It started decades ago as a humble little idea. A way to give back. An annual offering of community service and a little fun to boot.Read more

The Protect CALM Zoo campaign announced Wednesday it has gathered enough signatures to, if enough are certified by Kern County elections officials, place a sales-tax proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot that would help fund the facility’s transformation into a…Read more

Food banks and pantries in Kern County and up and down the state have been under stress following federal cuts to food assistance last year.Read more

The 16th Senate District runs all the way from Arvin in the south to Fresno County in the north, and since 2018, it’s been represented by Sen. Melissa Hurtado, D-Bakersfield.Read more

Updated on May 5 at 3:55 p.m. and May 6 at 12:30 p.m.The Supreme Court on Monday night granted a request to immediately finalize its opinion in Louisiana v. Callais, in which it struck down that state’s congressional map, to allow Louisiana to draw a new map in time for the 2026 elections. That map is expected to favor Republicans, who currently hold four of the state’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives but could pick up one or even two more under a revised map.The court’s decision drew sharp criticism from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the lone dissenter. Jackson argued that the court’s ruling “has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana.” Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, wrote a concurring opinion that responded to Jackson with equally sharp words, countering that her rhetoric “lacks restraint.”In an unsigned, one-paragraph order, the court explained that, to give the losing party time to ask the justices to reconsider their decision, the Supreme Court’s clerk normally waits 32 days after a decision is issued before sending a copy of the opinion and the judgment to the lower court. But, the court wrote, in this case the Black voters defending the map at the center of the dispute “have not expressed any intent to ask this Court to reconsider its judgment.”The court issued its decision in Louisiana v. Callais on Wednesday, April 29. By a vote of 6-3, it invalidated a map adopted by the Louisiana Legislature in 2024, which created two majority-Black districts after two lower courts ruled that an earlier map with just one majority-Black district likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bars racial discrimination in voting.Later that day, the “non-African-American” voters who had challenged the 2024 map came to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to bypass its normal 32-day waiting period and finalize the opinion as soon as possible. The voters told the justices that the Louisiana Legislature was “considering pushing back” the deadlines for the state’s congressional primaries to allow them “to occur under a remedial map.” Finalizing the opinion immediately, they argued, could give the state more breathing room in which to operate, given the short timeframe in which the state would need to revise the map.One day later, Louisiana told the court that it would indeed postpone the state’s primary elections for Congress, which had been scheduled for May 16. In the view of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, the use of the 2024 map would constitute the kind of emergency that justifies a postponement under Louisiana law, because “electing members to Congress under an unconstitutional map flies in the face of the United States Constitution and subjects Louisiana voters to representatives that are impermissibly elected as determined by the United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision.”In her four-page dissent, Jackson suggested that the court itself was taking sides in the battle over redistricting. She wrote that developments in the wake of last week’s ruling in Callais “have a strong political undercurrent.” Louisiana’s effort to redistrict, she said, “unfolds in the midst of an ongoing statewide election, against the backdrop of a pitched redistricting battle among state governments that appear to be acting as proxies for their favored political parties.”Moreover, Jackson noted, in the last 25 years, when one litigant has objected to a request to fast-track the issuance of its final opinion, the court has only granted the request twice. “To avoid the appearance of partiality,” she emphasized, “we could … opt to stay on the sidelines and take no position by applying our default procedures.” But by granting the challengers’ request, she said, the court’s action “is tantamount to an approval of Louisiana’s rush to pause the ongoing election in order to pass a new map.” In a five-paragraph concurring opinion, Alito called Jackson’s suggestion that the court should allow the 32-day waiting period to expire “to ‘avoid the appearance of partiality’” “baseless and insulting.” Complying with the waiting period, Alito posited, could itself be construed as partisan, because it would favor the defenders of the 2024 map. Alito also pushed back against Jackson’s contention “that our decision represents an unprincipled use of power,” calling it a “groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.”The Louisiana Legislature plans to hear public comments on Friday on a new proposed map, which would include one majority-Black district. Meanwhile, lawsuits have been filed in both federal and state courts in Louisiana, challenging Landry’s postponement of the May 16 primary.Updates: In a brief filing on Tuesday afternoon, the Black voters who had defended the 2024 map asked the court to reverse its judgment – that is, to reverse Monday’s order and reinstate the default waiting period. The voters argued that Monday’s order bypassing the default waiting period had rested on the majority’s conclusion that the voters had not indicated that they planned to seek reconsideration of the court’s April 29 ruling. But the voters intend to do precisely that, they said, as they suggested in their brief opposing the “non-African American” voters’ request.In a brief, unsigned order on Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court turned down the request by the Black voters who had defended the 2024 map that the justices struck down in Louisiana v. Callais to roll back the court’s order on Monday that immediately finalized its judgment – presumably ending the dispute at the Supreme Court, at least for the foreseeable future. As is often the case for orders on its emergency docket, the justices did not provide any explanation for their decision.Read more

