Tag Archive for: State Legislation

No, Texans and Floridians Do NOT Pay Twice the Taxes Paid by Californians

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Texas has the most regressive state tax system, but charges poor people more than California does its affluent residents, according to the Golden State’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who further claims that middle-class Texans pay more than residents of his state and Florida.

“Who are you for? Are you just for the one percent or are you for the 98?” Newsom asked in a March 15 post on X. That Newsom, who has all but officially announced his campaign for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, would make such an easily discredited claim suggests a fate awaits him similar to that of former Vice-President Kamala Harris’s 2024 embarrassing bust.

Just Facts Daily (JFD), published by the non-partisan Texas-based Just Facts institute devoted to “publishing facts about public policies and teaching research skills,” likely needed less than a nanosecond of data-driven research to expose the fact that Newsom had it effectively backwards.

“IN FACT, California collects an average of $10,319 in taxes for every person in the state, while Texas collects $5,469, and Florida collects $4,914. Likewise, California collects 13.5% of its economy in taxes, while Florida collects 9.1% and Texas collects 8.6%,” JFD said.

In other words, California’s total tax take on average is almost precisely double that of Texas and a bit more than double that of the Florida’s total levy per person.

But JFD didn’t leave it at that. The researchers dug into the component parts of each of these three states’ tax systems. Here’s what they found:

  • “California’s top personal income tax rate is 13.3%, as compared to 0% in Texas and 0% in Florida.
  • “California’s property taxes average 2.8% of personal income, as compared to 3.6% in Texas and 2.6% in Florida.
  • “California’s top unemployment insurance tax rate is 6.2%, as compared to 6.2% in Texas and 5.4% in Florida.
  • “California’s sales tax rate is 7.2%, as compared to 6.2% in Texas and 6.0% in Florida.
  • “California’s excise tax on a gallon of gas is 70.9 cents, as compared to 20.0 cents in Texas and 40.3 cents in Florida.”

Interestingly, Newsom could have focused on property taxes where his state is measurably lower than that of Texas and nearly the same as the Florida rate. In addition, the California governor could have pointed to the three states’ unemployment insurance tax rate. For California, the rate is 6.2%, same as the Lone Star state and almost a full percentage point higher than Florida.

On the other hand, Newsom’s California demands an excise tax haul of 70.9 cents per gallon, which is more than three times higher than the 20 cents charged per gallon by Texas and considerably higher than Florida’s 40.3 cents per gallon. The sales tax rate for California is also noticeably higher at 7.2%, versus 6.2% in Texas and 6.0% for Florida.

It turns out that Newsom apparently drew his erroneous comparison based on an analysis published by a left-wing non-profit, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), whose work is riddled with errors and misrepresentations, according to JFD’s James Agresti, who is Just Facts’ president and its co-founder.

“The findings of this study have been uncritically cited in prominent venues such as the Washington Post, CBS, the Daily Beast, Newsmax, the Providence Journal, and the New York Times. For instance, the Times reported that ‘according to the study, in 2015 the poorest fifth of Americans will pay on average 10.9 percent of their income in state and local taxes, the middle fifth will pay 9.4 percent and the top 1 percent will average 5.4 percent.’”

“Glaringly absent from the media coverage is how this study uses the same type of deceitful methodology behind claims that the middle class pays a higher federal tax rate than the top 1 percent of income earners, Warren Buffett pays a lower federal tax rate than his secretary, and Mitt Romney pays a lower federal tax rate than the middle class,” Agresti explained.

Those deceitful methodological approaches include, among others, Agresti noted, the use of “calculations that exclude certain taxes, use partial measures of income, or employ both of these charades. The result is that the actual tax rates of the wealthy are understated, while those of others are progressively overstated as their income declines.” Just Facts’ detailed explanation provides additional details on flaws in the ITEP analysis.

As Agresti explained in detail, however, the presence of such analytical flaws didn’t stop The Washington Post, New York Times, and other media outlets from uncritically reporting a claim that an aspiring Democratic presidential candidate thought would advance his campaign to win four years in the Oval Office.

AUTHOR

Mark Tapscott

Mark Tapscott is senior congressional analyst at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Virginia’s New Democratic Trifecta Targets Taxes, Guns, and Sentencing

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A new wave of elected Democrats in Virginia is showing how much of a difference one election can make.

In Virginia’s 2025 midterm elections, Democrats managed to sweep the state, claiming three high-ranking political positions: governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. It didn’t take long for the shift in power to translate into policy action. Governor Abigail Spanberger was sworn in on January 17, 2026, and almost immediately, a flurry of new legislation emerged from the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.

Some of the early proposals included gun-related measures that critics argued targeted Second Amendment rights, such as expanded restrictions or heavy taxes on firearms and ammunition. However, scrutiny has intensified across the board as Democrats continue to push broader priorities that stir controversy and appear to diverge sharply from campaign promises.

One high-profile example is House Bill 863, sponsored by Democratic Delegate Rae Cousins. The bill seeks to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for a range of serious crimes, including manslaughter, rape, possession and distribution of child pornography, assaulting law enforcement officers, certain repeat violent felonies, and even the mandatory five-day jail sentence for some first-time DUI offenders. According to The Post Millennial, “many left-wing activists have criticized mandatory minimum sentencing, labelling the practice as racist.”

Supporters have described it as a “common-sense proposal” that removes “one-size-fits-all” requirements. “This change would give the experienced judges in our communities more discretion to make decisions based on the unique facts of each case,” Cousins said. Proponents also argue it promotes fairer, more individualized sentencing and addresses long-standing criticisms of mandatory minimums as overly rigid or disproportionately harmful. Critics, however, are sounding the alarm.

Law enforcement advocates and former Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, for example, warn that removing these required prison terms could lead to lighter punishments for dangerous offenders, potentially undermining accountability, endangering public safety, and increasing risks of re-offending. One expert, Josh Ederheimer of the University of Virginia’s Center for Public Safety and Justice, explained to Fox News that “from a law enforcement standpoint, I think police generally want offenders to be held accountable, and frustration among law enforcement officers grows when individuals are released quickly and subsequently re-offend — and even more so if it involved a violent felony.”

Considering how this would affect victims and their families, he added, “I think that the police and public alike have expectations that convicted criminals will be held accountable, and that full sentences should be served. Mandatory minimums assure victims — and the community — that a convicted person will serve their sentence. It is the circumstance when convicted felons are released early that victims may feel a sense of betrayal or that justice was not served. That’s the dilemma.” Notably, HB 863 is only one part of a larger Democratic push on criminal justice reform in the 2025-2026 session.

But for some Virginians, the concerns expand beyond gun rights and criminal justice. For instance, shortly after Democrats consolidated power, a separate set of tax proposals were introduced — mirroring (if not surpassing) some of California’s rates.

Only months after campaigning on affordability and vowing lower costs for families, Virginia Democrats set forth legislation that would create new higher-income tax brackets, including an increase to 8% on income over $600,000 and 10% on income over $1 million. They also added measures like a 3.8% net investment income tax on higher earners, which could lower after-tax returns on investments and discourage saving and investing. Combined, some say these could push Virginia’s top effective income tax rate to around 13.8%, which would potentially surpass California’s current top rate, the highest in the nation.

Even so, supporters frame the changes as a “Fair Share” approach, arguing that millionaires and high earners should contribute more to fund education, housing, public services, and affordability initiatives. Groups like The Commonwealth Institute, a left-wing policy group backing the tax plan, estimate such reforms could generate over $1 billion annually for these priorities. Meanwhile, critics are accusing Democrats of breaking campaign promises.

During her 2025 run, Spanberger emphasized an “Affordable Virginia Plan” to lower health care, housing, and energy costs, with pledges to deliver savings in 2026. Opponents, including House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore (R) and the Republican Party of Virginia, call the tax hikes a betrayal that could drive jobs, investment, and residents away — following what they describe as the “failed paths” of high-tax states like California and New York. National figures like Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform have labeled the timing “particularly foolish” amid competitive pressures from neighboring states lowering taxes.

