Election workers count and organize ballots in Milwaukee's Central Count facility in April 2023. Milwaukee County officials have reported that FBI agents went to the home of the county's election director this week to question her about the November 2020 presidential elections. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
FBI agents have visited the home of Milwaukee County’s elections director, Michelle Hawley, leaving a business card after attempting to contact her, Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said Wednesday, prompting sharp reactions from county officials.
Citing an unnamed source, WISN 12 News reported that the FBI was interested in 180,000 absentee ballots cast during the 2020 presidential election that reportedly have not yet been destroyed.
President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, then unsuccessfully sought in court to overturn the results.
In a statement Wednesday, Christenson said the county will follow up on the FBI’s attempt to interview Hawley. He defended the 2020 presidential election results in Milwaukee as fair, transparent and accurate.
”This has been proven repeatedly over the last six years by the post-election canvass, the Presidential Election Recount, State court-based challenge, Federal court-based challenge, the forensic audit by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, and two additional independent audits,” said Christenson. “Continuing to relitigate settled questions does not strengthen public confidence in elections but it undermines it.”
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, reiterating that Trump lost the 2020 election, said that Trump has “crossed a line if he is sending FBI agents to the private residence of Milwaukee County’s elections director.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has previously reported that the FBI recently interviewed Robert Kehoe, deputy administrator for the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Local officials “will always cooperate with law enforcement officers and the investigations they are pursuing, but this action raises serious concerns of intimidation,” Crowley said. “Regardless of how this situation evolves, the facts are clear: In 2020, election clerks did their jobs. The election was safe and secure. Donald Trump lost the popular vote in Wisconsin. No amount of fear and intimidation from the Trump Administration will change that truth.”
Trump and his supporters have persisted in denying that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election more than five years ago.
Word of FBI agents visiting election officials in Milwaukee comes after the federal agency seized 2020 ballots in Georgia earlier this year. The British newspaper The Independent reported that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was seen at the raid, and the New York Times reported that Trump called her on the phone during the raid. Georgia was a focus of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, when he called Georgia’s secretary of state and falsely claimed he had won the state that year.
Rep. Jessie Rodriguez sits for a photo in the Assembly Parlor. Photo by Baylor Spears.
Republican Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) announced she will not run for reelection this year, creating another open seat in an Assembly district that will be decisive in determining partisan control of the chamber in 2027.
Rodriguez, 48, has represented the 21st Assembly District since 2013 when she was first elected in a special election. She noted in her announcement that her son was 3 years old when she first ran. During her time in office she has served on the powerful Joint Finance Committee, helping shape the state’s two-year budget as well as being an outspoken advocate for school choice.
“Throughout my time in office, I have tried to keep family first. But the truth is, it is difficult to do this job well without it affecting the people who care about you most. My family has given me patience, encouragement, and support through long days, busy weeks, and many moments when this work required more of me than they deserved to lose,” Rodriguez said in a Thursday statement. “After a great deal of reflection and many conversations with my family, I have decided that I will not seek reelection this fall.
Her district changed with the new maps adopted in 2024. It sits in Milwaukee County and includes Oak Creek and a portion of the city of Milwaukee around the Mitchell International Airport, and has a slight Democratic lean, according to the Marquette Law School analysis.
Even under the new maps, Rodriguez won her most recent term in 2024 with 51.3% of the vote against her Democratic challenger.
Her departure means that Republicans will lose the advantages that come with incumbency in a key district that will determine control of the state Assembly. Republican lawmakers currently hold 54 seats in the Assembly to Democrats’ 45 seats, meaning Democrats need to hold all their seats and win five additional seats in November to win the majority.
Morgan Hess, the executive director for the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, said in a statement that “Rodriguez, like others in the Republican Assembly caucus, sees the writing on the wall.”
“Rather than serve in the minority, they are calling it quits. Democrats have the momentum to win the majority this fall and today’s announcement brings us one step closer,” Hess said.
Democrat Dan Bukiewicz, the mayor of Oak Creek, announced his campaign for the seat in January.
Hess said he is a “proven leader in this community and will make an excellent state representative.”
Rodriguez’s announcement adds to the wave of Republicans, including nine Assembly members and six Senate members, deciding not to seek election this fall, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) who was the first Assembly Republican in one of eight key seats to decide against running.
Donovan running
Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) announced that he will run for a third term to represent Assembly District 61, which covers Greendale and Hales Corner in Milwaukee County. The district has a slight Republican lean, according to the Marquette Law School analysis, but is one of eight districts that Democrats are targeting to flip.
Donovan, 69, was first elected in 2022. He joins a handful of other Republican lawmakers from swing districts seeking another term, including Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston), Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (R-River Falls), Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) and Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R- De Pere).
