May Day is upon us. Do you have a plan for tomorrow? Most Grassroots North Shore supporters are no longer employed. And most of us don't go to school anymore either. So what can YOU do to support the Day of Action? Here in Milwaukee, SEIU and Voces de la Frontera are jointly sponsoring a Day without Immigrants. You should demonstrate solidarity with them by joining the march and rally beginning at the Voces offices, 733 W Mitchell St, Milwaukee, at 10:00am Friday morning.

I also urge you to go to MayDayStrong.org and sign the Pledge to refrain from any shopping on Friday even if you cannot stay home from school or work or can't march with Voces. The general nationwide theme is "It's Workers Over Billionaires." Here's how the national site describes the effort: "On May 1, 2026, workers, students, and families rally, march, and take action across the country to demand a nation that puts workers over billionaires, with many refusing business as usual through No School. No Work. No Shopping." Make this your first Action Item of the week!

Your second Action Item for this week is to download, circulate, and sign nomination papers for one candidate in each race for which you are a valid elector. You can sign ANY STATEWIDE CANDIDATE's nomination form. For congressional districts, state senate districts, and assembly districts, you must be an eligible voter in that district! Here's the 2026 Elections web page with all the nomination papers I've been able to acquire. The Democratic Party wants to know about your efforts. Please report the pages and numbers of signatures you're gathering. Also remember to get the nomination papers back to each candidate's campaign as soon after May 18 as you can. The forms are due in Madison at the Wisconsin Election Commission offices in Madison by 5:00pm on June 1. And candidates need some time to collate and check all the forms for correctness before turning them in.

Hot off the presses! Wednesday morning, as I was writing this newsletter, the MAGA justices in the Roberts Supreme Court (SCOTUS) just issued a ruling that effectively guts the 1965 Voting Rights Act by striking down the Louisiana electoral map. The 6-3 decision said "that Louisiana’s new majority-minority district violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution" (New York Times, April 29, 2026). The three dissenters — Justices Brown Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayer — "argued that the justices had taken the final step to dismantle the landmark civil rights law." The majority opinion, written by Justice Alito of course, claims that the ruling is a limited one "that preserved a central tenet of the Voting Rights Act." The logic is really tortured: in the new framework "challengers will need to show proof a state 'intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race'" [emphasis added].

Here's my limited understanding: CRACKING minority populations — that is, diluting a minority community's vote by breaking it up into two or more districts based on race — remains unconstitutional, but PACKING minority voters into a single district to provide them with the power to elect their preferred candidate is now constitutionally ok-dokey as long as it's not based on race. It's permissible to dilute minority power or conversely to concentrate it as long as the district lines are drawn to protect incumbency OR based on partisanship. Say what?

The effect of the ruling in Louisiana, whose population is approximately one-third Black, is that the state's effort to create a second majority-minority district, so that two of the state's six representatives would reflect the composition of the state, must be thrown out. The one remaining majority-minority district — the one that has been packed with minority voters — could remain as is. Or IT COULD BE CRACKED so that Republicans can eliminate it all together. The congressional representative who was recently elected to the second majority-minority district now struck down by SCOTUS gets right to the heart of the matter: "the practical effect is to make it far harder for minority communities to challenge redistricting maps that dilute their political voice."

Now all eyes are on Florida where the legislature met Tuesday in special session to consider new maps (AP, April 27, 2026). Governor DeSantis believes the map he proposed before the SCOTUS decision came down — maps that seek to eliminate four districts held by Democrats and dominated by minorities who, mirabile dictu, regularly vote for Democrats — would pass muster with SCOTUS because it corrects what DeSantis calls "legal infirmities" similar to the Louisiana map the court just struck down. The gerrymander the new map proposes is based, not on race, but on partisanship, the MAGA GOP claim. This in light of the fact that the four Black congressmen currently representing Florida constituents will no longer be in the next congress. One is running for governor and the other three are either seeking higher office or simply not standing for re-election!