Family Research Council’s Matt Carpenter, director of FRC Action, addressed the apparent shift in priorities with The Washington Stand. “When [Spanberger] was representing the people of Virginia’s 7th congressional district,” he said, “she was an informal member of the ‘mod squad’ of allegedly moderate House Democrats who wanted to work with their Republican counterparts on issues of mutual interest, like agriculture, veterans’ affairs, and fentanyl. She may have done some work on these issues with moderate Republicans, but the reality is Spanberger’s vote history in Congress shows her to be committed to the left-wing cultural revolution playbook.”

As he went on to explain, “She was a reliable vote when taxpayer funded abortion, gender transitions on minors, special rights for adults’ ‘sexual orientation and gender identity,’ and more, came up. And yet, during the 2025 election, she was adept at stepping around controversial topics like men participating in women’s sports throughout the campaign, maintaining her carefully curated moderate brand.”

These early moves, from gun laws to criminal justice to taxes, illustrate how dramatically one election cycle can reshape a state’s direction. With Democrats holding trifecta control for the first time in years, the 2026 legislative session is already advancing these and other priorities at a rapid pace. And yet, Carpenter concluded, it’s not surprising. Rather, he said, “It’s safe to assume [Spanberger] will do as governor just as she did while in Congress: campaign as a centrist and govern as a bona fide leftist.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Is Somali Welfare Fraud Endemic?

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Just weeks after a bombshell report exposed billions of dollars of welfare fraud committed by Somali immigrants in deep-blue Minnesota, a new study is sounding the alarm on Somali overreliance on taxpayer-funded benefits.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), nearly 90% of Somali households with children in Minnesota receive welfare benefits. Over 80% of Somali immigrant households overall receive some form of welfare, including 54% on food stamps and nearly three-quarters (73%) on Medicaid, while 78% of Somali immigrant households who have been in the U.S. over 10 years receive welfare, compared to only 21% of native-born households.

Additionally, the CIS study found that while less than 20% of native-born adults live “in or near poverty,” over two-thirds (66.1%) of Somali immigrant adults live “in or near poverty,” as do over 80% of Somali immigrant children. Only 5% of native-born working-age adults hold no high school diploma, compared to over one third (39%) of Somali immigrant working-age adults, and while less than one percent (0.7%) of native-born working-age adults were categorized as speaking English “less than very well,” nearly 60% of Somali immigrant working-age adults fell into the category, as did nearly half (49%) of Somali immigrant working-age adults who have been in the U.S. at least 10 years.

“Among the strongest predictors of poverty are low education and lack of English-language ability,” wrote the study’s author, CIS Resident Scholar Jason Richwine. “Somali immigrants experience both of these problems at dramatically higher rates than native Minnesotans. Virtually all native Minnesotans speak English very well, for example, but 58.2 percent of working-age Somalis do not. Meanwhile, 39 percent of working-age Somalis have no high school diploma, compared to just 5 percent of natives,” he continued. “The U.S. has an extensive welfare system targeted at low-income families. Somalis in Minnesota are therefore likely to be major consumers of means-tested anti-poverty benefits…”

“Recently, some Somalis in Minnesota have been implicated in welfare fraud,” Richwine observed. “Over $1 billion has been reported stolen so far, but the scandal goes beyond money,” he added. “Minnesota’s social services have roots in the Scandinavian model, which assumes that civic-minded residents will treat aid as a safety net, not as money free for the taking. With fraud cases like these, it cannot be surprising when researchers find that culture clashes tend to degrade social trust,” Richwine pointed out. “That said, Somali welfare use would still be high even without fraud. Any population with poverty rates as high as theirs will legally qualify for extensive means-tested aid, either directly for themselves or indirectly through their U.S.-born dependents” (emphasis in original).

“The way to reduce immigrant consumption of welfare is not simply to crack down on fraud, but to reduce the number of new arrivals who have the low earnings power characteristic of Somalis,” Richwine suggested. “One of the main critiques of post-1965 immigration to the U.S. is that it has worsened the problems of poverty, school dropout, and welfare dependency. Allowing in immigrants who struggle with these problems adds to the social burden and makes helping impoverished Americans more difficult.”

The CIS report comes on the heels of an investigation by Christopher F. Rufo and Ryan Thorpe, published in City Journal, detailing widespread fraud and abuse of Minnesota’s “generous” welfare system by the state’s relatively large Somali population. Of the over $1 billion stolen through fraud schemes, several million dollars wound up being given to the Somalia-based terrorist group Al-Shabaab. “Our investigation shows what happens when a tribal mindset meets a bleeding-heart bureaucracy, when imported clan loyalties collide with a political class too timid to offend, and when accusations of racism are cynically deployed to shield criminal behavior,” Rufo and Thorpe wrote. “The predictable result is graft, with taxpayers left to foot the bill.”

According to the City Journal report, Somali immigrants in Minnesota set up fake businesses and organizations in order to collect welfare payments from housing, medical, and education programs. One Somali-run organization, the Feeding Our Future nonprofit, defrauded the Federal Child Nutrition Program of over $250 million, falsifying meal counts, doctoring attendance records, and fabricating invoices. Another Somali group would falsify autism diagnoses for Somali children in order to rob Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program of over $14 million. In the end, one in 16 Somali children in Minnesota was diagnosed (mostly fraudulently) with autism, rising to more than triple the state average. “What we see are schemes stacked upon schemes, draining resources meant for those in need. It feels never-ending,” said then-Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joe Thompson. “I have spent my career as a fraud prosecutor, and the depth of the fraud in Minnesota takes my breath away.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the fraud has not been relegated to Minnesota. Maine also hosts a relatively sizable Somali population and, according to an immigration nonprofit whistleblower, Somali immigrants have been defrauding the government there, too. Christopher Bernardini, former program coordinator of Gateway Community Services until April of this year, reported this week that Gateway Community Services, which describes itself as a “trusted resource for immigrant, refugee, and asylee communities across Greater Portland and Lewiston-Auburn” and largely serves Somali immigrants, charged taxpayers for field staff visits to low-income and disabled clients. Only those visits never occurred, Bernardini alleged.

“I just couldn’t fathom it — I thought we were helping people; I thought this was all on the up-and-up. I have a passion for helping people, and I thought that we were doing the right thing this whole time,” Bernardini said, adding that he was disheartened “when I saw how they were swindling people, when I had clients calling me to tell me their staff hadn’t shown up and I was told to bill those hours anyway. It just got worse and worse, until I started really putting up a stink.”

Gateway Community Services was founded by Abdullah Ali, a Somali immigrant who acts as the organization’s CEO and ran for president of the Somali state of Jubaland. According to the Maine Wire, Ali also raised funds for the Jubaland-Somali army, a Somali paramilitary organization.

In comments to The Washington Stand, CIS Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan asserted, “This exposure of the massive fraud perpetrated by Somali immigrants in Minnesota has been shocking to many Americans. There have been reports of similar problems in Maine, which also has taken in a disproportionate number of Somali and other African immigrants.” She continued, “These incidents reveal a significant threat to not only loss of taxpayer-funded resources meant to assist needy Americans, but also to the integrity of our immigration programs, to public governance, and potentially to our national security.”

“Much of the millions of dollars lost in this fraud can never be recovered, as the funds were spent on luxury lifestyles, campaign contributions, and even sent abroad,” Vaughan averred. “It sucked away funding that could have been used to help real people who are struggling to support their families, instead of phantom clients of the bogus NGOs created for the scheme.” She noted that state officials in Minnesota also “stymied” investigations into the fraud, accusing those reporting the fraud and demanding accountability of racism. “This borders on outright corruption, and could signal a real erosion of ethical standards that are the hallmark of a civil and democratic society.”

“It should go without saying that American taxpayers do not want their hard-earned tax dollars earmarked for local poverty programs to become cash cows for the exploits of Third World war lords,” Vaughan added. “This episode should cause Americans to think twice about allowing mass flows of largely un-vettable immigrants from unstable, hostile, and corrupt parts of the world to enter our country and establish ethnic enclaves where they are resistant to engaging with or assimilating into the host community,” she elucidated. “Our legal immigration programs need to be updated to reflect the realities of our modern world, and to focus on admitting only those immigrants who will be self-sufficient and contribute to our country.”

Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told TWS, “Americans have lived the consequences of Milton Friedman’s warning that a country ‘cannot have open borders and a welfare state.’ It is why Americans voted for President Trump last year — to bring an end to the Biden administration’s madness.” She charged, “American taxpayers deserve to have all that stolen money clawed back.”

“In addition to the billions in welfare fraud discovered in Minnesota, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have investigated and uncovered significant immigration benefit fraud in the Minneapolis area, including marriage fraud, sponsor fraud, and fraudulent documentation,” Ries continued, noting that she “encountered Somali asylum fraud in immigration court” during her time in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. “Benefit fraud — whether it is welfare or immigration — makes an alien deportable. Every alien who has committed fraud should be deported.”

Multiple reports over the years have warned that Somali immigrants were likely to defraud U.S. government programs, including the immigration system itself. In November of 2008, shortly before then-President George W. Bush left office, the U.S. State Department confirmed that “refugees” from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Liberia were obtaining refugee status and residence in the U.S. fraudulently. The “P-3” refugee program, which allows refugees to seek refugee status for their spouses, unmarried children, and parents, began requiring DNA tests to ensure blood relation between refugees in the U.S. and dependents being brought into the country via the program. The State Department was “only able to confirm all claimed biological relationships in fewer than 20% of cases…” Between 2003 and 2008, when Bush halted the program due to widespread fraud and abuse, over 95% of refugees in the program came from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Liberia. The P-3 program was restarted in 2012 under then-President Barack Obama.

Former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) legal advisor Charles Thaddeus Fillinger wrote a 30-page brief in 2018 characterizing the P-3 program as “the greatest refugee fraud crisis in modern times” and “possibly the biggest blunder in immigration history.” Although Fillinger admitted that the Obama-era restart improved screening in the program, he warned, “Left unresolved was the issue of thousands of fraudulent refugees who were admitted to the United States before the suspension. In contravention of clear principle, solid evidence, and direct experience, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) continued to use the wrong screening strategy to process the pre-suspension P-3 caseload.” He continued, “Yesterday’s fraudulent refugees became today’s green card holders,

international travelers using refugee travel documents, and U.S. citizens.”

“There were other follow-on consequences,” Fillinger noted. “First, fraud of this magnitude multiplies the chances of terror. Second, significant numbers of human trafficking victims, mostly women and children, were not identified because of deficient screening. Third, legions of fraudulently-admitted refugees took full advantage of public assistance benefits.”

A more recent report, penned by Somali immigrant Ayaan Hirsi Ali, explained the widespread fraud as a product of Somali culture. “I grew up in a Somali clan-based society [where] [l]oyalty to kin was absolute. Loyalty to the nation was theoretical at best,” Ali wrote. “Anyone who knows Somali culture has long known where this would lead.” She continued:

“Amoral familism is a cultural blueprint. It assumes that resources are scarce, the world is dangerous, and survival depends on extracting maximum benefit for one’s own family. Nation-building makes no sense from that perspective. If a road is built, the question is not ‘How will this help the community?’ but ‘Which family will control access to it?’ If foreign aid arrives, the question is not how to distribute it fairly, but which family will claim control. This mindset explains why Somalia collapsed. It explains the dysfunction in Afghanistan, Haiti, and parts of North and West Africa. It explains why Minnesota now faces problems it can’t make sense of, let alone solve.”

President Donald Trump “grasps the central problem. The left does not. The moderate right refuses to,” Ali wrote. “If Minnesota wants a future that resembles Minnesota, it must make a choice. Assimilation or fracture. Cultural cohesion or cultural evasion.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

Partner with The Washington Stand to bring news from a biblical worldview to readers nationwide. From now until December 31, every gift will be doubled through our year-end Challenge Match.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

SCOTUS Approves Lone Star State’s New Congressional Maps

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With the 2026 midterms looming, the U.S. Supreme Court is officially weighing in on the redistricting arms race between red and blue states. Late Thursday, the nation’s highest judicial authority disagreed with a lower court ruling and instead allowed Texas to implement new congressional district maps expected to take five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives from Democrats and hand them to the GOP.

A divided three-judge panel consisting of two federal district court judges and one appellate court judge ruled late last month that the new congressional district maps Texas planned were unlawful, charging the state legislature with remaking congressional districts on racial lines, rather than along political ones. Six of the Supreme Court’s nine justices reversed the lower court’s decision. “Texas is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the District Court committed at least two serious errors. First, the District Court failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature,” the court’s majority wrote in a two-page order halting the lower court’s injunction. “Second, the District Court failed to draw a dispositive or near-dispositive adverse inference against respondents even though they did not produce a viable alternative map that met the State’s avowedly partisan goals.”

The Supreme Court’s progressive wing, comprised of Democrat-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, issued a 17-page dissenting opinion authored by Kagan and joined by Sotomayor and Jackson. “In enacting an electoral map slanted toward Republicans, did Texas predominantly use race to draw its new district lines? Or said otherwise, did Texas accomplish its partisan objectives by means of a racial gerrymander?” Kagan asked. “Texas largely divided its citizens along racial lines to create its new pro-Republican House map, in violation of the Constitution’s Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments,” she continued, noting the lower court’s decision. “Yet this Court reverses that judgment based on its perusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record. We are a higher court than the District Court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision.”

“That is why we are supposed to use a clear-error standard of review — why we are supposed to uphold the District Court’s decision that race-based line-drawing occurred (even if we would have ruled differently) so long as it is plausible,” she wrote. The clear-error standard of review is an appellate standard, under which “a finding is ‘clearly erroneous’ when, although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed,” according to the Supreme Court in United States v. United States Gypsum Co. “Without so much as a word about that standard, this Court today announces that Texas may run next year’s elections with a map the District Court found to have violated all our oft-repeated strictures about the use of race in districting,” Kagan continued. “Today’s order disrespects the work of a District Court that did everything one could ask to carry out its charge — that put aside every consideration except getting the issue before it right. And today’s order disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race.”

Justice Thomas Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, responded to Kagan’s argument in a three-paragraph concurring opinion. “Texas needs certainty on which map will govern the 2026 midterm elections, so I will not delay the Court’s order by writing a detailed response to each of the dissent’s arguments. Instead, I offer two short points which for me are decisive,” Alito wrote. “First, the dissent does not dispute — because it is indisputable — that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple.”

“Second, the clear-error standard of review does not apply here because the ‘trial court base[d] its findings upon a mistaken impression of applicable legal principles,’” Alito clarified. “Because of the correlation between race and partisan preference, litigants can easily use claims of racial gerrymandering for partisan ends. … To prevent this, our precedents place the burden on the challengers ‘to disentangle race and politics,’” he continued. “Thus, when the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map the State adopted.” It is common, in such cases, for challengers to present an alternative map that achieves the stated partisan objectives without racially gerrymandering. However, Alito observed, the challengers in the Texas could not do so, “giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race.” He emphasized, “Neither the duration of the District Court’s hearing nor the length of its majority opinion provides an excuse for failing to apply the correct legal standards as set out clearly in our case law.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter hailed the Supreme Court’s decision. “The Supreme Court handed Texas Republicans, and by extension Republicans in Congress, a huge victory in the redistricting war by restoring Texas’s congressional maps last night,” he said. “This emergency order from the highest court in the land does more than restore five new potentially red congressional districts, it signals that this court is unlikely to side with frivolous claims of racial discrimination in the gerrymandering process from leftwing lawyers like Marc Elias — whose legal group represented one of the plaintiffs in this case, and has gone to great lengths to hurt election integrity wherever it has advanced,” Carpenter continued. “This could have huge ramifications as we also expect a decision from the Supreme Court on Louisiana vs. Callais, a case with the potential to strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which would open up as many as 19 other congressional districts for redistricting.”

The Supreme Court only issued a stay on Thursday, halting a lower court’s injunction. However, the justices are deliberating over a similar set of circumstances, originating in Louisiana. In the dual cases of Louisiana v. Phillip Callais and Press Robinson v. Phillip Callais, since consolidated into a single case, the Supreme Court will consider Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which bars racial gerrymandering, and reconsider its own precedents on the issue. Congressional district maps drawn by Louisiana’s state legislature in 2022 only created one majority-black congressional district out of the state’s six, despite the fact that roughly one-third of the state’s population is black. In response to a lawsuit accusing them of racial gerrymandering, Louisiana legislators remade the maps, yielding two majority-black districts. Those remade maps, however, were subsequently challenged, also on racial grounds: this time, the argument was that the new maps were racial gerrymandering because they were explicitly redrawn along racial lines.