Justice Elena Kagan on Wednesday morning turned down a request from tech giant Apple to intervene in the latest chapter of its long-running dispute with Epic Games, the maker of the popular videogame Fortnite. In a one-sentence email distributed to reporters by the court’s Public Information Office, the court indicated that Kagan – who fields, at least initially, emergency requests from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit – had denied an application, filed by Apple on Monday, to pause a civil contempt order entered by a lower court against the company.The dispute stems from an antitrust lawsuit that Epic Games filed against Apple, challenging Apple’s restrictions on purchases from its App Store. A federal judge ruled that Apple could not block developers from seeking to encourage their customers to buy games and other products from them on other app stores rather than through Apple’s App Store. The judge then found that Apple was in contempt of that order because (among other things) it put in place measures to make it more difficult for developers to encourage customers to go outside the App Store and imposed a large commission on purchases made through third-party systems after clicking on a link in the App Store.Apple came to the Supreme Court on Monday, asking the justices to step in. “A stay is now needed before Apple is forced to litigate its commission rate under an erroneous and prejudicial contempt label—in proceedings that could reshape the global app market—before this Court can consider whether to grant review” and hear oral arguments in the appeal that Apple plans to file.Epic Games, in response, urged the justices to stay out of the dispute. “Apple’s willful contempt,” it said, “has successfully delayed the restoration of competition by more than two years, allowing it to reap billions of dollars in what the Ninth Circuit previously affirmed were supracompetitive fees.”Less than an hour after Epic’s opposition to Apple’s stay request was distributed to reporters, and before Apple had an opportunity to file a reply, Kagan denied Apple’s request without referring it to the full court – suggesting that it was not a close call.Read more