Rep. Bob Donovan in the Wisconsin Capitol in 2022. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Democrat Ben Brist, a U.S. Army veteran announced he would run for the seat in March. His candidacy could mean Donovan would face someone other than Democrat LuAnn Bird, who he defeated in his first two runs for the Assembly.
Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Devin Remiker said in a statement that Republicans are “abandoning ship.”
“To those like Bob Donovan and Shannon Zimmerman who have decided to run again, you have 23 days to retire or you will be fired by the voters in November. Your leaders and colleagues know what is coming and it is not the cavalry; it is only defeat,” Remiker said.
Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson, a Memphis Democrat, speaks to a crowd of protesters on May 5, 2026, the first day of a special legislative session called by Republican Gov. Bill Lee to redraw Tennessee’s congressional districts. (Photo by Cassandra Stephenson/Tennessee Lookout)
The day after the U.S. Supreme Court crippled the federal Voting Rights Act, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson addressed a virtual gathering for the group’s members and supporters where he ranked the landmark decision alongside the court’s most infamous cases.
Dred Scott excluded Black people from American citizenship ahead of the Civil War. Plessy blessed policies of racial segregation in 1896. And now there was Callais.
The opinion will “probably go down in the history book as one of three of the worst Supreme Court decisions in the history of this nation,” Johnson said.
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana vs. Callais on April 29 cleared states to split apart, for political gain, congressional districts where a majority of residents belong to minority groups. The court’s conservative majority said Louisiana lawmakers acted unconstitutionally when they intentionally created the state’s second majority-Black district, which the justices found unnecessary.
A week after its release, the decision is roiling politics across the South as states move at a rapid pace to recast the political landscape that has taken progressives by surprise.
Republicans, triumphant over their victory at the court, are rushing fresh gerrymanders through Southern statehouses in time for the November midterm elections in an effort to strengthen their party’s control over the region’s U.S. House delegations. They’re acting at lightning speed, over loud protests, and have nullified votes by suspending ongoing elections.
Democrats, especially Black residents, are furious with both the court and GOP politicians, who they believe are poised to wipe away decades of Black political progress in the region. The new maps that seek to oust Black members of Congress and prevent the election of Democrats in the future recall a Jim Crow past of literacy tests and poll taxes, they say.
“We refuse to let you kill us by killing our vote,” Eliza Jane Franklin, a resident of rural Barbour County, Alabama, told a state House hearing Tuesday.
Eliza Jane Franklin of Barbour County, Alabama, holds up a copy of “Witness to Injustice,” a book by David Frost Jr. about racial violence and the Civil Rights Movement in Eufala, Alabama, while speaking to the state House Ways and Means General Fund Committee on May 5, 2026. (Photo by Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
Decision kicked off legislative efforts
The Alabama Legislature is moving to authorize a special primary election using a congressional map currently blocked in federal court, if a district court or, ultimately, the Supreme Court allows the state to move forward. At least one of the state’s two Black members of the U.S. House would be vulnerable.
In Louisiana, the governor has suspended the state’s primary elections for the U.S. House, setting aside some 42,000 votes that were already cast. Republican lawmakers will begin advancing a new gerrymander in a matter of days, aiming to force out at least one of the state’s two Black House members.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new map into law Monday that aims to hand his party up to four additional U.S. House seats. State lawmakers approved the map hours after the Supreme Court’s decision. The map has already drawn multiple legal challenges.
The South Carolina Legislature is weighing whether to redraw maps. And Tennessee lawmakers want to gerrymander a Memphis district currently held by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a white Democrat who represents the state’s only majority-Black district.
“The Supreme Court has opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be color-blind,” Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, said in a statement Thursday unveiling a plan to divide the Memphis area among three congressional seats.
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
More states, in the South and elsewhere, are expected to pursue new maps over the next two years. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp ruled out a special session this year, for example, but supports redistricting before the 2028 election.
The current moment represents an extraordinary time in America, said Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO of Fair Elections Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group. But she also called it a reversion “back to America.”
Many thought the presence of Black, Hispanic and Asian American elected officials somehow meant racial discrimination no longer existed, she said.
“And unfortunately, that is a misread of American history,” Caruthers said. “And perhaps it is a retelling of American history for those who want to gloss over America’s very sordid past, especially when it comes to voting rights.”
Midterms impact
The scramble by a handful of Southern states to redraw districts comes as Republicans grasp for any scintilla of advantage ahead of the midterm elections in November.
A U.S. House under Democratic control would spell the end of much of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, produce a wave of investigations into his administration and potentially lead to a vote to impeach him in the House, though the Senate would almost certainly acquit him.
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat who represents Tennessee’s only majority-Black district, speaks to a crowd before a special legislative session that began May 5, 2026. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
“This is all about Donald Trump wanting to avoid hard questions and oversight hearings about his actions,” Cohen said at a news conference in Memphis.
