Ken Paxton’s lawsuit challenging 2020 could have led to ‘the end of democracy’

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) winning the state’s U.S. Senate Republican runoff is the latest evidence of how election denialism and support for voter suppression have become central to Republican politics. 
  
  

• In case you forgot, Paxton played a leading role in an outrageous legal effort on behalf of President Donald Trump to undo the results of the 2020 presidential contest.
  
  

• Remember Paxton’s “constitutional coup d’état” lawsuit? >>>

SAVE Act author Chip Roy loses AG primary to election denier Mayes Middleton

• In more Texas news, Rep. Chip Roy (R), the GOP congressman who wrote the extreme voter suppression bill called the SAVE America Act, lost his bid to become the GOP nominee for Texas attorney general to Sen. Mayes Middleton (R), an outright election denier.
  
  

• Trump’s decision not to endorse Roy was surprising because the president has described the SAVE America Act as his top legislative priority.
  
  

• Despite that, it turns out Roy may not have been enough of an election denier for Trump.
  
  

• More on Roy’s loss >>>

Troops at the polls? Judge orders Trump admin to hand over any planning docs

• A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to quickly hand the Democratic National Committee (DNC) any documents on plans to send immigration agents or the military to the polls during the midterms.
  
  

• With the midterms looming, the judge said such documents, should any exist, are time-sensitive and necessary to “inform an imminent public debate.”
  
  

• What did the DNC ask for? >>>

Trump’s judges are all election deniers

• For most people, “Who won the 2020 election?” is a straightforward question. Not so for many of Trump’s nominees for federal judgeships.
  
  

• This raises concerns about how they’d approach any politically charged election cases that come before them.
  
  

• More on Trump’s judge picks >>>

Southern Poverty Law Center accuses Trump DOJ of ‘prosecutorial vindictiveness’

• The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) asked a federal judge to toss out criminal fraud charges the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed against it, arguing that the case is a “top-down retributive campaign” by Trump. 
  
  

• The storied civil rights organization also cited numerous examples of public statements made by Trump and other administration officials that they argued showed political motivation. 
  
  

• Last month, Trump bizarrely accused the SPLC of helping to “rig” the 2020 election against him and called the organization a “Democratic hoax.” 
  
  

• Read SPLC’s argument to toss the charges >>>

Alabama asks Supreme Court to allow discriminatory map for 2026

• Alabama asked the Supreme Court to pause a lower court decision that blocked a gerrymander "tainted by intentional race-based discrimination" from being used in the midterms. At stake is a map with two majority-Black districts, which the lower court previously ruled was required.
  
  

• The DOJ also filed an amicus brief with SCOTUS in support of Alabama's request to use its discriminatory map with just one majority-Black district.
  
  

• More about the case >>>

Missouri Supreme Court rules governor didn’t violate constitution when calling for special session to gerrymander

• The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) did not violate the state’s constitution by calling for a special session to conduct mid-decade redistricting. Missouri’s GOP-led gerrymander will remain in place.

   

• More context about the case >>>