared that corporate money counted as political speech, thereby opening the floodgates on money in politics in ways that allowed the rich to distort public discourses ahead of elections. Donald Trump memorably tried to interfere with the 2020 census so that it would count as few of those who were disinclined to support him as possible, hoping to create a skewed vision of America in the data that the government uses to apportion public resources and congressional representation alike. The result is a clear picture of the Republican party's approach to elections: that so long as they create a positive outcome for their candidates, they need not be strictly speaking fair, free or meaningful representations of the people's will. Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Republicans are pursuing this agenda with renewed zeal. At Trump's direction, Republicans in Texas are looking to redraw their state's congressional maps to be more favorable to the Republican party, allowing the party to gain more seats in the House of Representatives not by persuading voters, but by choosing who their voters will be. The US supreme court, meanwhile, has chosen to continue its own efforts to rewrite election law in the Republicans favor, taking up a long-languishing case out of Louisiana challenging the remainder of the Voting Rights Act and accelerating argument so that a decision can be released in time for Republican-leaning states to redraw their maps ahead of the November 2026 contests. In Texas, the effort to ensure that the voters' actual preferences will have no bearing on the outcome of the House races has unfolded in dramatic fashion. In early August, Trump told Texas's governor, Greg Abbott, to redraw his state's congressional district maps – an unusual move in the middle of the decade – to ensure that Republicans picked up as many as five additional seats in Congress. 'We' – the Republicans – 'are entitled to five more seats', the president said. Trump cited his own victory in Texas in the 2024 election as evidence that the state's congressional seats belonged to his party – furthering his claim, often amorphous but repeatedly asserted, that his victory in 2024 amounts to a total and permanent grant of authority over all American policy and political jurisdictions. The Texas governor quickly called the state legislature into a special session to vote on a proposed new set of districts for 2016. In a bit of political theater meant to draw attention to the move, the state legislature's Democrats then left Texas in protest in order to deny the body a quorum to move on the vote, seeking sanctuary in Democratic-controlled Illinois. The standoff came to an end when the Democrats gave in and agreed to return to the state on Friday, following the announcement by the California governor, Gavin Newsom, that he would encourage legislators in his own state to redraw maps in Democrats' favor. The new Texas maps are likely to be passed by Labor Day, allowing the state to secure the outcomes in their 2026 congressional contests more than a year before a single vote is cast. Such moves are likely to become more common in the near future. The supreme court, not satisfied with having declared large portions of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional in 2013, is now moving to strike down section 2, the law's last remaining edifice. The law allows states to draw so-called 'majority minority' districts, so that Black voters can express political power in areas where they are concentrated instead of having their voting preferences diluted by spreading their votes out across majority-white districts. The justices are now poised to strike down this last remaining vestige of the monumental 20th-century law that was meant to remedially constitute Black voting power amid a long history of political repression, and finally make the 15th amendment meaningful in practice. Without this law, Republican-controlled states are likely to redraw their maps in order to eliminate 'majority-minority' districts, thereby making it all but impossible for Black voters to elect their preferred candidates in many states, particularly across the former Confederacy. There was no need for the justices to take this case. The issue in question – a redistricting in Louisiana that created a second majority-minority congressional district in a state with six congressional districts that is more than 30% Black – had already been declared constitutional by an appellate court, in deference to the supreme court's longstanding precedent. But John Roberts – depressingly, now the court's moderate – has had a career-long vendetta against the Voting Rights Act, and will not resist an opportunity to finally strike it down in full. That the court expedited argument so as to be able to issue an opinion in June 2026 – just in time for states to redistrict before the midterms. It is yet another signal that the justices in the court's majority consider themselves to be Republican party operatives – and the Republican party, as a whole, is becoming less and less interested in running in competitive elections. It is yet to be seen whether these efforts will succeed in swinging the midterm elections decisively in Republicans' favor. Maybe the redistricting in Texas and the retaliation planned by California will not prompt a nationwide tit-for-tat of gerrymandering across the states; maybe the supreme court will show uncharacteristic restraint, and not overturn a decades-old precedent in order to further erode Black Americans' voting rights. But the odds are slim, and at any rate, the Republican party has already shown that its commitment to democratic elections – that is, the kind that they might lose – is paper thin. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is reviving their first-term effort to rewrite the rules of the census. In 2030, they hope, many Americans in Democratic-leaning districts simply won't count at all. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Texas lawmaker in redistricting fight spends night in Capitol to avoid police monitor