Seth McKee, a political science professor at Oklahoma State University who has studied Southern politics, said Republicans are attempting to “staunch the bleeding” ahead of unfavorable midterm elections.
“The desperation of this Republican Party, it’s off the charts,” McKee said.
Redistricting push supercharged
Prior to Callais, Trump had already urged Republicans to redraw congressional maps for partisan advantage — a process that typically occurs once a decade after the census.
Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas enacted more GOP-friendly maps, while Democrats struck back in California and Virginia. In Utah, Republicans want to block a court-ordered map that’s more favorable to Democrats.
Republican primary voters have given their approval to that approach. On Tuesday, five Trump-endorsed state legislative candidates in Indiana defeated GOP incumbents who had defied the president to block a gerrymander in the state last year.
But until now the Voting Rights Act limited how far that gerrymandering push could extend.
For decades, Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act helped protect majority-minority districts from gerrymandering and ensured voters could elect Black candidates to Congress in Southern states following the end of state laws that blocked Black citizens from voting. The Callais opinion guts Section 2 by curtailing the consideration of race when drawing legislative maps.
Republicans have praised the decision and many have been clear that they believe the opinion opens up a path to securing additional GOP seats. Trump has endorsed disregarding primary elections that have already been held so that states can pass new maps — which he predicts can net Republicans an additional 20 seats this fall.
“We cannot allow there to be an Election that is conducted unconstitutionally simply for the ‘convenience’ of State Legislatures,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If they have to vote twice, so be it.”
Calls for GOP seats
Over the past week, some Republicans have cast majority-minority districts previously protected by the Voting Rights Act as racist because they were drawn with attention paid to the racial makeup of the map. U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, wrote on X that there are “no more excuses for keeping racist maps,” for example, and called for their immediate removal.
Other GOP leaders have centered their case for quick action on political power. Like Trump, they have explicitly invoked control of the U.S. House as a reason to gerrymander. While Republicans have the House, their margin of control is razor thin: 217 to 212, with one independent and five vacancies. Even a modest Democratic wave in November will likely sweep away GOP control.
Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger Jr. and House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said in a joint statement that the state’s lawmakers have a responsibility to offer Alabama a “fighting chance” to elect seven Republican U.S. representatives. Two of the state’s seven districts are held by Democrats.
“Control of the U.S. House of Representatives could come down to just a handful of seats, and when the dust settles, the people of Alabama will know that their Legislature stood firm, acted decisively, and did everything within its power to fight for fair representation,” Gudger and Ledbetter said.
Alabama Republicans want to use a map passed by lawmakers in 2023 that federal courts blocked from taking effect. Alabama’s current map was drawn by a court-appointed special master.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, asked a federal district court Tuesday for an order that would let the state move forward with the gerrymander.
Carsie Evans of Anniston, Alabama, holds a sign outside the Alabama Statehouse on May 4, 2026, the day the Alabama legislature began a special session that could result in changes to primary elections and congressional legislative district lines. (Photo by Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
In Louisiana, Republicans obtained special permission from the Supreme Court to quickly move forward on a new gerrymander after the justices struck down its current map in the Callais decision.
Absentee voting was already underway in Louisiana before Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended congressional primary elections set for May 16. Votes already cast for U.S. House candidates won’t count, Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry, no relation, has said.
Louisiana state lawmakers are set to begin work on a new map this month that will likely break apart a New Orleans district held by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Black Democrat who has fought with the governor.
“The Court’s decision in these cases has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent of the decision to quickly finalize Callais.
Court challenges
Still, Democrats and other opponents of the gerrymandering effort across the South are turning to the courts. Lawsuits have also been filed challenging the suspension of Louisiana’s congressional primaries and Florida’s new map also faces court challenges.
A petition filed in Louisiana state court by Elias Law Group, a major Democrat-aligned voting rights litigation firm, alleges the governor’s decision to halt the congressional primary is unlawful and unprecedented. Only the state legislature has the power to set the state’s election schedule, the petition argues.
“Governors do not get to cancel elections by executive fiat, least of all elections that are already underway, with ballots in voters’ hands and votes already cast,” Lali Madduri, a partner at Elias Law Group, said in a statement.
Regardless of how the legal challenges play out, Democrats say the Callais decision and the ongoing fallout from the decision underscore the need for massive voter turnout in the November election. A large Democratic turnout that results in a significant Democratic majority in the U.S. House would serve as a rebuke to Trump’s gerrymandering campaign, they say.
Blue state gerrymanders
U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, South Carolina’s sole congressional Democrat, said during the NAACP virtual meeting that a Democratic House could pass voting rights legislation.
“I would hope we could do that because I really think that’s our only hope legislatively,” Clyburn said.
Democrats have long called for the passage of a bill to restore preclearance, a major element of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court paused in 2013, which required states and local governments with a history of racial discrimination to obtain federal permission before making voting changes.
