<p>N.C. Gov. Cooper: Republicans’ new map ‘will be challenged’</p><p></p><p>In today’s edition … What we’re watching: Harris attends Sunak’s AI summit … Democrats move to issue subpoenas over Supreme Court ethics scandals … but first …</p><p>Good morning, Early Birds. We’re curious if there are any politicians in either party sporting more impressive costumes than Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who… What we’re watching: Harris attends Sunak’s AI summit … Democrats move to issue subpoenas over Supreme Court ethics scandals … but first …Democrats seeking to erase Republicans’ narrow majority in the House next year have scored win after win from redistricting. In Alabama, judges threw out the congressional map drawn by the Republican legislature in a case that reached the Supreme Court thatAnd in Louisiana, where a redistricting case is stalled, it’s possible Democrats could gain another seat should the courts direct the state legislature to draw a new district that would increase the share of Black voters. House Republicans can afford to lose only four seats if they want to keep their majority, so every seat matters. But those gains could be offset in North Carolina, where Democrats are poised to lose as many as four House seats. The state legislature scrapped the current map in which the state’s 14 congressional districts are evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats and finalized a new map last week that will allow Republicans to win 10 — maybe even 11 — of the seats., a Democrat, said in an interview, noting that the Supreme Court made clear that the Voting Rights Act applies in the Alabama redistricting case,Democrats and a number of interest groups are discussing a lawsuit and the best course forward, multiple sources familiar with the discussions say, including who should bring the suit and whether they should sue under the Voting Rights Act or bring a racial gerrymandering claim for equal protection under the 14th Amendment. (Read more about the VRA and racial gerrymandering The Supreme Court heard a racial gerrymandering case that involved a House district in South Carolina earlier this month. “The Democrats’ playbook has been sue-till-you’re-blue for the whole decade, so I’m sure they’ll challenge,” Hudson said. Democrats have challenged Republican-drawn maps in the state three times since 2010, leading the courts to either reject the maps as unconstitutional or order them to be redrawn. This is the fourth set of maps voters will face in a little more than a decade, causing persistent voter confusion. , announced that he won’t run for a second term and will instead run for attorney general. His district has changed from “toss up” to “likely Republican,” according to the, who won a swing district that runs from Raleigh into rural North Carolina, in a statement last week called for the maps to be challenged in court. Nickel says he won’t decide whether he will run until the courts weigh in.’s predominantly Black district in the rural northeastern part of the state, the new map dilutes the Black electorate and reduces Democrats’ four-point advantage to just over a point. Davis has mentioned the new lines in fundraising pleas.(R-N.C.), just off a three-week stint as speaker pro tempore, predicted the new maps will be in place for next year’s election. “This is the political balance based off of how people live in North Carolina, and these are fair and legal maps and I think they’ll be upheld if they’re challenged,” he told us. Redistricting could help either party net one or two House seats next year, “and a lot of it is TBD depending on all of these court cases,”said Democrats were discussing a suit but described the party’s effort to secure more favorable maps in the state as “a long game” built around winning more state legislative seats and state Supreme Court seats.“When it comes to North Carolina, we have to look 10 years down the road and try and figure out how best that state returns to a democratic principle as opposed to retreats from it,” Bisognano said.Republicans in the state after Republicans’ veto-proof supermajority in the legislature passed a bill that would reduce early voting and make same-day voter registration more difficult. Cooper, who is term-limited, said Republicans’ redistricting plan as well as moves to limit voting access, restrict abortion and shift money away from public schools to school vouchers will motivate Democratic voters and persuade independent ones to vote for Democrats. “The extremists have taken hold of the Republican Party and they continue to nominate extremist candidates,” said Cooper, who is onTrump won North Carolina in 2020 by about two points — just under 75,000 votes, less than he won it by in 2016 — and the Biden campaign is vowing to compete there. Biden’s campaign has already begun investing in advertising in the state, including a television ad that began airing in June and digital ads that ran in August and September. , said she plans to win the state by reaching voters deep into rural areas and turning out Democratic voters. She’s also focused on college campuses. “Where do you get 74,000 votes? College students, rural North Carolina and urban Mecklenburg County,” she said, referring to the county that includes Charlotte. “Like, the math is there. The math is mathing if we can make it math more.” “Sunak has focused his rhetoric on doomsday scenarios, warning in a speech Thursday of an extreme — though unlikely — possibility that 'humanity could lose control of AI completely' in a speech Thursday.”We’ll be watching whether Harris talks more about regulation or doomsday scenarios. He’ll unveil a proposed rule that would expand Securities and Exchange Commission regulations that require investment advisers to provide their clients with advice in their best interests so that they cover products such as fixed index annuities, according to the White House. “When a retirement saver pays for trusted advice that is actually not in their best interest and comes at a hidden cost to their lifetime savings, that’s a junk fee,” National Economic Council DirectorFirst, Lew must clear a procedural vote with a 60-vote threshold, which we expect will succeed. We’ll be watching how many Republicans, who have taken issue with his role in the Iran nuclear deal during the Obama administration, will oppose him. The Federal Reserve kicks off its two-day policy meeting today. “The widely held view is that Fed leaders will hold interest rates steady — and they might even be done raising rates altogether,”The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for a pair of cases today about whether the First Amendment prohibits public officials from blocking constituents on social media.“At issue on Tuesday is whether and when public officials are acting in a government capacity when maintaining their own social media accounts and blocking constituents from viewing or responding to their posts,” “If they are engaged in ‘state action,’ the First Amendment generally restricts officials from barring critics or censoring unfavored viewpoints. Not so if the officials are operating as private individuals.The announcement is the latest phase in the committee’s months-long inquiry into Crow, Leo and Arkley’s relationships with Supreme Court justices following reports that the trioDemocratic lawmakers have asked Crow, a close friend of Thomas, to provide a full accounting of the private jet travel, lodging and other gifts he provided to the justice. “Through negotiations, Crow subsequently offered to provide the committee with responses to a subset of its requests, and only for the past five years, which the senators called inadequate,”leader, organized a 2008 fishing trip to Alaska for Alito that was funded by Arkley. The committee had also requested a detailed accounting from Leo and Arkley, but on Monday, Durbin accused the pair of “outright defiance of legitimate oversight requests.” “Due to Crow, Leo, and Arkley’s intransigence, the Committee is now forced to seek compulsory process to obtain the information they hold,” Durbin and, chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the federal courts, said in a joint statement. But in a statement to The Post, Crow’s office said that he tried to “compromise” with the committee’s request by offering extensive information “despite the serious constitutional and privacy concerns.” The statement also notes that the committee already passed the legislation for which it said it needed the requested information. “It’s clear this is nothing more than a stunt aimed at undermining a sitting Supreme Court Justice for ideological and political purposes,” Crow’s office said. “Mr. Crow, a private citizen, won’t be bullied by threats from politicians.” Meanwhile, Leo issued a scathing rebuke Monday night: “I will not bow to the vile and disgusting liberal McCarthyism that seeks to destroy the Supreme Court simply because it follows the Constitution rather than their political agenda.”The looming subpoena vote is also the latest escalation in Senate Democrats’ years-long attempt to get the court to adopt an enforceable code of conduct and a remarkable switch for Durbin, who was previously reluctant to “The Supreme Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making,” Durbin and Whitehouse said in their statement. “In order to adequately address this crisis, it is imperative that we understand the full extent of how people with interests before the Court are able to use undisclosed gifts to gain private access to the justices.”</p>