Aug 19 (Reuters) - Democratic state Representative Nicole Collier spent the night in the Texas Capitol building rather than agree to a police monitor amid a contentious partisan struggle over redistricting that is part of President Donald Trump's campaign to keep the national House of Representatives in Republican hands. Democrats had abandoned the state legislature for two weeks to deny a quorum in the Texas House, delaying a redistricting plan drawn up at Trump's behest. After they returned to the statehouse on Monday, the Republican leadership assigned state law enforcement officers to monitor the Democrats to prevent further delays to their plan to redraw U.S. congressional voting districts to favor Republicans ahead of the 2026 election. Collier, in her seventh two-year term representing Fort Worth, refused to agree to the police monitor, remaining in the Capitol building in protest. Collier posted a picture of herself on X on Tuesday sleeping on a chair with a blanket and the caption, "This was my night, bonnet and all, in the #txlege." CNN reported that Texas State Representatives Gene Wu and Vince Perez, also Democrats, joined her in solidarity overnight, bringing snacks of dried fruit, ramen and popcorn. "What matters to me is making sure that I resist and fight back against and push back," Collier told Reuters from the Capitol in an interview on Monday. Republican lawmakers in Texas did not immediately respond to requests for comment. More than 50 Texas House Democrats had left the state, aiming to deny Republicans enough lawmakers in attendance to hold a vote. They returned to the statehouse on Monday, saying the delay had enabled their party to counter with a plan by California Governor Gavin Newsom to set in motion a redistricting plan in that largely Democratic state designed to offset any Republican gains in Texas. The rhetoric has been charged. At one point Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said any lawmaker who solicited funds to pay a $500-per-day fine Texas House rules impose on absent legislators could violate bribery laws and called them "potential out-of-state felons." Newsom has called his effort the 'Election Rigging Response Act.' Speaker of the Texas House Dustin Burrows, a Republican, said on Monday that the Democrats who had left the state but returned would only be allowed to leave the House chambers if they agreed to be released into the custody of an agent from the Texas Department of Public Safety, who would ensure they are present at House sessions going forward. He then scheduled the next session for Wednesday. Several Democrats bristled at the escorts but agreed to them. 'Rep. Collier's choice to stay and not sign the permission slip is well within her rights under the House Rules. I am choosing to spend my time focused on moving the important legislation on the call to overhaul camp safety, provide property tax reform and eliminate the STAAR test — the results Texans care about,' Burrows said in a statement. After Monday's session ended, Collier stood alone in the center of the chamber in the state capital of Austin, making phone calls and doing interviews while surrounded by a sea of empty seats. "You know that high road that people talk about, you know, talking when they go low, we go high? That road has crumbled. We're now on the dirt road and we're going to meet them there on the dirt road right where they are and be ready to fight," Collier said. "So they've closed the gallery, They've locked the doors, they've turned off the cameras in here. And I hear people yelling, 'Let her out,' because they are tired too," Collier said on Monday night. "They're trying to silence us. And we cannot. If we allow them to do that, what we know as being free is gone. If we continue to allow them to trample over us. ... I don't know what is left for America." Wu, the minority leader and chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, has said that the current congressional districts in Texas already dilute the voting power of racial minorities in the state, and the new redistricting plan represented "turbocharged racism." Abbott in an appearance on Fox News called Wu's accusation "bogus," saying redistricting would create more Hispanic-majority districts. He argued that it was also necessary to give Trump voters in Democrat-majority districts the ability to elect Republicans. Collier, a former chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, said in a statement on Monday, "My community is majority-minority, and they expect me to stand up for their representation."
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Republicans want to rig the midterm elections. Will they succeed?