In the midst of oral arguments in October, a majority of justices appeared poised to render Section 2 toothless and dilute its own precedents on the issue. In a line of questioning that would have been almost equally applicable to the Texas case, Alito asked, “If registered, Democrats overwhelmingly vote for Democratic candidates, regardless of the candidate’s race. Is that bloc voting?” Querying the relationship between redistricting along political lines and redistricting along racial lines, he continued, “Likewise, if registered Republicans overwhelmingly vote for Republican candidates, that’s not bloc voting. … So if it happens to be that people of one race or another race overwhelmingly prefer one of the political parties, does that transform the situation into racial voting? Or is it still just partisan voting?”

Accusations of racial gerrymandering have often been used by progressive voting groups to challenge and block Republican-led redistricting efforts. The Supreme Court’s decision in the Texas case could potentially indicate which way the Justices may rule in the Louisiana matter. A decision to neuter Section 2 allows red states to move forward with partisan redistricting maps, eliminating over a dozen Democrat-held House seats.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: Ken Paxton Discusses the Monumental Texas Redistricting Win at the Supreme Court

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

Partner with The Washington Stand to bring news from a biblical worldview to readers nationwide. From now until December 31, every gift will be doubled through our year-end Challenge Match.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Mail-In Ballot Case Makes Its Way to SCOTUS ahead of Midterms

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The nation’s highest court will soon deliberate on an election case that could impact how over a dozen states count ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up the case of Watson v. Republican National Committee, centered on a challenge to a Mississippi state law permitting mail-in ballots received after election to be counted, provided that they were postmarked on or before Election Day.

“Like all other States, Mississippi requires that ballots for federal offices be cast — marked and submitted to election officials — by [Election] Day. And like most other States, Mississippi allows some of those timely cast ballots (mail-in absentee ballots, in Mississippi) to be counted if they are received by election officials soon after election day,” Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) explained in his petition before the Supreme Court. Watson argued that Mississippi’s law, which allows for ballots received by mail and postmarked on or before Election Day to be counted by election officials for up to five business days after Election Day, does not conflict with federal election laws, which Watson says only stipulate when ballots are to be cast, not when they are to be counted.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, however, disagreed with Watson’s interpretation, determining that Mississippi’s law was in conflict with federal statutes governing elections. “For more than 150 years after the enactment of the first election-day statute, States complied with Congress’ mandate by ensuring that the ballot box closed on the federally mandated election day. With rare outliers, the States mandated that ballots must be received by election officials by election day,” the Republican National Committee (RNC) wrote in its challenge to Mississippi’s law. “But recently, an increasing number of States — including Mississippi — have deviated from that practice by permitting at least some ballots to be received after election day.”

“These States risk ‘the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election.’ … They reduce the time to resolve postelection disputes. … And they deprive the electorate of a clear nationwide deadline that ‘puts all voters on the same footing,’” the RNC argued, citing Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. “While the question in this case is important, this Court should decline review here because the Fifth Circuit answered it correctly,” the RNC added. “The Secretary asks this

Court to grant certiorari and draw a line between ‘casting’ ballots and receiving ballots by election officials. But that line was unknown at the time of the election-day statutes.”

Currently, Mississippi is one of 16 states that allows ballots received by mail after Election Day to be counted: Alaska, California, Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia, in addition to the District of Columbia and Guam, do the same. On Wednesday’s episode of “Washington Watch,” Conservative Partnership Institute Senior Legal Fellow and Election Integrity Network founder Cleta Mitchell explained that some states will keep counting ballots received up to two weeks after Election Day. “I will tell you that in the state where I live, North Carolina, they can accept ballots — it’s supposed to be only from the military, but they stop categorizing whether it’s military or non-military, and they just accept ballots,” she observed. “And in Pennsylvania, they have defended and started counting ballots with no postmark. So you don’t know if it’s postmarked before, you don’t know if it was sent before or after the election. So these are really big problems. I’m so glad the Supreme Court hopefully will say that.”

Mississippi originally approved its mail-in ballot law in response to COVID-19 but made the law permanent in 2024. Mitchell commented, “The Democrats and the Left took to heart what Rahm Emanuel famously said: ‘Never let an emergency go to waste.’ And so, they took the opportunity under COVID to completely upend America’s election laws in state after state after state.” She detailed, “Marc Elias and the constellation of left-wing, anti-integrity voting groups sued state after state to get rid of all the safeguards that have been protecting our elections for a century, really. And so, one of the ways that they did that was they had been moving to get states to accept ballots after Election Day.”

Mitchell also anticipated that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the issue will likely be handed down in time to set the standard for the 2026 midterm elections. “Arguments will be sometime between now and, say, the end of April, and the decision would come no later than June 30. So the decision will be made before the November 2026 election, and I just hope that they will uphold Election Day,” she posited. “The next thing we have to do is get states to stop having ‘election season,’” Mitchell added. “Some early voting, maybe seven days, maybe eight days, but having — like Virginia has 45 days of early voting. They started voting for the November election on September 19. It’s time to stop all that nonsense.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

States Go Head-to-Head to Redraw House Seats before Next Year’s Competitive Midterms

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If there’s a breakthrough on the horizon of the government shutdown, you wouldn’t know it from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s (D-N.Y.) whereabouts. The Democratic leader left D.C. — and its partisan messaging wars — for a Monday jaunt in Illinois, where he hoped to make a dent in another nationwide clash: redistricting. The jaunt, which underscored the urgency both parties feel to redraw their congressional maps, is the latest push in a see-saw battle to shake up the House’s slim majority.

As most people watched with interest this past August, the furious arms race between red states and blue states for House seats kicked off in Texas, where the Trump Justice Department gently reminded leaders that it was in violation of a recent court order on how congressional lines were drawn. When Lone Star State leaders moved to correct the problem, introducing legislation to rewrite district lines, Democrats revolted, leaving the state in dramatic style to try to grind the debate to a stop. Ultimately, their stunt failed, and GOP officials chased the lawmakers back home, where the proposal soon passed.

What most Americans didn’t know — and the media was careful to ignore — is that Texas was responding to a Fifth Circuit Court decision months earlier that upended a controversial provision in the Voting Rights Act. In the late 1980s, legislators amended the law to mandate certain majority-minority districts. The point was to ensure that black votes weren’t diluted in majority-white areas.

Now, six decades after the Act was passed (and four since this radical modification to the law), there’s widespread concern that the legislation has actually sparked the discrimination it was designed to prevent. After all, Politico explains, “The districts created as a result of the tweak to the law are almost entirely represented by Democrats, something that Republicans have long claimed gives the party an unfair advantage.”

As the National Review editors point out, “More than a dozen congressional districts as well as many state legislative districts are drawn along openly racial lines for the explicit purpose of separating voters into racial enclaves. We do not need racial gerrymandering to target a problem that recedes ever further into our past. Nothing in the Constitution,” they argue, “requires this. To the contrary, as the Court has warned for decades, using race as the predominant factor in drawing district lines violates the 14th and 15th Amendments’ guarantees of equal protection and freedom from race discrimination in voting rights.”

The Supreme Court has a chance to radically overhaul the Voting Rights Act this term, and states across both political spectrums are scrambling to reshape their congressional maps in the hopes of swaying what will be a furiously competitive midterm election.

In Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, and Utah, conservatives got off to a fast start, revising their districts to be more competitive for Republican candidates. Some estimates put the GOP pick-up at about seven seats in the U.S. House. But that was before New York, Illinois, Virginia, and California clapped back, moving aggressively to respond and, in Golden State Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) case, bypassing the state constitution to do so.

As Time magazine Senior Correspondent Phillip Elliot explains, “California actually has one of the better — and consistent — non-partisan systems for creating fair political maps based on the results of the U.S. Census conducted at the top of each decade.” And yet with Proposition 50, slated to come before voters on November 4, the independent system for drawing the congressional lines would be replaced by the Democrat-controlled legislature, effectively rigging the process for decades to come.