But the measure would face a certain filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Even if Democrats broke a filibuster, Trump would likely veto it.
In effect, Democrats’ most realistic opportunity to enact major voting rights legislation relies on regaining control of the White House and Congress and ending the filibuster — a set of conditions that’s out of reach until at least 2029.
In the meantime, more Democrats are calling for aggressive gerrymandering of blue states as a way to punch back. U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Joseph Morelle, both New York Democrats, on Monday announced an initiative to encourage their state to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2028 election.
Gerrymandering New York would be an intensive effort, likely requiring voters to repeal or suspend anti-gerrymandering provisions in the state constitution. But voters in California and Virginia have previously endorsed Democratic gerrymanders.
“This is just the beginning,” Jeffries said in a statement. “Across the nation, we will sue, we will redraw and we will win.”
Community members arrive at their local polling location to vote in November 2022 in Atlanta. While intense national attention on the fallout from the recent Supreme Court decision gutting a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act has focused on Congress, the new ruling also applies to state legislative districts and maps for county or municipal elections. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)
The U.S. Supreme Court’s new decision gutting a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act clears the way for state officials to drastically reshape not only Congress but also state legislatures, county commissions, city councils and even local school boards.
The ruling, released last week in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, dismantled some of the final guardrails protecting the electoral power of Black, Hispanic and other racial minority voters that had been enshrined in the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 federal civil rights law that bars racial discrimination in voting access.
The 6-3 decision all but nullifies a provision called Section 2 that required states to draw electoral maps to give racial minority voters the opportunity to elect their chosen candidates.
And while intense national attention on the case’s fallout has focused on the U.S. House as the 2026 midterm congressional elections loom, the new ruling also applies to state legislative districts and maps for county or municipal elections.
Those localized changes are just hovering further down the road.
“While everyone has been focusing on what this means for the power in Congress, there’s a whole other sector of power that it changes,” said Davante Lewis, an elected member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission and one of the litigants in a case that pushed Louisiana to create the congressional maps that were eventually struck down in the Callais ruling.
“This is a decision on who gets to serve on a school board, who gets to serve on a city council, who gets representation in the judiciary,” Lewis said.
Electoral maps are typically redrawn every 10 years after a census, but the Trump administration has encouraged Republican-led states to redraw districts to favor the GOP, a controversial move that has prompted some Democratic-led states to retaliate with gerrymandering of their own.
“But after 2030, I think we’re definitely going to see the impact of the Callais decision at the state level,” said Travis Crum, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis whose research focuses on voting rights, race and federalism.
Effects across the South
Critics of the ruling say it will fundamentally dilute the voting and governing power of Black and other minority citizens up and down the ballot, particularly in the South. There, many of the seats held by Black elected officials are in so-called opportunity districts that were created after the Voting Rights Act to allow Black and other minority voters to elect their preferred candidates.
“On the congressional level, we’re in this race to the bottom of redistricting, but when it comes to the state legislative level, we’ll have to wait and see,” Crum said.
In 10 state legislatures across the South, Republicans could gain more than 190 seats currently held by Democrats, most of them Black representatives in majority-minority districts, according to an analysis released in December by voting rights groups Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund. At the federal level, one analysis from The New York Times found that Democrats stand to lose a dozen U.S. House seats across the South.
In the hours after the Supreme Court ruling, Republicans across the nation began calling for maps to be redrawn, particularly in states where courts had forced them to create districts where Black or other racial minorities made up the majority of residents.
“These lines should all be colorblind. You should never be basing a decision on race,” said Arizona Republican state Sen. Warren Petersen, who’s president of the state Senate and running for attorney general.
He told Stateline he believes both congressional and state legislative maps should be redrawn in Arizona — even if it takes litigation.
Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves called a special legislative session set for later this month, when he wants lawmakers to draw new election maps for Mississippi state Supreme Court districts. A federal judge in Mississippi will have to quickly decide whether to adopt a new map for some special elections scheduled for November.
Democrats, too, took action. In Illinois, lawmakers backtracked on a proposed constitutional amendment that would have directed lawmakers to consider race in drawing district lines, a provision taken directly from the Voting Rights Act. Instead, Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, a Democrat, told Capitol News Illinois that lawmakers want to learn more about the ruling before putting such an amendment on a ballot for voters to decide, to prevent unintended consequences that could undermine voting rights.
In many states, Republicans are focusing first on congressional redistricting. Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry postponed his state’s U.S. House primaries even though absentee voting has already begun. In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey called a special state legislative session aiming to move the state’s May 19 primary in at least a handful of districts. Prominent Georgia Republicans were also calling for their state’s political maps to be redrawn, though GOP Gov. Brian Kemp said in a statement that it’s too late to do that this year.
