The North Carolina Supreme Court issued two important rulings in voting rights cases Friday, on gerrymandering and voter ID.

Both rulings found that Republican lawmakers had acted unconstitutionally to diminish the influence of Democratic voters — by passing a voter ID law with rules that intentionally discriminated against Black voters, and by redrawing the state’s political districts in such a way that rendered many Democrats’ votes essentially pointless in certain elections.

“The right to vote is a fundamental right, preservative of all other rights. If the right to vote is undermined, it renders illusory all ‘other rights, even the most basic,’” Justice Anita Earls wrote in the voter ID case, quoting from a civil rights case from 1964.

Both rulings were 4-3 decisions, purely along party lines with all the court’s Democrats in the majority and all the Republicans dissenting.

House Democrats on Thursday introduced legislation that would bar former President Donald Trump from holding any federal office in the future, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

The legislation is spearheaded by Democratic Rep. David Cicilline, of Rhode Island, who was a House manager for Trump's second impeachment, and the bill also has 40 co-sponsors, all Democrats. It cites the provision in the 14th Amendment that says no one who has held government office and who "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" shall be able to hold federal office again.

"Donald Trump very clearly engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 with the intention of overturning the lawful and fair results of the 2020 election," Cicilline argued in a statement. "You don't get to lead a government you tried to destroy. Even Mitch McConnell admits that Trump bears responsibility, saying on the Senate floor that '[t]here's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.'"

"The 14th Amendment makes clear that based on his past behavior, Donald Trump is disqualified from ever holding federal office again and, under Section 5, Congress has the power to pass legislation to implement this prohibition," Cicilline continued.

If you appreciate any of the following things: public schools, public teachers, the civic good, the Kentucky Constitution, the Commonwealth, and general fair play, then the Kentucky Supreme Court handed you a very nice early gift.

They ruled unanimously that the Education Opportunity Account Act — which allows people to get tax credits for donating to organizations that then give scholarships to private schools — was completely unconstitutional. No wiggle room at all. The reason as Justice Lisabeth Hughes wrote is simple: “Applying the plain language of this section, the income tax credit raises money for nonpublic education and its characterization as a tax credit rather than an appropriation is immaterial,” Hughes wrote.

Because the Kentucky Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of the Kentucky Constitution, this idea to divert funding from public schools to private ones is now quite dead and cannot be appealed.

‘It was pretty straightforward, they took a very textual approach and relied on some past precedents, they go back almost 100 years,” said University of Kentucky professor Jonathan Straub. “They wrote it in a very black and white principle that taxpayer money has to go to public schools and we’re not going to buy into these tricks or workarounds.”

Hamed Aleaziz
@Haleaziz

NEW: A federal court has stayed a Biden administration memo terminating Remain in Mexico also known as MPP -- fallout of this ruling unclear at this point.

Suzanne Monyak
@SuzanneMonyak

NEW: A Texas federal judge has ordered the Biden admin to reinstate the so-called Remain in Mexico policy. Opinion: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.346680/gov.uscourts.txnd.346680.178.0.pdf

Suzanne Monyak
@SuzanneMonyak

This case was on remand from the Supreme Court, which had instructed the judge to review the Biden admin’s October memo terminating the program. Background:

Supreme Court greenlights end of ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is widely expected to run for president in 2024, is escalating his campaign to discredit the Covid-19 vaccines, the drug companies that produced them, and the public health officials and government leaders who urged Americans to get them.

Florida under DeSantis has been home base for anti-vaccine, anti-mask, and anti-lockdown policies in the past three years. His administration sought to block cities and universities from imposing mask and vaccine mandates; his surgeon general drew widespread criticism this fall for urging young men not to get vaccinated. This week, DeSantis hosted a 90-minute panel discussion filled with experts questioning the efficacy of the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines and touting their potential dangers for some people, while alleging a vague conspiracy exists to hide that information from the public.