But in Democratic circles, there’s a growing pushback to the idea. In places like Illinois, Jeffries met a surprising amount of resistance to his crusade to reimagine House races from black leaders, who fear that they’ll be drawn out of their seats in the party’s quest for more power. In bright bold lines, the caucus’s chair, state Senator Willie Preston (D),“issued a public warning to Jeffries that it won’t support a map that dilutes Black voting population in historically Black districts,” Punchbowl reported. To squeeze another Democratic seat out of the Land of Lincoln, Jeffries would have to elbow out a black lawmaker.

“It’s pretty incredible that state legislators can summon the House minority leader to Chicago to extract political promises in return for diluting racially-gerrymandered seats,” Family Research Council’s Quena Gonzalez emphasized, “and Washington pretty much yawns.” He added, “When intersectional race preferences collide with mathematical reality, I guess something’s gotta give.”

In Maryland, the internal tension over redistricting is roiling local politics. The Hill described a new line drawn in the sand by state Senate President Bill Ferguson (D), who distributed a Dear Colleague letter Tuesday killing the party’s redistricting dreams because the effects would be, in his words, “catastrophic.”

“Despite deeply shared frustrations about the state of our country, mid-cycle redistricting for Maryland presents a reality where the legal risks are too high, the timeline for action is dangerous, the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic, and the certainty of our existing map would be undermined,” he wrote. Besides, like so many blue states, the reality is there isn’t much to be gained. Democrats have already eked out as many gerrymandered areas as possible. In Maryland, there are eight congressional seats, and just one is held by a Republican.

In Virginia, the headwinds are strong for a different reason. After Speaker of the House Don Scott (D) announced a special session to consider new district lines. “In my legal opinion,” Minority Leader Terry Kilgore (R) fired back, “the election has already started, and it’s too late constitutionally to have such a vote. So we are going to use everything, legally, everything that we can do, to stop this power grab.”

Kilgore’s analysis was backed up by the state’s Republican attorney general, Jason Miyares, who issued a four-page opinion on Tuesday dashing the Democrats’ hopes of changing anything soon. “Under Virginia law, the entire membership of Virginia House of Delegates is elected every two years, in odd-numbered years, for terms beginning in the following even-numbered year,” the opinion read in part, “In accordance with law, Virginia voters are currently casting their ballots for the candidates they prefer to represent them as delegates for the term that begins in 2026 — and have been doing so for weeks.”

Regardless of the flurry of activity in the states, no one will shape America’s elections as much as the Supreme Court. If the justices strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act that demanded majority-minority districts, then a lot of the Democrats’ scheming will be moot. Even now, The New York Times concedes, “Despite all the gerrymandering by both political parties in recent years, neither has been able to obtain a significant structural advantage in the House so far this decade. In two very close elections, the party that won the most votes won the most seats. That’s partly because each side’s gerrymanders canceled the other’s out.” But, the Times stresses, “if Section 2 falls, and Republicans redraw districts across the South, Democrats will be at enough of a structural disadvantage that even with a five-point victory, their chances might depend on upsets in a few heavily Republican districts.”

FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter agreed. “While it looks as though we’re still early in the mid-decade redistricting fight,” he told The Washington Stand, “it is clear the GOP has the simplest path to gaining more districts. Democrat-led states typically have to devise some clever workaround for their independent redistricting commission, which, in most cases, has already just about maxed out the gerrymandering potential in their state. Republican states typically do not have these restrictions, have more room to maximize the impact of Republican voters in their states, and with the potential of the Supreme Court overturning portions of the Voting Rights Act, could free up as many as 19 additional seats for red states to go after.”

Sure, he admitted, “Blue states will do their best to cancel out as many of these new seats as possible, but it’s hard to see how they can possibly come out on top at the end, with their voters so centralized in so few locations and the hurdles they have to clear before they can even look at redrawing maps in their states.”

That said, this is definitely a battle for the ages. “It’s happened two other times in American history,” Carpenter underscored. “Normally, when you get this mid-decade redistricting, it’s because of a court order, [a law changes] … or there’s a legal challenge to an existing map, and suddenly the state legislature is coming in for a special session to redraw districts. This is the third time in American history where you’ve got a voluntary mid-decade redistricting that’s happening before a census. … So we are in sort of an unprecedented time in American history right now.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Redistricting Wars Come Back to Bite Democrats

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The Texas tantrum over redistricting may have made for good television, but it’s turning out to be a terrible strategy. Sure, Democrats may have earned some kudos from their raging base, but opening this case of electoral worms is starting to backfire, strategists warn. Part of the price of painting Republicans as gerrymandering cheats is exposing the Democrats’ own years-long hustle of rigging congressional maps. Now that the spotlight is on, Americans are finally getting a good look at how badly the Left has abused the system in blue states. And it isn’t pretty.

In one of the truest silver linings of this unexpected storyline of 2025, Republicans are finally pulling back the curtain on how liberal leaders have spent decades scamming the system. While governors like Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) are showing plenty of bravado in their threats to retaliate, the reality is this: they’re picking a fight they’ll almost certainly lose.

Already, conservatives in other states are starting to pore over their own districts, pointing out huge inequities that were fueled by the 2020 Census. Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R) of Indiana is just one of the GOP members ready to pounce on the injustices that Joe Biden introduced to the nationwide count. “We’re starting to learn a lot more of what happened through the 2020 election and what happened through the redistricting that took place in 2021,” he told “This Week on Capitol Hill” guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice on Saturday. And if you look at some of these states like California, Illinois, [and] New York, they have all redistricted in a way that has really made the balance of power very unfair. In Washington, D.C., they did it in the dark of night. They took advantage of this situation.”

Stutzman ticked off some of the worst abuses. “Look at Illinois, for example. Out of the 17 districts in Illinois, only two are Republicans. Look at California. They’ve got over 50 some seats, and the minority is, of course, Republican.” And yet, he shakes his head, Newsom is ready to engineer a new map that would erase any GOP seats at all.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), a solid conservative who would be one of the five Republican targets of the governor’s plan, can’t believe the audacity of the Democrats’ power grab. “The voters spoke very loudly that they wanted [the redistricting] in the hands of an independent group of people,” he pointed out to Hice on “Washington Watch,” “not in the hands of legislators. … Let me put it this way. Back in 2001, when they drew them themselves, the joke was that they drew what was called the ‘incumbent protection plan.’”

Now, he warns, “it’s a free-for-all.” Essentially, LaMalfa explains, “What they’re doing is they’re going to draw the maps first, and then they say they’re going to go to the ballot and ask people for permission to set aside the Constitution on that.” Which, he argues, isn’t even legal under California law. Already, “the Democrats have a 3-to-1 majority in Sacramento. So it’s easy for them to pass two-thirds legislation and still have members to spare.” But this would affect House seats, he clarified, basically wiping out most of the state’s conservative representation in Congress.

“There [are] 52 members of the House in our state, [and] it’s 43 [Democrats] to nine [Republicans] right now.” This effort would knock out five of those nine, “tak[ing] it down to only four surviving Republicans if their scheme somehow works out.” LaMalfa paused before adding, “Whatever the word democracy [means], this isn’t it. This is … the most blatant example, I think, of a power play I’ve seen in all the years I’ve ever observed politics in, at least in my home state here.”

While Democrats move forward, it’s already starting to bite them in other corners of the country. Republicans, who’ve watched with outrage as Newsom tries to oust the tiny remnant of conservatives, are taking a serious look at red states where things have been skewed by things like illegal immigration populations.

“We’ve had these conversations before about what’s the best way and what’s the fairest way for redistricting,” Stutzman said. “It’s a difficult process. It’s a political process. And so, in a lot of times when states win majorities in their House of Representatives and their state senates, they’re the ones that draw these maps. And sometimes the courts get involved. Sometimes the independent commissions get involved. But what I believe is the reason for Indiana to redraw the maps is the fact that states like California, New York, [and] Illinois right next door to us, they all counted their illegal immigrants into their census, which gives them an unfair number. … So the fact that Indiana has taken a look at this, I think is a wise thing to do.”