And in North Dakota, the ruling leaves a tribal redistricting case in limbo. Tribes had used Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to sue the state over a legislative district map the North Dakota legislature approved in 2021.
Gerrymandering for partisan advantage is legal at the federal level, though some states do have their own laws restricting or prohibiting it. In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is arguing the Supreme Court ruling invalidates voter-approved amendments that prevent the state from gerrymandering districts based on race or political party.
For most states, though, state officials can redraw maps explicitly to favor Republican voters, for example, so long as they don’t state their intention to disadvantage voters based on race.
‘Ripple like wildfire’
Critics of last week’s Callais ruling also worry it will rapidly erode the pipeline that has made it possible for Black and other minority candidates to get elected to office.
“Now, state legislatures can draw maps where they are picking their voters instead of their voters picking them,” said Lewis, the Louisiana commissioner. “They can dilute the power of Black and brown people serving in the state legislature, which means there’s fewer people to fight a congressional map” that pulls voting power away from minority communities.
He worries that if Black Democratic state lawmakers oppose their white Republican colleagues in legislatures with GOP majorities, those colleagues could redraw maps to eliminate the Black lawmakers’ seats, claiming they’re doing it only for partisan reasons.
The diluting of minority voting power, he said, “is going to ripple like wildfire.”
At the most local level, city councils and county boards typically draw those voting maps, but the ruling could be used to apply to them as well, said Crum, the law professor.
Arizona is one of a handful of states where an independent commission, rather than the state legislature, determines both congressional and legislative districts. Outside of a court order, it can’t convene before the turn of the decade.
Petersen, the Arizona state senator, said he’s prepared to litigate if the state’s redistricting commission doesn’t take action to redraw districts that he said are unconstitutionally drawn. He doesn’t expect new maps before 2028, though.
“We’ve heard complaints from constituents that they don’t like the way their district was drawn,” he said. “We have some people here in Arizona that represent completely far-flung areas.
“I do think you’ll get a better outcome on some of these legislative districts” by removing race-based districting, he said.
Lawmakers in some states have tried to guard against the loss of federal protections by introducing their own state-level voting rights bills. Ten states have their own versions of the federal Voting Rights Act, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Virginia and Washington.
Lawmakers in at least 10 other states have introduced such bills this year alone: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The new Supreme Court ruling doesn’t render those laws unconstitutional, said Crum.
“But people who are seeking to undermine those state Voting Rights Acts are certainly going to rely on some of the themes” of the recent ruling, Crum said. “You might see them try and replicate some of the moves the court made.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct that Maryland has a state-level voting rights law, which was enacted last week.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Gov. Jeff Landry canceled the U.S. House party primary elections scheduled for May 16 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the House district map in use was an illegal racial gerrymander. (Photo by Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)
Louisiana is not experiencing ordinary political turbulence. We are watching democratic instability unfold in real time.
Within a matter of days, voters across this state have been forced to absorb three major disruptions at once: the dismantling of Black voting representation through the ruling in Louisiana v. Callais; the suspension of congressional primary elections already in progress; and a statewide constitutional amendment that could fundamentally reshape public education in East Baton Rouge Parish and beyond.
The timing could not be more critical. Election Day is May 16. Early voting began Saturday. Absentee ballots have already been distributed. Yet Gov. Jeff Landry’s executive order suspended Louisiana’s closed party congressional primaries after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the state’s congressional map.
Voters are now left in a vacuum of information, told that congressional races will still appear on their ballots, but that their votes in these contests won’t count.
That should alarm every person in this state, regardless of party affiliation.
A democracy cannot function when election rules shift after the machinery of voting has already begun moving. This creates confusion and distrust precisely when public confidence is most fragile.
Black communities, in particular, understand the historical weight of sudden procedural changes in elections. Louisiana does not get to separate this moment from that history.
This erosion of collective representation is not limited to the ballot box. It is also manifesting in the very structure of our local institutions.
On the May 16 ballot voters are being asked to decide on Constitutional Amendment 2, which would formally recognize the St. George Community School System with independent authority to receive state funding and raise local revenues though taxes.
When coupled with its implementing legislation, the amendment mandates the transfer of public school lands, facilities and assets from the East Baton Rouge Parish School System to the new St. George system by June 30, 2027. Reports indicate that East Baton Rouge schools could lose roughly $100 million if this separation proceeds.
This is bigger than one city, one amendment or one election cycle. This is about fragmentation: the fragmentation of voting rights, public education and, ultimately, public trust. The people most harmed by this fracturing are always the communities with the fewest resources to absorb the blow: Black families, working-class families, disabled residents and children already navigating underfunded schools.
Supporters of these measures frame them as issues of local control or administrative necessity. But language matters less than outcomes. When systems repeatedly reorganize power away from collective accountability and toward isolated control structures, inequity expands. History has shown us this repeatedly.