If one mark of an autocratic regime is the meaningfulness of elections, you can make an argument that the United States has been backsliding away from a properly democratic form of government for a long time. In 2013's Shelby county decision, the US supreme court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, clearing the way for states to impose a slew of restrictions on the franchise that were previously banned as part of an effort to prevent the re-establishment of Jim Crow; voting quickly became more burdensome and onerous in many Republican-controlled states. Three years before, in Citizens United, the same court declared that corporate money counted as political speech, thereby opening the floodgates on money in politics in ways that allowed the rich to distort public discourses ahead of elections. Donald Trump famously tried to interfere with the 2020 census so that it would count as few of those who were disinclined to support him as possible, hoping to create a skewed vision of America in the data that the government uses to apportion public resources and congressional representation alike. The result is a clear picture of the Republican party's approach to elections: that so long as they create a positive outcome for their candidates, they need not be strictly speaking fair, free, or meaningful representations of the people's will. Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Republicans are pursuing this agenda with renewed zeal. At Trump's direction, Republicans in Texas are looking to redraw their state's congressional maps to be more favorable to the Republican party, allowing the party to gain more seats in the House of Representatives not by persuading voters, but by choosing who their voters will be. The US supreme court, meanwhile, has chosen to continue its own efforts to rewrite election law in the Republicans favor, taking up a long-languishing case out of Louisiana challenging the remainder of the Voting Rights Act and accelerating argument so that a decision can be released in time for Republican-leaning states to redraw their maps ahead of the November 2026 contests. In Texas, the effort to ensure that the voters' actual preferences will have no bearing on the outcome of the House races has unfolded in dramatic fashion. In early August, Trump told Texas governor Greg Abbott to redraw his state's congressional district maps – an unusual move in the middle of the decade – to ensure that Republicans picked up as many as five additional seats in Congress. 'We' – the Republicans – 'are entitled to five more seats', the president said. Trump cited his own victory in Texas in the 2024 election as evidence that the state's congressional seats belonged to his party – furthering his claim, often amorphous but repeatedly asserted, that his victory in 2024 amounts to a total and permanent grant of authority over all American policy and political jurisdictions. The Texas governor quickly called the state legislature into a special session to vote on a proposed new set of districts for 2016. In a bit of political theater meant to draw attention to the move, the state legislature's Democrats then left Texas in protest in order to deny the body quorum to move on the vote, seeking sanctuary in Democratic-controlled Illinois. The standoff came to an end when the Democrats gave in and agreed to return to the state on Friday, following California governor Gavin Newsom's announcement that he would encourage legislators in his own state to redraw maps in Democrats' favor. The new Texas maps are likely to be passed by Labor Day, allowing the state to secure the outcomes in their 2026 congressional contests more than a year before a single vote is cast. Such moves are likely to become more common in the near future. The supreme court, not satisfied with having declared large portions of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional in 2013, is now moving to strike down section 2, the law's last remaining edifice. The law allows states to draw so-called 'majority minority' districts, so that Black voters can express political power in areas where they are concentrated instead of having their voting preferences diluted by spreading their votes out across majority-white districts. The justices are now poised to strike down this last remaining vestige of the monumental 20th-century law that was meant to remedially constitute Black voting power amid a long history of political repression, and finally make the 15th amendment meaningful in practice. Without this law, Republican-controlled states are likely to redraw their maps in order to eliminate 'majority-minority' districts, thereby making it all but impossible for Black voters to elect their preferred candidates in many states, particularly across the former Confederacy. There was no need for the justices do take this case. The issue in question – a redistricting in Louisiana that created a second majority-minority congressional district in a state with six congressional districts that is more than 30% Black – had already been declared constitutional by an appellate court, in deference to the supreme court's longstanding precedent. But John Roberts – depressingly, now the court's moderate – has had a career-long vendetta against the Voting Rights Act, and will not resist an opportunity to finally strike it down in full. That the court expedited argument so as to be able to issue an opinion in June 2026 – just in time for states to redistrict before the midterms. It is yet another signal that the justices in the court's majority consider themselves to be Republican party operatives – and the Republican party, as a whole, is becoming less and less interested in running in competitive elections. It is yet to be seen whether these efforts will succeed in swinging the midterm elections decisively in Republicans' favor. Maybe the redistricting in Texas and the retaliation planned by California will not prompt a nationwide tit-for-tat of gerrymandering across the states; maybe the supreme court will show uncharacteristic restraint, and not overturn a decades-old precedent in order to further erode Black Americans' voting rights. But the odds are slim, and at any rate, the Republican party has already shown that its commitment to democratic elections – that is, the kind that they might lose – is paper thin. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is reviving their first-term effort to rewrite the rules of the census. In 2030, they hope, many Americans in Democratic-leaning districts simply won't count at all. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