Despite the new ruling and the proposed maps that seek to eliminate Democrats' districts, all might not be smooth sailing in Texas and elsewhere: "By aggressively targeting Democratic-held districts, Republicans may have weakened some of their own safest seats" (Newsweek, April 28, 2026). The problem has a name: the Dummymander. The Atlantic recently had an article about it: The Revenge of the Dummymander (link shared as a gift). We all know how pernicious partisan gerrymandering is. But sometimes it can go awry. As The Atlantic article explains, "Dummymander is the term that the political scientists Bernard Grofman and Thomas L. Brunell coined for what happens when a gerrymander backfires, hurting the party that it was designed to help." The gerrymander doesn't work when voters do not behave as expected. In Texas, the GOP is now worried that the Latino voters who shifted substantially toward Trump in 2024 have now returned to the Democratic fold. But the new map that attempts to draw five new Republican districts were predicated on the voting data from 2024. And that could mean a big swing and a miss.

As usual, it's been a very eventful week. The redistricting referendum that just passed in Virginia cannot be certified yet because a case trying to kill the new maps is pending before the Virginia Supreme Court. The issue the plaintiffs brought is not constitutional but rather procedural: "a Republican legal challenge contends the General Assembly violated procedural rules by placing the constitutional amendment before voters to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. If the court agrees that lawmakers broke the rules, it could invalidate the amendment and render last week’s statewide vote meaningless" (AP, April 27, 2026). The justices heard oral arguments on Monday but have not yet ruled in the case.

In other news, Jimmy Kimmel got his licks in early, before the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, when he pre-roasted the Trumps and their entourage on Thursday night. Here's the YouTube clip of that monologue. The jokes were pretty pointed, I have to say, but the fake cut-away shots were priceless. Of course the First Lady and the President have both called for Kimmel to be fired, again. But the whole fracas was upstaged by a would-be assassin carrying a shotgun, no less, trying to rush the ballroom where the event was being held. Fortunately no one was killed, or even seriously injured. But it surely has not escaped anyone's notice that the attempted security breach has become the latest bullet-proof reason to build Trump's hideous White House ballroom.

A three-year extension of FISA section 702, the provision that allows the intelligence community to spy on American citizens' communications with foreigners, passed the House on Wednesday. The provision expires tonight but it's unlikely to pass the Senate in its current form. First, the House-passed ban, which includes a provision permanently banning the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital currency, "is so divisive across the Capitol that it has stalled a major affordable housing package for months." And second, "privacy hawks on both sides of the aisle are demanding new guardrails to prevent the federal government from conducting warrantless surveillance on its own citizens" (Politico, April 29, 2026).

Finally, I want to recommend that you read state Senator Chris Larson's 2025-26 Session Wrap-Up. He begins by pointing out that a legislative session covers two years, or 24 months. But that "the current Republican majority has shrunk [it] to about 14 and a half months. The 2025-26 Legislative Session effectively ended on March 19, after which no new bills could be introduced." After recounting some data about the number of Democratic bills introduced in each chamber, the number that were included in a public hearing, and the number that were ultimately passed into law, he concludes "just 1.1% of Democratic bills got so much as a public hearing this session, and none became law." The rest of the piece discusses the big wins — and there were some, like the Postpartum Medicaid Extension and Gail's Law — and the big losses. At the very beginning of his missive, Larson wryly points out that "Wisconsin has — at least in theory — a full-time legislature." A perfect example that we don't always get what we pay for!

As always, your Action Items this week should include a visit to 5 Calls. Some of the items you might consider include Oppose the ICE and CBP Budget Reconciliation Funding Bill, No War With Iran, and Reform FISA Section 702 to Stop Government Surveillance.

EVENTS

Thursday, April 30

Friday, May 1

Saturday, May 2

Sunday, May 3

Tuesday, May 5

Wednesday, May 6

Thursday, May 7

Monday, May 11

Wednesday, May 13

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Sunday, May 17

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