department of justice
June 8, 2022 -
Texas is heading to court to defend new election districts that divide and disempower Black and Latino communities while benefiting the GOP. The districts remain in play for this year's elections, but judges could order new ones before 2024.
June 18, 2021 -
Despite lawsuits instituting reforms, state prisons across the U.S. continue to be places of physical and sexual violence, especially against incarcerated people of color. Conditions got so bad in Alabama's prisons that the federal government recently sued the state for violating the Constitution. Robert T. Chase, a historian of prisons, says they need the same kind of scrutiny now faced by police.
February 25, 2021 -
With census data now set to be released to the states at the end of September, six months later than usual, election officials across the South are scrambling to prevent major redistricting challenges.
December 20, 2019 -
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to soon hand down its decision over continuing an Obama-era program giving temporary reprieve from deportation to immigrants brought to the country as children. Nearly one-third of the program's active beneficiaries live in Southern states.
June 12, 2019 -
New evidence from the files of a dead North Carolina gerrymandering expert reveals the Trump administration pushed for the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census to benefit the Republican Party. But the question could lead to an undercount, which would diminish the South's electoral power and cheat it of its fair share of federal funds.
April 9, 2019 -
Federal judges have — so far — halted attempts by the region's conservative state leaders to limit or block access to health care through the Affordable Care Act. But Republicans are changing U.S. Senate rules to stack those courts with conservative Trump appointees.
April 6, 2018 -
Election watchdogs have accused the British political consulting firm of violating limits on foreign involvement in elections and of facilitating illegal coordination between super PACs and campaigns in its work to elect candidates including U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
