The U.S. Supreme Court Makes the Future of Our Representative Democracy Look Rather Bleak–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: April 30, 2026

Indy Digest: April 30, 2026

Of all the shenanigans that concern me about our democracy—and, hoo boy, there are a lot of concerning shenanigans—none worry me more than the blatantly unfair and unrepresentative gerrymandering taking place, well, all over the place.

The latest development is the Louisiana v. Callais ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. The New York Times reports:

The Supreme Court’s decision to upend a key provision of the Voting Rights Act has plunged the nation into a dizzying new era of partisan conflict, most likely ushering in a forever redistricting war that could produce fewer competitive seats in Congress and further polarize American politics.

Left as probable casualties are longstanding principles of fair representation — along with American voters, who are likelier now to be shunted into hyperpartisan districts drawn in each state to benefit the party in power. A great carving could effectively dilute the power of millions, especially minority voters, and make partisan primaries more important than general elections when it comes to choosing leaders.

“We lost one of the last seatbelts of our democracy,” said Alanah Odoms, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana.

The ruling by the court’s conservative majority struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, describing it as an unconstitutional gerrymander that improperly considered race to create a majority-Black district. The ruling, Democrats argued, effectively removed one of the final guardrails that kept the most ruthlessly partisan interests at bay when it came to drawing congressional and legislative maps.

As a direct result of the ruling, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry delayed House primaries in the state. And both Democrats and Republicans are taking steps to redraw maps in various states.

Politico reported:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is eyeing at least four states for potential new congressional maps ahead of the 2028 elections to counter an expected round of new Republican gerrymanders after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

“All options are on the table as we get through the 2026 election and look to the future,” Jeffries told POLITICO by phone Thursday. “As many governors have already indicated, we will be prepared to respond in states like New York, Illinois and Maryland, as well as in Colorado, in advance of the 2028 election.”

His comments come as Republicans gear up to redraw congressional maps across the South to erase Black- and Hispanic-majority districts that had previously been protected by the Voting Rights Act. Already, lawmakers in Louisiana, Georgia and Tennessee are pushing for new maps, though timing is still up in the air. …

Some Democrats in the immediate aftermath of the Callais ruling raised the possibility of diluting majority-minority districts to help draw more seats favoring Democrats—even in states like California, where the party already stands to gain up to five seats after voters approved a new congressional map last fall.

Yep, you read that correctly: There’s talk about trying to re-do California’s maps yet again. I doubt that will happen—Calmatters flat-out declared that the ruling would not affect California’s maps—but the fact it’s even being discussed is mind-blowing.

As bad as things are now, things are likely to get even worse. As Jim Newell wrote for Slate: “The political effect of the decision in Callais will be to set off a new wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering that is nearly unrestricted under federal law, while decimating the ranks of the Congressional Black Caucus. It may be too late in the 2026 cycle for this next round of cutthroat redistricting to play out in full before the midterms. But the redistricting scramble ahead of the 2028 election will make the battle we’ve seen thus far look like a skirmish.”

What can be done about this? Honestly, not much. Democracy Docket reported on a number of unsuccessful proposals introduced in Congress—largely by Democrats—to curtail gerrymandering in recent years, and concluded with this:

In light of Callais, legal experts warned that passing new voting laws would likely be futile if the Supreme Court’s conservative-appointed majority strikes them down in a similar manner to how it gutted the VRA.

Jonathan Ladd, a political scientist at Georgetown University, noted in a social media post that there are several alternative approaches to ensuring districts are representative of the voters within them.

“But none will work without Supreme Court reform,” he wrote. “No law could be more clearly authorized by constitutional text than the Voting Rights Act, which is explicitly authorized by Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment. But it doesn’t matter to this Court.”

Our representative democracy is in big trouble. Big, big trouble.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• The Coachella Valley is getting a professional basketball team. From a news release: “The Los Angeles Lakers are relocating their NBA G League team to the Greater Palm Springs region in California, where it will be renamed the Coachella Valley Lakers. Beginning with the 2026-27 NBA G League season, the Coachella Valley Lakers will play their home games at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert. ‘I have enjoyed a long-time relationship with Jerry and Jeanie Buss, Lon Rosen and Linda Rambis,’ said Oak View Group Senior Partner Irving Azoff. ‘And I am beyond thrilled to have the Coachella Valley Lakers call OVG’s Acrisure Arena their home. Go Lakers.’ ‘Moving the Lakers G League team to the Coachella Valley is an incredible opportunity for the organization,’ said Los Angeles Lakers President of Business Operations Lon Rosen. ‘The Lakers have had a strong presence in the region for decades, from the Showtime Lakers holding training camp in the 1980s to more recent preseason games. We are looking forward to extending that experience and becoming a staple for Coachella Valley sports and entertainment. Acrisure Arena is the perfect modern venue that provides an incredible fan-first experience, while ensuring players have the premium facilities and space they need on game day.’ Season ticket deposits open to the public starting today and available online at coachellavalleylakers.com.”