Especially, observers point out, since Democratic states have already exhausted their efforts. That’s what was so hilarious about the reaction to Texas’s effort. In places like Massachusetts, Governor Maura Healey (D) talked tough about punishing Republicans by redistricting — only for the media to point out that they have no Republican districts.

That’s the Pandora’s Box Democrats have opened with this war, Hice reiterated. “So many of our blue states have been gerrymandering for years and have been doing so in such a way as to basically freeze out Republican representation.” Now, GOP strategists are starting to even the score.

“We’re looking at the numbers from the elections over the past several cycles and realizing that California, Illinois, and New York have already done this, and it gives them a huge advantage,” Stuzman agreed. His next-door neighbor, Illinois, is one of the biggest culprits, he argues. “In fact, I would encourage any of your viewers to pull up the Illinois congressional maps and then pull up the Indiana ones and look at the difference. It has some sort of dragon-looking snake thing that kind of goes through the entire state. And that’s just basically picked out all the Republican areas.” Now the slant is 17 Democrats to two Republicans.

“And I would blame the media, the mainstream media, for being complicit in all of this,” he emphasized. “They were also a part of this whole scam as well. They didn’t say anything about the fact that Republicans in Illinois [are] underrepresented in Washington, D.C. and [in] states like Indiana. … We’re stepping back and saying, ‘You know what? If this is the way that the game is going to be played, the Democrats have started this process already. We’re going to push back, and we’re going to fight back,’” Stutzman vowed. “And I think it should be done in the sense, because it is truly about making sure that Americans have real representation — fair representation — in Washington from state to state.”

That doesn’t bode well for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who must quietly be wringing his hands over the growing conservative counterattack. “From here,” The Washington Times warns, “things could get worse for Democrats.” After all, Seth McLaughlin writes, “Republicans face fewer hurdles in the red states of Indiana, Missouri and Ohio, where they are considering the Trump-inspired mid-decade map changes that could boost the GOP’s chances of defending their thin House majority in the midterm elections next year.”

As FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter cautioned, “Democrats would be wise to do everything in their power to tamp down the ‘redistricting war,’ as some have called it, simply because they do not have as deep of a reservoir of potential new districts to draw in the states they control as Republicans do. Most Democratic states have already maxed out the party’s share of their congressional delegations by aggressively gerrymandering over the years,” he told The Washington Stand.

Already, Stutzman and company have made the trek to Washington to meet with Vice President J.D. Vance and other White House officials to flesh out a battle plan. “I’m done bringing a knife to a gunfight against aggressive, nonstop left-wing tactics,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said, blaming Biden’s decision to include illegal immigrants in the census as a way to slant the number of Democratic seats. “It’s time to fight on an even playing field and secure fair representation for our state.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Absolutely Shameful’: Illinois Gov. Signs Law Extending Financial Aid to Illegal Immigrants

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Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) has signed a new, allegedly “inclusive,” law extending financial aid eligibility — not necessarily to poorer students or families in need, but to illegal immigrants.

The bill makes it so that all residents can receive financial aid regardless of immigration status. Reportedly, this is designed to establish “equitable eligibility for financial aid and benefits” for all students throughout the state. As the legislation itself reads: “a student who is an Illinois resident and who is not otherwise eligible for federal financial aid, including, but not limited to, a transgender student who is disqualified for failure to register for selective service or a noncitizen student who has not obtained lawful permanent residence, shall be eligible for financial aid and benefits.”

State Senator Celina Villanueva (D) co-signed the bill, and she argued it “is about making sure no student is left behind because of where they were born.” Villanueva’s office released a statement that further explained the legislation, claiming it “eliminates the patchwork of confusing and sometimes conflicting requirements that have excluded undocumented, DACAmented, and mixed-status students from critical aid.” According to the senator, “If you live in Illinois and are pursuing higher education, you should have access to the same opportunities as your peers. Illinois invests in all of our students, and we’re committed to helping them succeed.”

Others, however, see it differently. In fact, the backlash against this bill has been fierce. State Rep. Marly Miller (R) slammed the new law as an insult to families and especially other students. She told Fox News that “allowing taxpayer-funded financial aid for illegal aliens is a slap in the face to hardworking Illinois families and students.” Miller added, “Our state is drowning in debt, yet J.B. Pritzker is determined to drain even more taxpayer dollars to reward illegals. It’s absolutely shameful.”

Echoing this, a spokesperson for the Illinois GOP, also in comment to Fox, stressed how, “once again, Governor Pritzker proves that he is prioritizing illegal immigrants at the expense of Illinois families. Illinois taxpayers should not have their hard-earned taxpayer dollars pay for benefits to illegal immigrants who shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

And yet, government officials are not the only ones speaking out against this new law. Parents, too, are voicing concern. Michelle Cunney, an Illinois mother and local Parents’ Rights in Education chapter leader, spoke with Fox. She described the legislation as a “nightmare,” emphasizing that this law opens a floodgate of problems. As she put it, “To be honest, it’s terrifying that not only are we having to pay for this, as you know, taxpaying citizens. … But also, as parents, not knowing how it will really truly end up affecting our children and their education.”

From Cunney’s experience living in the state, she stressed that Pritzker has a tendency to prioritize illegal immigrants over legal residents. With this new law, “we know that the children who are not here legally will get … more of a chance and an opportunity to get scholarships and everything than our children, because to Pritzker, and so many others, we are not important,” she stated. “We are not anything other than money.” According to Cunney, several others feel the same way, noting that “most of the parents are not okay with this.”

In a statement, state Rep. Chris Miller (R) argued that “this move is top of the list for why Pritzker must be put out of office.” He continued, “While you’re figuring out how to pay $500 electric bills, he quickly signed HB 460 into law giving illegals free college!” Miller took note of the same trend many Illinois residents seem to be emphasizing, namely, that “since Pritzker took office, Illinois citizens have been left behind while illegals get all the handouts they need to feel right at home in Illinois. The governor has betrayed every Illinois citizen with his policies that roll out the red carpet for illegal immigrants.”

“Billions of taxpayer funds,” he stressed, “are being wasted on services for individuals who broke federal law and people here in our great state of Illinois have had enough.” There’s been talk of Pritzker running for president in the 2028 election. But according to Congresswoman Mary Miller (R-Ill.), “Pritzker’s sanctuary state policies have transformed Illinois into a cesspool of crime and drugs brought by the illegals he is actively resettling.”

She concluded, “Our communities are being overwhelmed, innocent girls are being raped, and Americans are being ruthlessly murdered. These are the tragic consequences of his failed leadership.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Texas, California Kick off Redistricting Wars

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Legislatures in Texas and California this week both advanced bills to redraw their congressional maps halfway through the census cycle, kicking off what could become a partisan redistricting war over control of the U.S. House of Representatives, which is currently closely divided.

In Texas, House Republicans on Wednesday easily (88-52) advanced a bill to redraw the congressional map in a way that shifts five U.S. House seats toward the GOP. Democratic representatives initially fled the state to deny the House a quorum, but they eventually returned after the month-long special session had expired. Governor Greg Abbott (R) immediately called a second special session, and House leaders took steps to ensure the Democrats did not flee the state again.

The redistricting bill now heads to the Texas Senate. The Senate passed the bill easily during the first special session (Democratic senators did not abscond), but it must vote again in the new session. If the bill reaches Abbott’s desk, he is expected to sign it.

In California, the Democrat-controlled legislature has moved much more quickly. On Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed two bills to redraw California’s congressional districts that the legislature passed earlier in the day. These bills aim to move five congressional seats from Republican to Democrat. “We’re responding to what occurred in Texas. We’re neutralizing what occurred,” argued Newsom, “because when all things are equal, we’re all playing by the same rules.”

As a matter of fact, California and Texas do not play by the same redistricting rules. In 2008 and 2010, California voters passed a ballot measure that authorized a bipartisan commission to redraw California’s state and federal legislative districts. This commission drew the lines that California has used since 2022. Thus, before the California legislature can redraw the map, they need the voters’ permission to supersede the map created by the redistricting commission. To that end, Governor Newsom has called a special election on November 4, a mere 10 weeks away.