The most dangerous part is how normalized this chaos is becoming. Louisianans are being conditioned to accept government by disruption. Maps change overnight, elections pause midstream, public assets become bargaining chips.
That is not healthy governance. That is democratic erosion dressed in procedural language.
The people of Louisiana deserve clarity before elections begin, not after. They deserve stable representation and public institutions designed to serve communities rather than divide them into competing islands of power. Because once citizens begin believing their vote is conditional, their schools are negotiable, and their representation is disposable, democracy itself begins to fracture.
And fractured systems rarely fail equally.
This story was originally produced by Louisiana Illuminator, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) announced his retirement Monday. He speaks during floor debate on a GOP Knowles-Nelson bill. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner).
Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) criticized heavy spending in state legislative races, which is likely to continue this year, as he announced his retirement Monday. His departure creates an open race for a swing Assembly district that could help determine control of the Assembly.
Kaufert said in a statement that family and health concerns have led him to retirement.
“After a great deal of thought and reflection, there comes a time when you simply know it is time,” Kaufert said. “Family and health concerns have led me to this decision, but it is not one I make lightly. Representing the Fox Valley has been an honor and privilege.”
Kaufert represents Assembly District 53, which encompasses Neenah, Menasha and part of Appleton. Kaufert was the mayor of Neenah from 2014 to 2022 and also previously served in the state Assembly from 1991 to 2015.
With new, more competitive legislative maps adopted in 2024, Kaufert came out of retirement to run for the state Assembly in 2024 and won in a close race to the Democratic candidate by about 360 votes — a result that helped Republicans maintain their majority during the 2025-26 legislative session.
“Making a difference and standing up for those who need a voice — the little guy — has been at the heart of everything I have done,” he said.
Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) thanked Kaufert for his service in a statement.
“Dean’s decision to return to the Legislature for one more term speaks to his commitment to public service and to this institution. He didn’t have to come back but he chose to step forward and serve again, and we are better for it,” August said.
Kaufert’s retirement means Republicans will not have the advantage of incumbency in the race for his seat and opens up the race for the district, which will help determine control of the state Assembly in 2027.
Republican lawmakers currently hold 54 seats in the Assembly to Democrats’ 45 seats, meaning Democrats would need to hold all their seats and win five additional seats in November to win the majority.
Kaufert is now the eighth Assembly Republican to decide against running for reelection this session — the first from a swing district.
Devin Remiker, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said in a social media post that the seat is crucial for an Assembly majority, noting that when the district elected Kaufert, it also voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race by 4.4 percentage points. The district recently voted for Justice-elect Chris Taylor, the Democratic-backed candidate in the April state Supreme Court race by 27.5 percentage points.
“Republicans see the writing on the wall and the big victory in April has made it clearer than ever that change is coming to Wisconsin this November,” Remiker said.
Other Republican lawmakers are planning their reelection bids including two incumbents from swing districts: Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (R-River Falls) and Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R- De Pere).
In his announcement, Kaufert said the political environment in the state Assembly has improved and has led to more bipartisan work, but criticized the increasing negativity and spending in campaigns for office.
“Campaigns have become increasingly more negative, with vicious personal attacks and an overwhelming influx of out-of-state special interest money,” Kaufert said. “The ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality — where opponents are too often demonized and unfairly personally attacked — has taken a real toll on me and my family.”
Kaufert said that both parties are to blame, but called the amount of spending by Democrats on his seat, which pays a salary of about $60,000, “ridiculous.” In 2024, Kaufert’s Democratic opponent spent $1.76 million in his campaign for the seat. Kaufert spent $1.24 million, according to campaign finance reports.
Spending on campaigns will likely continue to increase this year, especially with control of the chambers on the line, and Democrats are already investing in the seats that could help determine control.
The Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, the fundraising arm for the Assembly Democratic caucus, contributed $1 million to Rep. Steve Doyle’s reelection campaign, according to his latest campaign finance reports. It was the most of any Assembly incumbents, according to WisPolitics. The Onalaska Democrat is one of the most “vulnerable” Democratic incumbents, having won his last election in 2024 by just 223 votes.
Wisconsin election campaign finance laws, adopted in 2015 under the leadership of former Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-led Legislature, allow political parties to accept unlimited donations from individuals and corporations and transfer unlimited funds to state-level candidates, including those for Assembly.
Election workers process ballots at the Davis County Administrative Building in Farmington, Utah, on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Voting rights groups launched a legal challenge Tuesday against the Trump administration’s effort to sweep up sensitive data on millions of Americans with the aim of identifying noncitizen voters, arguing that the U.S. Department of Justice is building a dangerous centralized national voter list ahead of the midterm elections in November.
The federal lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia by the voting rights and civic group Common Cause with help from other organizations, seeks to block the Justice Department from obtaining and analyzing unredacted state voter lists that include driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers.