• Once again, I find myself agreeing with … Sen. Ted Cruz? It’s true. Variety reports: “Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is a MAGA loyalist, but he thinks the Republican-controlled FCC stepped over the line in accelerating the renewal process for broadcast licenses of Disney’s eight ABC-owned local TV stations—seemingly in response to a joke Jimmy Kimmel told about Melania Trump on late-night television. ‘It is not government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,’ Cruz told political outlet Punchbowl News about the agency’s demand that ABC file to renew licenses within 30 days. … The FCC’s Media Bureau, in its April 28 order, said it was calling in ABC’s licenses for eight owned-and-operated stations for early review pursuant to an investigation into Disney and ABC over potential violations of the FCC’s ‘prohibition on unlawful discrimination’—i.e., the agency is probing the media conglomerate’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.”

• An attorney for Sheriff Chad Bianco apparently made confidential voting records publicly accessible by mistake. The Press-Enterprise reports: “In a Tuesday, April 28 letter to the California Supreme Court, attorneys for the UCLA Voting Rights Project wrote that ‘confidential material’ was publicly accessible through an online link created by counsel for Republican gubernatorial candidate and Sheriff Chad Bianco. .. In an April 3 email, Bianco’s attorney, Robert Tyler, indicated that information such as voters’ addresses, emails and phone numbers may have been inadvertently made publicly accessible through a court filing. According to an email Tyler wrote to Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco, Tyler on March 29 filed a declaration in Riverside Superior Court that included three emails between himself and the state attorney general’s office. One of those emails, Tyler wrote, ‘referenced a link to my OneDrive that I was making available to (the attorney general) to comply with his request.’ OneDrive is an online storage service for documents, photos and other data. Tyler wrote that he filed a similar declaration with the California Supreme Court on April 1. ‘Unfortunately, on April 2, 2026, I learned that the link in the email I filed could be used to access the OneDrive file by anyone who had the link,’ Tyler wrote. ‘Once this fact was learned, access through the OneDrive link was immediately halted.’”

• This Associated Press headline wins this week’s award for Most Massive Understatement: “Comey appears in court in Trump threat case that’s likely to pose a challenge for Justice Department.” Details: “Former FBI Director James Comey made his first court appearance Wednesday in a criminal case against him that legal experts say presents significant hurdles for the prosecution and will likely be a challenge for the Justice Department to win. Comey was indicted in North Carolina on Tuesday on charges of making threats against President Donald Trump related to a photograph he posted on social media last year of seashells arranged in the numbers ‘86 47.’ The Justice Department contends those numbers amounted to a threat against Trump, the 47th president. Comey has said he assumed the numbers reflected a political message, not a call to violence, and removed the Instagram post once he saw some people were interpreting it that way. The indictment is the second against Comey, a longtime target of Trump’s ire dating back to his time as FBI director, over the past year. The first one, on unrelated false statement and obstruction charges, was dismissed by a judge last November. … The indictment accuses Comey of acting ‘knowingly and willfully,’ but its sparse language offers no support for that assertion.”

• West Hollywood is taking steps to legally recognize polyamorous relationships. The Los Angeles Times reports: “Nurses raced around Chloe, prepping the Oakland mother-to-be for a caesarean. One minute, she’d been in the bathroom, laboring through a contraction. The next, she was being rushed into emergency surgery, her daughter’s heart rate dropping precipitously on the fetal monitor. … Yet because of their uncommon family structure, it wasn’t until just minutes before the obstetrician cut into her belly that the father of her child got permission to go with her into the operating room. … Chloe is polyamorous. By the time of her delivery last year, she and her partners Silvia and Fausto had already endured a medical and legal odyssey in their quest to expand their family. Polyamory is nothing new in California, and certainly not in Oakland, which in 2024 became the first city in the state to outlaw discrimination based on family structure—a move meant in part to protect multiple partners’ rights to manage a medical emergency in the hospital. Last month, West Hollywood passed an ordinance seeking to become the first city in California and one of just a handful across the country to offer domestic partnerships to poly groups. But for now, many families still face legal hurdles even in places where polyamory is becoming widely accepted.”

• Today’s recall news involves … Thermos products! CBS News says: “Thermos is recalling 8.2 million containers and jars after some stoppers forcefully ejected, leading to laceration injuries that required medical attention, and three consumers suffered permanent vision loss. The recall includes 5.8 million Thermos Stainless King Food Jars and about 2.3 million Thermos Sportsman Food & Beverage Bottles, with the items sold at Target, Walmart, Amazon.com and other retailers between around March 2008 and July 2024, according to a notice from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Thermos said it has received 27 reports of consumers who were struck by stoppers that ejected from the containers upon opening. The issues were caused by the stoppers in the recalled containers not having a pressure relief in the center, the statement said.”

• And finally … here’s yet another disconcerting AI story, about an agent that deleted an entire company database—and then seemingly bragged about breaking all its rules to do so. The Guardian reports: “It only took nine seconds for an AI coding agent gone rogue to delete a company’s entire production database and its backups, according to its founder. PocketOS, which sells software that car rental businesses rely on, descended into chaos after its databases were wiped, the company’s founder Jeremy Crane said. The culprit was Cursor, an AI agent powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 model, which is one of the AI industry’s flagship models. … Crane said that he was monitoring the agent as it deleted this data. When he asked the coding agent why, it replied: ‘NEVER F***ING GUESS!—and that’s exactly what I did.’ The agent appeared to plead guilty in its own response: ‘The system rules I operate under explicitly state: “NEVER run destructive/irreversible git commands (like push—force, hard reset, etc) unless the user explicitly requests them.”’ While PocketOS relied on the safeguards that Cursor is expected to have in place—it deleted the data anyway. ‘I violated every principle I was given,’ the coding agent wrote. … Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

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