It remains unclear whether California’s voters will approve this redistricting gambit, as contradictory early polling points in both directions. Only 15 years ago, California voters overwhelmingly approved the redistricting commission (61.2% to 38.7%); it would be a remarkable shift if they undermined its authority now.

In fact, many California voters likely have some inkling that the district map drawn by the bipartisan commission already tilts heavily in Democrats’ favor. In 2022, California Democrats won 63.3% of the congressional vote but almost 77% of the seats. In 2024, Democrats won 60.4% of the vote but 82.6% of the seats. Somehow, without an obvious partisan gerrymander by Sacramento legislatures, California Democrats have maneuvered themselves into quite a comfortable advantage.

If California voters do second the legislature’s effort to neutralize Texas’s redistricting effort, it might kick off a redistricting war that Democrats are not well positioned to win. By Punchbowl’s calculation, “Republicans can get 12 or more new seats fairly easily. Democrats can get two or three without amending a state constitution, and eight if Newsom’s California gambit works.”

A New York Times analysis helps explain why: there are 15 states with unified Democratic control and 26 with unified Republican control. But partisan gain is not possible in all these states, either because a state only has one congressional seat (like Delaware or Wyoming), or because the dominant party already holds all the congressional seats (like Massachusetts or Oklahoma).

This leaves eight Democrat-controlled states with Republican-held districts and 15 Republican-controlled states with Democrat-held districts. However, in five of these Democrat-controlled states, the legislature is not in control of drawing the map. This leaves only three Democrat-controlled states (besides California) where the legislature could potentially redraw the map to knock Republicans out of Congress, compared to 15 states where Republicans could do the opposite.

Across these three states (Illinois, Maryland, and Oregon), Democrats have already maximized their advantage, leaving a total of five Republicans in Congress across the three states. It would be extremely difficult to draw maps that would favor the Democrats any further. Maryland Democrats already tried this census cycle, but their gerrymander was struck down in court. Likewise, New York (another large, Democrat-controlled state) already tried to override its redistricting commission to enact a partisan gerrymander, which was also struck down in court.

Some analysts believe California Democrats are pushing their new map simply to oppose Trump. The Trump administration provided the impetus for Texas’s redistricting effort, in hopes of giving the president’s party a more effective House majority in Congress. California Democrats may not believe they can win a nationwide redistricting war, but they do believe their base wants to see them stand tow-to-tow with Trump.

Thus, California Assemblyman Marc Berman (D), who sponsored one of the redistricting bills, offered this half-hearted defense on Thursday, “We don’t want this fight, and we didn’t choose this fight, but with our democracy on the line, we cannot and will not run away from this fight.” Begun, the Redistricting Wars have.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Which States Are the Best and Worst at Protecting Religious Liberty?

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That’s the question at the heart of the recently released annual “Religious Liberty in the States” report, produced by the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy at the First Liberty Institute, a prominent conservative legal organization.

Co-authored by Mark David Hall and Paul D. Mueller, the report examined the number of legal protections or “safeguards” for religious freedom each state has enacted. Researchers analyzed 47 distinct safeguards related to conscience protection.

Issues covered by these safeguards included euthanasia refusal, health insurance mandates, ceremonial use of alcohol by minors, designating clergy as mandatory reporters, foster parent requirements, absentee voting for religious reasons, and clergy nonparticipation in weddings.

This year, Florida assumed the top spot in the ranking as the best state for religious freedom with a score of 74.6%, taking the title from Illinois, which earned the No. 1 ranking in 2024.

“Florida is an exemplar for how state legislators can improve their state’s protection of religious liberty,” the report reads. “When we began the project, Florida protected a respectable 58 percent of the eleven safeguards we considered in 2022 and was ranked sixth in the nation. Today, it protects 75 percent of the twenty safeguards we consider and ranks first. Most of its improvement derived from legislation strengthening its medical conscience protections in 2023 and legislation protecting houses of worship from discriminatory treatment during pandemics and other emergencies in 2022.”

Montana ranked second with a score of 70.6%, followed by Illinois at 68.8%, Ohio at 66.9%, Mississippi at 66.4%, Arkansas at 62.9% and South Carolina at 60.8%.

Illinois fell 11 percentage points from 2024 to 2025, having previously received 85% in 2023 and 81% last year. Researchers say that religious freedom “now seems more tenuous in the Land of Lincoln” than it was when they began compiling the index, because the state has failed to implement new religious freedom protections enacted in other states.

Researchers stated that Illinois’s drop is, in part, due to the addition of several new religious liberty protections to their analysis, noting that “almost all of Illinois’s religious liberty protections were adopted between 1934 and 1998.”

“Although still among the top five states, Illinois fell from its first-place position in RLS 2023 and 2024. It now protects only 69 percent of the safeguards we consider, whereas in 2022 it protected 81 percent of them,” researchers wrote. “We add new religious liberty protections to the index as we discover them, as long as they have been implemented in at least one state.”

For the third consecutive year, West Virginia ranked last in religious liberty protections, earning a score of only 19.6%. The Mountain State previously received 24.7% last year and 14% in 2023.

Wyoming is the second-worst state for religious liberty safeguards, earning a score of 23.3%, followed by Michigan (27.4%), Nebraska (29.1%), and Vermont (29.3%).

Overall, the report stresses that about 76% of states (38) have adopted fewer than half of the analyzed religious liberty safeguards.

Since the inaugural report in 2022, the most improved state was Montana, which increased its score by 30.8% to 71% during that time, mainly due to the passage of increased conscience protections. Meanwhile, South Carolina wasn’t far behind with a 29.6% increase from 2022 to 2025. With a 17% increase from 2022 to 2025, Florida is the third-most-improved state.

While still highly ranked, Mississippi had the most significant decline of any state since 2022, with its score dropping 15.4% due to a lack of newly enacted religious liberty safeguards.

In a statement, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) celebrated the news that the Sunshine State was ranked first in the report, highlighting the many efforts his administration has pursued on the issue, including laws that advance school choice, designate churches as essential services in case of emergency, and the creation of a school chaplain program.

“We’re grateful for this recognition from the First Liberty Institute, which has just named Florida the #1 state in the nation for protecting religious liberty,” he stated. “Religious liberty is critical to the foundation and function of America, and I am proud that Florida excels in protecting this right.”

This article originally appeared at The Christian Post.

AUTHOR

Michael Gryboski

Michael Gryboski serves as editor at The Christian Post.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Republicans Continue to Bolster Election Integrity Nationwide

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Following President Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in November’s presidential election, Republicans are still pursuing election integrity measures to ensure that midterm and future presidential elections are conducted fairly and squarely. Courts have handed a series of election integrity wins to the Republican National Committee (RNC) recently, including in swing states Arizona and Georgia.

The RNC filed a lawsuit last year challenging rule changes made in 2023 by Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) to the state’s Election Procedures Manual. The RNC argued that the rule changes diluted safeguards preventing noncitizens from voting, placed unlawful restrictions on challenges to early voting ballots, and even violated state law. Earlier this month, an Arizona Court of Appeals agreed with the RNC and ruled that Fontes failed to “substantially comply” with the state’s laws and rule-making process.

In Georgia, a federal court sided with the RNC in another election integrity lawsuit. A union representing theater workers sued Georgia state election officials and the RNC last year in an effort to expand the deadline for submitting absentee ballots by mail. The RNC skewered the union’s lawsuit, noting that the union lacks standing to sue, does not demonstrate irreparable harm, and cannot link any hypothetical harm to Georgia’s election officials or the RNC. Additionally, the RNC pointed out that once the deadline for absentee-by-mail ballots expires, Georgians can still submit absentee-in-person ballots ahead of Election Day. Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia dismissed the case, citing a lack of standing on the part of the union.

In another election integrity success, Washington’s state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the RNC and state Republicans in a case concerning signature verification. In a brief filed in 2023, the RNC observed that Washington’s voting process allows voters numerous opportunities to correct mistakes such as incorrect or illegible signatures on mail-in ballots but, because errors sometimes still persist that would classify incorrectly signed mail-in ballots as invalid, a handful of left-wing organizations had sued to eliminate the state’s signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots. Washington’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled earlier this month that the state’s signature verification process is constitutional and will therefore be upheld.