The DOJ plans to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security, which operates a powerful computer program that can verify U.S. citizenship. Democratic election officials say the program has wrongly flagged Americans as possible noncitizen voters and could erode faith in election results.
“This is a blatant, partisan power grab designed to cast doubt on the validity of our elections and whose vote should be counted,” Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause president and CEO, said in a statement.
The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for the data. But at least a dozen other states have provided the data, handing the Trump administration information on millions of registered voters.
The latest lawsuit by Common Cause, with legal representation by the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and other voting rights groups, opens a new front in the legal fight against the Trump administration’s campaign for the data. It represents an attempt to halt the administration from using the voter information it’s already obtained — and stop it from collecting more.
The suit asks a court to order the Justice Department to halt any actions to compile, use or disclose sensitive voter data. The groups also wants the DOJ to delete the data already in its possession.
Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming have voluntarily provided, or will turn over, their sensitive voter data, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which has been tracking the Justice Department’s efforts.
Federalization of elections
Since taking office last year, President Donald Trump has moved to assert presidential power over federal elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are run by the states. The president and his allies have framed his moves as necessary to ensure the security of elections by purging noncitizen voters.
Trump issued an executive order a year ago that attempted to impose a nationwide requirement that voters must produce documents proving their citizenship. Federal courts blocked the order. He is also pressuring Congress to pass legislation, the SAVE America Act, containing a similar requirement.
Late last month, Trump signed another executive order clamping down on mail ballots. It directs the U.S. Postal Service to restrict the delivery of ballots and instructs Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age U.S. citizens in each state, effectively building a national database of voters and would-be voters. Several active lawsuits are challenging the order.
“By attempting to interrogate and exploit voter data for political purposes, President Trump’s DOJ isn’t just threatening the privacy of every American—they are building a system designed to imprison the ballot box and silence millions of eligible voters,” Kase Solomón said. “We won’t stand by while Americans’ rights to privacy and voting are under attack.”
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In other lawsuits, Justice Department lawyers have argued the agency is entitled to voter data under the 1960 Civil Rights Act, a federal law to combat voting discrimination. DOJ lawyers have also denied that the agency is building a nationwide voter list — but they have acknowledged voter data will be sent to Homeland Security for analysis by SAVE, an online tool short for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements.
SAVE was previously used for one-off searches of individual immigrants to check whether they were eligible for government benefits. The Trump administration last year refashioned it into a program capable of checking the citizenship of voters. Some GOP states have begun voluntarily using SAVE to scan their state voter rolls for potential noncitizens.
“That’s how we are going to ensure that they have the proper identification as to each and every voter,” Justice Department Voting Section acting Chief Eric Neff said in federal court in Rhode Island in March, according to a transcript.
DOJ losing streak
Federal judges have so far uniformly ruled against the Justice Department’s efforts to force states to turn over voter data. Federal judges in five states — California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island — have dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuits.
The Justice Department has appealed some of the rulings. Oral arguments in those cases are set for mid-May.
The DOJ’s most recent court loss came last week in Rhode Island from Judge Mary McElroy, a Trump appointee. In a 14-page order, she ruled that federal voting laws — including the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act — don’t empower the Justice Department to demand state voter data.
“Neither the NVRA nor HAVA authorize DOJ to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” McElroy wrote.
Sen. Jesse James had dropped his challenge to Sen. Jeff Smith. James speaks at a press conference in April 2025. (Photo by Baylor Spears/ Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) is dropping his challenge to Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) — making him the fifth Senate Republican to announce his retirement from office.
James had initially announced that he would be running for reelection in October in Senate District 31, which is currently represented by Smith, saying that he would be coming “home.” James and Smith were drawn into the same district under the legislative maps adopted in 2024, and James moved to continue to represent Senate District 23.
James’ retirement announcement comes after his daughter was charged with stealing funds from his campaign. He turned in his daughter to police in 2024, after discovering that, while working as his campaign treasurer, she withdrew $32,000 from the campaign account over the year without authorization. She had withdrawn the funds to help with her small business.
James, who was first elected to the Senate in 2022, said in a statement that it has been the “opportunity of a lifetime” to serve in the Legislature, but “this role came at a price, a price of being away from my family.”
“For this reason, and for other personal reasons I have decided to retire from the Wisconsin State Senate,” he said.
James’ departure from the race means Republicans are losing the advantage that comes with having an incumbent candidate in yet another key state Senate district.
Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) and Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) have both announced their retirements, and Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) is the only incumbent Republican running for reelection in one of the four Senate Districts that Democrats are targeting as a part of their plan to win a majority.
Senate District 31 includes the entirety of Eau Claire County and parts of Dunn, Trempealeau and Chippewa counties. It’s one of 17 odd-numbered districts that will be up for election for the first time under new maps.
