by Jordan Rubin | Nov 14, 2026 | Deadline: Legal Blog
Welcome back, Deadline: Legal newsletter readers. When the Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais in April, Justice Elena Kagan said in dissent that the case marked the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.” The ruling bolstered Republican efforts to reshape electoral maps in their quest to further cement political power.
Yet it also helped to galvanize Democrats in the midterm elections. It certainly motivated one of the most notable Democrats riding the “blue tsunami” to Washington: Mississippi’s Scott Colom. He cited Callais in an interview with MS NOW’s Symone Sanders Townsend after he defeated GOP incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith for a Senate seat.
To understand the significance of Colom’s victory, consider my colleague Jarvis DeBerry’s observation that it was historic partly because “every Democrat the state previously sent to the Senate was some combination of slave owner, Confederate soldier or segregationist,” but even more so because Colom “is Black, and for the first time, voters in the Blackest state in the country have elected a Black person to a statewide office.”
In his interview with Sanders Townsend, Colom said that when Callais came out and Republicans started gerrymandering in Tennessee and threatening to do so in his state, he “knew that that was a threat to go backwards in a way that’s going to hurt a state like Mississippi.” Colom said that the threat prompted him to “start focusing and giving everything I got, being as creative as I could be, listening to the right people, staying in prayer, and just working hard.”
Another GOP action that backfired in this remarkable race is that Hyde-Smith previously used her power
by Ebony Davis | Nov 14, 2026 | Congress, elections, News
The Democratic Party’s House campaign arm has hired an independent firm to investigate allegations of “inappropriate behavior” against its candidate who defeated scandal-plagued Republican Rep. Max Miller in last week’s midterm elections.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Friday that it was taking the allegations seriously, but it did not specify the nature of the complaints.
“The DCCC has been made aware of the allegations and takes them seriously,” DCCC Executive Director Julie Merz said in a statement. “In the interest of fairness to all parties involved, we have hired an independent, third-party firm to investigate any instance of inappropriate behavior, conduct interviews and gather the facts.”
Merz said the committee requested a “swift, thorough and transparent” probe and would comment further once it was completed. She did not elaborate on what the alleged inappropriate behavior involved.
Poindexter’s campaign did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment. However, a spokesperson for his campaign told CNN that the congressman-elect made what he believed was an “innocuous compliment to a volunteer” and that “he heard later that it made her feel uncomfortable and he felt awful.”
The spokesperson also said Poindexter’s campaign is working with an outside human resources firm to investigate the matter.
The investigation comes days after the newly elected Democrat was removed from the endorsement lists of two influential Democratic groups on opposite ends of the party’s spectrum — the Blue Dog PAC and the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, according to Politico.
Both groups had backed his candidacy for election.
Asked about the endorsements earlier this week, Poindexter told Politico he was focused on establishing his congressional office and wanted to better understand the
by Felicia Schwartz | Nov 14, 2026 | elections, News, White House, World
If Marco Rubio is trying to keep people from speculating that he will mount a presidential run, he is doing a pretty bad job.
The secretary of state took the stage to address the conservative Federalist Society on Friday, giving his first major speech since the midterms — and fueling questions about his plans for 2028.
The venue is an unusual choice for a sitting chief diplomat or national security adviser, as it is primarily a legal gathering centered on constitutional law, the courts and the legal profession.
His daughter Daniella Rubio, a third-year law student at the University of Virginia, introduced him to the crowd of lawyers, judges and legal scholars. The balconies surrounding its perimeter were draped with the kind of red, white and blue bunting common at political events.
He opened with a nod to the Democrats’ pledges to investigate the Trump administration in the new Congress, asking if there were any lawyers in the room.
To cheers and laughs, he responded, “I thank you because on election night there was a congressman that said we all needed to lawyer up, so here we are!”
Rubio’s 30-minute keynote address late Friday afternoon is one of the most public signs he is looking beyond his national security posts. He then took five questions from law students in the room on topics including faith, patriotism and how to address Americans’ desire to focus more on domestic rather than international issues.
“We have to be involved in things around the world because whether we’re involved in the world or not, the world will be involved with us,” he said in response to one of the law students.
Another
by Abby Livingston | Nov 14, 2026 | News
DENVER — Sen. Chris Van Hollen once ran Senate Democrats’ campaign arm with Chuck Schumer’s backing. Now, a day after launching a long-shot bid to replace Schumer as leader, he is pitching himself as the candidate who will take on the party establishment he once helped run.
“We should not be preserving institutions if they are not delivering for the American people, and we should be delivering for the American people the single mission of our government — even when that means shaking things up,” the Maryland Democrat told a crowd of Democratic operatives and activists at the What’s Next gathering, drawing loud cheers. “And that is why I am running for majority leader in the United States Senate.”
Van Hollen announced his challenge to Schumer on MS NOW’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki” on Thursday night.
He said he had spoken with Schumer about it, and that he would not run for president in 2028. “I am no longer pursuing that,” he said.
As of press time, only four other members of the incoming Democratic caucus have publicly backed Van Hollen’s leadership bid: Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Sens.-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan and Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota.
Speaking with reporters, Van Hollen called his whip count “very much in flux.” He described himself as “the underdog” in this race, and said Schumer “has lots of powers of incumbency to try to make deals or agreements with people.”
“That’s actually part of the problem with the process, but I can tell you that a lot of my colleagues want to see a whole different approach to governing in the
by Chris Walker | Nov 14, 2026 | Department of Homeland Security, Deportations, Donald Trump, ICE, immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, immigration jails, Markwayne Mullin, News
On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “broke the record for the highest number of deportations and arrests in any fiscal year.” ICE conducted “more than 491,000 immigration arrests,” the department said in a press release. Furthermore, the agency deported “more than 483,000” people over the past year.
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