No, Really, This Is a Terrible Time for Representative Democracy; a New Study Says New Orleans Is in Big Trouble–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: May 4, 2026

Indy Digest: May 4, 2026

In last Thursday’s Digest, I took the positions that gerrymandering is bad, and the Voting Rights Act, as it was before last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision, was good.

A couple of readers disagreed with me. Vehemently.

“So the removal of mandated race based to a neutral based voting area is bad?” wrote one reader. “Did you see the voting district that was dissolved? Only those whose ox is gored would believe so.”

Our sister paper, the Reno News & Review, ran a slightly revised version of my Indy Digest intro, and an RN&R reader had this to say: “Save it Jimmy. Getting paid for pandering to Libs. Basically you’re an uninformed Liar. TDS. More important to you to see Trump fail than for America to thrive.”

There’s a lot to unpack in those emails, including a couple of blatant factual errors. First: The districts being drawn now, by Republicans and Democrats, are decidedly NOT neutral.

Second: I’m being paid to pander to libs? Boy, I wish SOMEONE were paying me!

Now, here are a few facts:

• The Voting Rights Act, until the Trump era, was overwhelmingly supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. When it was renewed in 2006, the vote in the House was 390-33; in the Senate, it was 98-0. When President George W. Bush signed it, his administration promised “to vigorously enforce the provisions of this law and to defend it in court.”

• Gerrymandering, until the Trump era, was considered bad by, well, pretty much everyone. Ronald Reagan, for one, spoke out against it.

If you truly believe in representative democracy, congressional districts need to be drawn fairly. What’s happening across the United States today violates the concepts of “fairly,” “representative” and “democracy”—and that’s an undeniable fact.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Almost a year after a bomb destroyed the home of American Reproductive Centers, ground today was broken on a new building. Our friends at The Palm Springs Post say: “Dr. Maher Abdallah, the founder and medical director of ARC, stood alongside Palm Springs Mayor Naomi Soto, City Manager Scott Stiles, Fire Chief Paul Alvarado, and members of the city council for the ceremony at 1199 N. Indian Canyon Dr. — the same site where the May 17, 2025 blast leveled the building and sent debris spanning more than 250 yards in all directions. ‘The reason why we’re doing the groundbreaking today is because of their hard work behind the scenes, making it happen,’ Abdallah said of city officials. ‘The project moved in a very expedited fashion.’ Abdallah said he hopes construction will be completed by Dec. 31, with the clinic fully up and running by 2027. The builder selected for the project specializes in IVF centers and has built more IVF centers than any other contractor on the West Coast, Abdallah said, a distinction he believes will allow the work to move faster than a typical construction timeline.“

• Two California insurers are asking to again raise rates—but the news is not all bad. The San Francisco Chronicle (gift link) reports: “Two major insurers, together covering nearly 760,000 households in California, are seeking to raise insurance rates for single-family homes, according to new filings with the California Department of Insurance. The Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club, the AAA-affiliated insurer for Southern California applied to raise rates for homeowners by 11.2% overall, while condominium and rental home owners would see their rates decrease by 20.5% and 27%, respectively. Meanwhile Travelers, the ninth largest home insurer in California, seeks to raise rates by 6.9% for homeowners, but decrease rates by 17% for renters, 22.8% for condominium owners and 19.6% for condominium landlords. There’s variation even within home types, for both insurers. Five homeowners with the Auto Club could see their rates decrease as much as 80% while one customer’s premium would rise from just under $1,650 a year to more than $13,100. Rate changes for Travelers are spread across a smaller range: about 60% of homeowners would see an increase between 5% to 10%, while just under a quarter would see rates decrease by as much as 25%.”

• In other insurance news: Our partners at Calmatters report that the state is saying State Farm violated laws while dealing with claims from last year’s SoCal fires: “State Farm could face millions of dollars in penalties and a possible temporary suspension of its license in California as a result of hundreds of alleged law violations related to its handling of claims from the Los Angeles County fires last year. California’s largest individual property insurance provider ‘showed a troubling pattern of claims handling practices’ after the fires, the state’s Insurance Department said Monday. The department is seeking a hearing into the matter, which comes after an investigation it opened into State Farm’s conduct last June. ‘Our investigation found that State Farm delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape at the worst moment of their lives,’ said Ricardo Lara, the state’s insurance commissioner, in a statement. State Farm spokesperson Sevag Sarkissian said in email that the insurance department has ‘distorted’ the picture of the company’s response to the fires. In an extended statement on its website, the company had some harsh words for the department over regulatory delays in the overall insurance market.”