Now he is taking this crusade to the next level, asking the Florida Supreme Court to impanel a statewide grand jury charged with investigating any wrongdoing related to the promotion and distribution of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

Some conservatives expect DeSantis to make his Covid policies and his public vaccine skepticism a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. It’s an issue where he could draw a real contrast with former President Donald Trump, whose administration oversaw the vaccines’ development and distribution and who empowered public health officials, like the National Institutes of Health’s Anthony Fauci, who became villains for many Republicans over the course of the pandemic.

(The governor himself received a shot of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine near the start of the nation’s vaccination drive, but has evaded questions about any booster doses, which the CDC recommended for people who received one initial J&J dose.)

A controversial school choice program blocked for more than a year is unconstitutional, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Thursday's decision ends a lengthy legislative and legal process to make education opportunity accounts — a rebranded version of scholarship tax credits — a reality in Kentucky.

Under the challenged law, those who donate to scholarship-granting organizations would have received hefty tax credits from the state. The organizations would use donations to help low- and middle-income families pay for education expenses, most notably private school tuition in the largest counties.

Voters must sign off on any state funds that go to private schools. No such vote occurred involving education opportunity accounts.

Such legislation saw several false starts in front of state lawmakers before passing through on a tight vote in the spring 2021. It was quickly met with a legal challenge from a cohort of school districts called the Council for Better Education, who fought and won a 1989 case that led to major education reform.

In October 2021, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled the school choice program was unconstitutional and blocked it from going into effect.

A controversial school choice program blocked for more than a year is unconstitutional, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Thursday's decision ends a lengthy legislative and legal process to make education opportunity accounts — a rebranded version of scholarship tax credits — a reality in Kentucky.

Under the challenged law, those who donate to scholarship-granting organizations would have received hefty tax credits from the state. The organizations would use donations to help low- and middle-income families pay for education expenses, most notably private school tuition in the largest counties.

Voters must sign off on any state funds that go to private schools. No such vote occurred involving education opportunity accounts.

Such legislation saw several false starts in front of state lawmakers before passing through on a tight vote in the spring 2021. It was quickly met with a legal challenge from a cohort of school districts called the Council for Better Education, who fought and won a 1989 case that led to major education reform.

In October 2021, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled the school choice program was unconstitutional and blocked it from going into effect.

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Imagine calling a place home for your entire life, then having to make the decision to leave it behind because of the immigration system.

That’s the reality for Athulya Rajakumar, a longtime Texas resident and University of Texas Austin graduate who is making tentative plans to self-deport back to India, where she was born. This is her reality right before the Christmas holiday.

According to immigration nonprofit Improve the Dream, there are roughly 250,000 documented dreamers in the United States. Texas has about 18,000, per the nonprofit. These are people who were brought to the U.S. legally as a dependent on their parents’ work visas.

By the time a dependent turns 21 though, they’re no longer eligible to receive benefits from their parents’ visas. It’s like getting kicked off your parents’ health insurance when you turn 26.

The looming date of turning 21 for documented dreamers isn’t a surprise. They’ve always known they needed to figure out a path to legal long-term U.S. citizenship. However, the problem is the country’s immigration system is so backlogged, documented dreamers eventually age out of it without finding an immediate solution to stay in America.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly was statistically the most vulnerable incumbent governor in the nation heading into the 2022 election.

She was the only Democrat seeking reelection in a state former President Donald Trump carried in 2020. An overwhelmingly Republican electorate, Kansas voters not only sought to keep Trump in the White House, they did so by a 15 point margin.

Her narrow victory over Attorney General Derek Schmidt, which came on the heels of Kansans’ decisive vote in favor of abortion rights, has now placed the 72-year-old governor and self described policy wonk in the national spotlight.

This month the Democratic Governors Association elected Kelly as vice-chair for 2023 and chair-elect for 2024.

Though Kelly says she hasn’t committed to leading the organization in 2024, the position would place her at the helm of the national effort to re-elect Democrats to governors offices and unseat Republican governors in a presidential election year.

“Everybody’s going to want to be hearing from her,” said Bob Beatty, a Washburn University political scientist.