Courtly Observations is a recurring series by Erwin Chemerinsky that focuses on what the Supreme Court’s decisions will mean for the law, for lawyers and lower courts, and for people’s lives.The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais is the culmination of decades of its rulings limiting the Voting Rights Act. No one, including the court’s majority, disputes the impact of the decision: throughout the South, election districts that were drawn to protect Black voters, such as having districts with a majority of voters of color, will be redrawn to try and help Republicans. As a result, there will likely be many fewer people of color elected to Congress and state legislatures.Louisiana v. Callais, and its impact, must be understood as the product of five prior decisions by the court in the area of voting rights, all split along ideological lines: City of Mobile v. Bolden, Shaw v. Reno, Shelby County v. Holder, Rucho v. Common Cause, and Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of NAACP.The first case noted above, City of Mobile v. Bolden, was decided in 1980, and held that an election system that had the impact of disadvantaging minorities was not to be subjected to strict scrutiny (the most stringent form of review) unless there was proof of a racially discriminatory purpose. The case involved a challenge to Mobile, Alabama’s use of an at-large election for its city council. The city was predominately white, with a sizeable Black population. The long history of racially polarized voting meant that only white individuals were elected in the at-large system. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court found no constitutional violation because there was not sufficient evidence of a discriminatory purpose.Previously, the court had ruled that proving an equal protection violation under the 14th Amendment required proof of a racially discriminatory purpose. In City of Mobile v. Bolden, the court said that this also applies to claims under the 15th Amendment, which had a broad goal of eliminating race discrimination in voting. If proof of discriminatory impact (as opposed to purpose) were sufficient to show a violation of the 15th Amendment, then election practices that disadvantage racial minorities – such as through partisan gerrymandering – would be impermissible. Two years after City of Mobile v. Bolden, Congress thus amended Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to expressly provide that proof of a racially disparate impact – not just a racially discriminatory purpose – was sufficient for liability under the statute.The next case of note, 1993’s Shaw v. Reno, held, and many subsequent cases reaffirmed, that the use of race in drawing election districts to benefit racial minorities is permissible only if the government can show that it is necessary to achieve a compelling purpose. This is the premise of Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Louisiana v. Callais, which says that the government cannot use race as a predominant factor in drawing election districts even if it is needed to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.Although this is consistent with Supreme Court cases mandating strict scrutiny for government affirmative action efforts, the dissent argued that affirmative action in voting is different from affirmative action in areas such as employment or education. In the latter areas, racial classifications benefiting minorities arguably disadvantage a white individual who is not hired or admitted because of the affirmative action program. But in voting, every person still gets to vote and every vote is counted equally.Shaw v. Reno is actually the predicate for Alito’s opinion in Callais. In Shaw v. Reno the court held that the government’s use of race as a predominant factor in drawing election districts violates equal protection unless strict scrutiny is met. In other words, the court rejected that preventing a discriminatory effect against voters of color in drawing a district is a sufficiently compelling interest to meet strict scrutiny. The court then decided Shelby County v. Holder in 2013. In the wake of the court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, there rightly has been much discussion of its relationship to Shelby County. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had two crucial mechanisms to protect voting rights: Section 2, which prohibits election systems from discriminating against voters of color (and was at issue in Callais), and Section 5, which requires jurisdictions with a history of race discrimination in voting to obtain preapproval from the attorney general before changing election systems. In Shelby County, the court effectively nullified Section 5; no jurisdiction has needed to get preclearance since it was decided.But Shelby County is also relevant to Louisiana v. Callais in another way: it reflects the court giving no deference to Congress when it is legislating under Section 2 of the 15th Amendment, which empowers it to enact legislation to enforce the prohibition of race discrimination in voting. Shelby County was the first time since the 19th century that the court declared unconstitutional a federal civil rights law protecting racial minorities.Quite similarly, the Supreme Court in Callais gave no deference to Congress, which, as noted above, in 1982 amended Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to provide that proof of a racially disparate impact is sufficient for liability. Alito’s majority opinion in Callais was explicit that only proof of intentional race discrimination will be sufficient. As Justice Elena Kagan said in dissent, “a plaintiff will have to show—contrary to Section 2’s clear text and design—that the legislators were motivated by a discriminatory purpose.” As she said, this almost always will be “impossible” as legislators rarely will express a racist motive.Also directly relevant is the 2018 case of Rucho v. Common Cause. In Rucho, the Supreme Court held, 5-4, that challenges to partisan gerrymandering are non-justiciable political questions (that is, such challenges cannot be heard in federal court). Partisan gerrymandering is where the political party that controls the legislature draws election districts to maximize safe seats for that party. The result – as we have witnessed this year in Texas, California, and most recently Virginia – is that legislatures can engage in partisan gerrymandering with impunity knowing that there is no possibility of a challenge in federal court. Race and politics, especially for Black Americans, are closely linked. Black individuals overwhelmingly vote Democratic. Before Callais, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act had been interpreted to require that Republican controlled state legislatures draw election districts that had a majority of voters of color to ensure that there was not a racially discriminatory impact. This led to more individuals of color being elected to public office. But now state legislatures, unconstrained by the Voting Rights Act, can redraw their maps to eliminate these districts. They can spread Black voters among many districts so that they are a minority or pack them into a district to limit their political strength and help Republicans.Without partisan gerrymandering, the impact of Callais would be limited. But with it, and with sophisticated modern techniques of gerrymandering, Callais will have a devastating effect on the election of Black individuals for legislative offices.Finally is the 2024 case of Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP. With race and party so intertwined, one solution would be to create a presumption that any use of race in drawing districts would have to meet strict scrutiny even if it was done for purposes of partisan gerrymandering. In a case largely forgotten, 2016’s Cooper v. Harris, the court in an opinion by Kagan said exactly this (in a footnote): “In other words, the sorting of voters on the grounds of their race remains suspect even if race is meant to function as a proxy for other (including political) characteristics.” This would mean that there would be no need to decide if districting was based on race or politics; the use of race would be impermissible.But the court abandoned this approach in Alexander. After the 2020 census, South Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature adopted a new congressional map that moved tens of thousands of Black voters to a different district, effectively making the district a safe seat for Republicans. A three-judge federal district court found that this violated equal protection. The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Alito, reversed and said that courts must presume that legislatures acted in good faith and unless there is proof of a racially discriminatory motive, they must accept that the goal was gaining a partisan advantage. As Kagan explained in her dissent in Callais, “the State need do nothing more than announce a partisan gerrymander.” Therefore, according to her, “a State may (so says the majority) draw districts for any political purpose, including for a purely ‘partisan purpose[]’—that is, to increase one party’s electoral strength—no matter their racial effects.” If any one of these cases had come out differently, Louisiana v. Callais would not matter. If proof of racially disparate impact would be sufficient for a constitutional violation, states could not engage in partisan gerrymandering which disadvantages racial minorities. If the court said that race could be used in districting to benefit minorities without violating equal protection, then using race to avoid liability under Section 2 would pose no equal protection problems. If the court gave deference to Congress in acting under the 15th Amendment, it would uphold Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act allowing liability based on disparate impact. If partisan gerrymandering was not allowed, then state legislatures could not use it with the effect of limiting the impact of racial minorities’ votes. If the court said that it would be assumed that gerrymandering was based on race rather than politics when both were present, then states could not respond to Louisiana v. Callais in a way that will be to the detriment of voters of color.Looked at this way, it is possible to appreciate the enormous significance of Louisiana v. Callais. After all the court had done in its earlier decisions to limit the protection of voting rights, the one potent tool for protecting voting rights that remained was Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But as Kagan said, the court’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter.Read more