• Now that Spirit Airlines is no more, what can travelers expect? CNBC says to expect higher fares: “Just hours after Spirit Airlines collapsed, its rivals unveiled their new flight plans. Airlines had actually been at work for months on their route changes as Spirit’s shutdown looked more and more likely. Some new flights start this week. It comes after Spirit abruptly ceased operations overnight Saturday, stranding thousands of customers. The quick move shows how carriers are vying for Spirit’s valuable assets, like airport gates and a customer base that has one less choice when booking. That could drive up airfare even more than it already has risen after the fuel-driven hikes this year, analysts said. Even though Spirit’s already pared-down summer schedule was about 1.5% of U.S. domestic capacity, it could have a broader impact on the industry and travelers’ wallets, Barclays airline analyst Brandon Oglenski said in a note Monday. ‘Beyond direct revenue capture from Spirit’s prior network, we also suspect industry pricing could benefit significantly for nearly all airlines given the removal of excess point-to-point capacity, which will likely drive even higher unit revenue outcomes in the near term,’ he said.”

• A new study shows that New Orleans is in big trouble—and action needs to be taken now. The Guardian reports: “The process of relocating people from New Orleans should start immediately, as the city has reached a ‘point of no return’ that will see it surrounded by the ocean within decades due to the climate crisis, a stark new study has concluded. Ongoing sea-level rise and the rampant erosion of wetlands in southern Louisiana will swallow up the New Orleans area within a few generations, with the new paper estimating the city ‘may well be surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico before the end of this century.‘ Low-lying southern Louisiana faces multiple threats, with rising sea levels driven by global heating, compounded by strengthening hurricanes, also a feature of the climate crisis, and the gradual subsidence of a coastline that has been carved apart by the oil and gas industry. Southern Louisiana is facing 3-7 metres of sea-level rise and the loss of three-quarters of its remaining coastal wetlands, which will cause the shoreline ‘to migrate as much as 100km (62 miles) inland,’ thereby stranding New Orleans and Baton Rouge, according to the study, which compared today’s rising global temperatures with a period of similar heat 125,000 years ago that caused a rise in sea level.”

• The Wall Street Journal reveals that the federal government is using new surveillance tech to find undocumented immigrants—and to track citizens, too. The lede (gift link): “Liz McLellan spent a morning in January witnessing the work of federal agents who had arrived in Maine to pursue the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Like other community activists, protesters and passersby around the U.S., McLellan took photos, including of an arrest. Then she followed a federal officer driving an unmarked vehicle to see where the agent was headed next. McLellan was surprised when the agent led her to her own house and blocked her driveway. Other federal officers quickly arrived, boxing in her car with their own vehicles. ‘This is a warning,’ an agent told her, according to court records and a video recording. ‘We know you live right here.’ In the battle against illegal immigration, the U.S. is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on tools that give federal agents easy access to the home and workplace addresses of American citizens, their social-media accounts, vehicle information, flight history, law-enforcement records and other personal information, as well as data to track their daily comings and goings, The Wall Street Journal found. This newly expanded domestic surveillance system, a high-tech dragnet built to locate, track and deport people residing illegally in the U.S., allows thousands of federal agents nationwide to peruse a trove of data belonging to more than 300 million people, including citizens.” Eek.

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … frozen pizzas! USA Today says: “A recall over a possible salmonella contamination was expanded to include two frozen pizzas sold at one of the nation’s popular grocery chains. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) expanded its recall to six different products on Friday, May 1, including two frozen pizzas sold at Walmart. According to the agency, the recall concerns a potential salmonella outbreak in meat and poultry products prepared with a previously recalled dry milk powder. As of May 3, two pizzas manufactured for Great Value, Walmart’s in-house label, were affected—the Thin Crust Chicken Bacon Ranch and Stuffed Crust Chicken Bacon Ranch. The recall previously included two Mama Cozzi’s pizzas sold exclusively at Aldi, including the Biscuits Crust Sausage & Cheese Breakfast Pizza, and Biscuit Crust Cooked Pork Belly Crumbles, Cooked Bacon Topping, Pepper & Onion Breakfast Pizza.”

Support the Independent!

No, Jimmy is not being paid to pander to libs, and neither are any of the Independent’s other scribes. All we’re trying to do is cover news honestly and truthfully. Help us, if you can, by clicking the button below and becoming a Supporter of the Independent. Thanks, as always, for reading!