Other Republicans not running for reelection include Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) and Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater).
According to a Democratic Party of Wisconsin analysis, Senate District 31 voted in April this year for Justice-elect Chris Taylor, who was backed by the party, by 30 percentage points.
According to an analysis by John Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University, the current 31st Senate district leaned Democratic in the 2024 presidential election by 2.2 percentage points and went Democratic by 4.7 percentage points in the 2024 Senate race.
Devin Remiker, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said in a statement that Republicans “know that they’re in big trouble without rigged maps designed to protect them from the outrage voters have about rising prices and the disastrous Trump administration.”
“With last week’s blowout victory, the likes of which this state has not seen for over a decade, we will double down to ensure we can deliver real change for working people in November,” Remiker said. “For the Republicans who are staring down the most competitive elections of their lifetimes, with their leaders and colleagues continuing to flee the sinking MAGA ship, I would urge you to join them in retirement before the wave hits this November.”
Another Assembly Republican declines to run
Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha) also announced his intentions to not run for reelection on Tuesday, saying he would be taking a “sabbatical” from elected office. Allen lost his bid for the office of mayor of Waukesha last week to Alicia Halvensleben, a Democrat.
“We are blessed with living in the greatest country of all time. Service is the rent that we pay for such privilege,” Allen, one of the most right-wing members of the Assembly, said in a statement. “Protecting our freedoms and opportunities takes work and when we begin to take them for granted, we run the risk of losing them.”
His campaign statement noted that “this action by Rep. Allen may be the only thing that he has ever done that will thrill liberals.”
Allen joins six other Assembly Republicans, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), in not running for reelection.
Waukesha, the county seat of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. (Photo by Denis Tangney Jr./Getty Images)
The headlines following Wisconsin’s April 2026 spring election told a story of Democratic triumph: Chris Taylor expanded the liberal majority on the State Supreme Court, and in a stunning upset, the candidate supported by Democrats, Alicia Halvensleben, defeated Republican state Rep. Scott Allen to win the nominally nonpartisan mayoral race in the city of Waukesha, in the heart of a Republican-leaning area that has been key to past Wisconsin GOP victories.
But further down the ballot, a quieter, more granular political battle reached a turning point. In school board races across the county, a multi-year, well-funded right wing project to seize control of school policymaking came to a grinding halt due to years of community-led organizing.
Since 2021, the Republican Party of Waukesha County’s WISRED initiative has systematically targeted down-ballot races as part of a precinct-focused strategy aimed to energize conservative voters in low-turnout elections. This relied mostly on manufacturing outrage around “culture war” topics in public education and resulted in partisan majorities installed on school boards across the county.
This cycle, however, marked a dramatic reversal of fortune for right-wing groups. So-called “conservative” candidates backed by WISRED, Moms for Liberty, and The 1776 Project PAC won around 60% of their races in this Republican stronghold, hardly the dominant track record of previous cycles.
This shift is not merely the result of a tarnished MAGA brand. It is the direct outcome of parents, students and activists working at the local level to reclaim their school boards for their communities.
There are four districts that stood out this election cycle:
Menomonee Falls: In perhaps the most decisive result, the school board flipped from partisan control back to a nonpartisan, community-focused majority. All three candidates backed by WisRed, Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project were defeated in their bids.
Elmbrook: Considered one of the last holdouts against the partisan takeover, the Elmbrook School District successfully defended its nonpartisan board. Incumbent Sam Hughes lost his race despite receiving over $30,000 in in-kind support from conservative PACs, a huge blowout for the WISRED initiative.
Waukesha: In the county’s largest district, the Waukesha GOP’s slate was largely defeated. While partisan-backed incumbent Bette Koenig retained her seat, the other two candidates on the WISRED ticket lost. This race also involved a new group, Forward Wisconsin, a PAC exclusively funded by former Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, that backed those same GOP-supported candidates. The district will now see two community-backed members, Diane Voit and Mitch Gallagher, on the board, up from one.
Hartland: Even in the very heart of Republican Waukesha County, the trend held. In the Hartland-Lakeside School District, the WisRed-backed challenger, who had appeared at campaign events with the chair of the Republican Party of Waukesha County, failed. Incumbent Morgan Henning, the non-partisan candidate, successfully retained her seat.
Kettle Moraine: One school board candidate, Jay Crouse, stood out for receiving endorsements from each of WISRED, Moms for Liberty, The Heartland Post, Blue Sky Waukesha, the Waukesha Dems, and KM Alliance. Unsurprisingly, Crouse won his race.
After several election cycles, communities are beginning to see and react to the negative consequences of partisan-controlled school boards. The 2026 results show that there is a path for communities to flip the script on the MAGA takeover of public education.
Correction: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly identified Sam Hughes as a challenger instead of an incumbent on the Elmbrook school board.
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