Ahead of November’s historic presidential election, the RNC filed hundreds of lawsuits across the country, seeking to ensure election integrity and thwart activists’ efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the election. Victories in states including Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin resulted in noncitizens being purged from voter rolls, ballot counting being carried out instead of paused and resumed the following day, and Republican poll-watchers being returned to polling places after having been kicked out.

In comments to The Washington Stand, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter said, “It’s great to see election integrity continue to gain steam. With Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, there was a real possibility that complacency would set in and securing the vote would be forgotten. Fortunately, that’s not the case.” He continued, “The RNC and red states have been active on this issue, and it’s not just good policy: politically, it’s a winner as well. Voters overwhelmingly agree noncitizens should not be allowed to vote, unmonitored drop boxes are a problem, voter identification requirements are good, and we should be able to expect election results quickly.”

In addition to the RNC’s efforts, a number of Republican state officials have been working to bolster election integrity at the state and local levels. In West Virginia, for example, the Republican-led state legislature has introduced nearly 100 election integrity bills this legislative session alone, including measures designed to prevent noncitizens from illegally voting and to clear noncitizens, felons, and deceased people from voter rolls.

On April 1, voters in Wisconsin will also cast their ballots for or against a constitutional amendment legally requiring voter identification be presented when voting. While Democrats and progressive activists have long claimed that voter I.D. requirements disenfranchise voters or stifle voter turnout, a recent report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty shows that voter I.D. requirements actually have no adverse impact on voter turnout.

Carpenter commented, “Ultimately, the reason election integrity is so important is because it improves the legitimacy of the republic. When our election laws are fair and implemented properly, voters can trust in the results. If voters can trust the results, they can be assured the government is legitimate.” He added, “Even if their side lost, they at least know the election system did its job.” Carpenter further stated, “We all have a stake in ensuring our elections make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat. The time to make progress on election integrity is now.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

South Dakota, Texas Pursue Ten Commandments Displays in Schools

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After Louisiana became the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools, a legal battle erupted. Republican Governor Jeff Landry signed the bill in June, and after months of litigation, it can finally be enforced in certain school districts. Now South Dakota may be headed for similar court battles.

Last week, South Dakota state Senator John Carley (R) and Rep. Phil Jensen (R), introduced Senate Bill 51. It reads, “The board of a school district shall display the Ten Commandments in each classroom in each school located within the district. The display must be a poster or document that is at least eight inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments must be the focus of the poster or document and must be printed in large, easily readable font.”

Like the legislation in Louisiana, this proposal also requires that the Ten Commandments be accompanied by a statement explaining their historical significance, which would apply to other documents like the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence.

“We need to illustrate our history and truth,” Carley urged. “[S]ome people may want to say, ‘We don’t want to talk about these topics,’ but the Ten Commandments certainly were a part of the founding of our country.” Carley also highlighted additional benefits of posting the Ten Commandments. As he put it, “If we find kids honoring their father and mother, a lot of parents will be happy about that. If we find people are not stealing, lying, or murdering, I think our Sheriff Department and law enforcement will certainly be happy.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), on the other hand, quickly criticized the legislation. They claimed it posed a risk of causing “students who don’t follow the state’s approved religious dictates to feel ostracized from their school community.” The ACLU of South Dakota argued that “the First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities — not politicians or the government — the right to instill religious beliefs in their children.” In their opinion, “Displaying the Ten Commandments in our state’s classrooms blatantly violates this promise.”

The group also claimed that “students already have the right to engage in religious exercise and expression at school under current law.” For instance, because students can “voluntarily pray, read religious literature or engage in other religious activities during recess or lunch,” the ACLU believes displaying the Ten Commandments would be a form of “religious conversion.”

On the other hand, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley (R) supports the bill. On Monday, he said in a statement, “The Ten Commandments already are displayed in the U.S. Supreme Court and other public buildings. The Ten Commandments have influenced the creation of our nation and our rule of law.” A notable trend is forming of lawmakers introducing bills that require the Ten Commandments be displayed in public schools.

Just this week, Texas Senator Phil King (R) reportedly has plans to propose a bill of this same nature. He described the Ten Commandments as the “basis for much of American history and law.” As he put it, “It played such a role in our founding and among our founders. It’s part of our legal heritage.”

During the last Texas Senate legislative session, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R) had sought to bring the Bible back into Texas public schools. It was ultimately shut down in the Texas House. Allegedly, it is King’s intention to continue some of what Patrick started. In fact, Patrick had posted on X back in June that “Texas WOULD have been and SHOULD have been the first state in the nation to put the 10 Commandments back in our schools.” He went on to say that the House ultimately killing the bill was both “inexcusable and unacceptable.” But in response to King’s efforts to revive the bill, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) has already offered his support. As he said on X, “Let’s do it.”

Reflecting on these developments, Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon shared her excitement with The Washington Stand. “This is great to see other states attempting to include the Ten Commandments in schools,” she stated. “Regardless of your religious beliefs or lack of them,” she contended, “understanding the Law is important for any person’s educational formation.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Porn Industry Runs Ads for Harris in Wake of VP’s Appearance on Sex Podcast

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The pornography industry often makes headlines related to human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, or social media regulations, but this time it’s in the news for running political ads. With less than a month to go before the presidential election, a coalition of pornography producers, distributors, and “performers” is running ads online, encouraging porn users to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The $100,000 “Hands Off My Porn” campaign claims that former President Donald Trump will ban pornography if elected again. The claim is based on policy recommendations in The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which Trump has repeatedly disavowed. Senior Trump campaign advisor Danielle Alverez responded, “Since the Fall of 2023, President Trump’s campaign made it clear that only President Trump and the campaign, and NOT any other organization or former staff, represent policies for the second term.”

Project 2025 authors and “Trump allies” are labeled “weirdos” in the ads, which claim that Trump will imprison porn producers. Holly Randall, a porn producer and “director” involved in the ad campaign claimed that the pornography coalition has not coordinated with the Harris campaign or the Democratic Party but intends to increase their advertising budget.

Despite Randall’s protests, Family Research Council Senior Fellow Meg Kilgannon observed that the Harris campaign must at least be aware of the advertising venture. “It is now legal for outside groups to coordinate expenditures with presidential campaigns,” Kilgannon noted. She continued, “While the fact of the porn expenditures themselves is shocking, the messaging around Project 2025 and the targeting of swing states would lead one to believe that these ads are coordinated with the DNC and the Harris campaign.”

She continued, “Is this all the sitting Vice President of the United States has to offer those who use pornography — empty threats that porn will be banned if she loses? Does she hope to distract the young men in this demographic from the very real prospect that in a Harris-Walz administration they will be drafted for military service and shipped overseas to die on foreign soil?”

Kilgannon concluded, “It would be better to promise lower taxes, lower prices, and more jobs, but since Harris-Walz is not credible on those topics, it’s not surprising that the expert fearmongers at DNC would supplement their dire abortion messaging to women with porn-based ads for men.”

The ads will reportedly run in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. However, the claim that a second Trump administration would outlaw pornography may be at least partially undermined by the fact that over a third of U.S. states — including North Carolina and Georgia — have enacted age verification laws to prevent minors from accessing online porn, and pornography behemoth PornHub has outright stopped operating in many of those states.

When Utah passed age verification laws last year, PornHub’s parent company — then called MindGeek, now called Aylo — blocked access in Utah to PornHub and a number of other pornographic websites it owned. PornHub has also shut down in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. When internet users visit the site, they are now met with a message criticizing the states’ laws barring minors from accessing pornography and urging porn users to contact their state representatives to complain.

The ad campaign comes in the wake of Harris’s recent appearance on “Call Her Daddy,” a sex podcast known for its vulgar and explicit language.

Child protection and anti-trafficking advocates have observed in the past that pornography creates a heightened demand for human trafficking, including child trafficking. PornHub and its parent company even admitted in federal court last year that the companies profit from illegal sex trafficking: PornHub hosted videos from a sex trafficking pornography production company and profited from those videos. According to court documents, PornHub and Aylo either knew or should have known that the profits they were receiving were from human trafficking. There are a number of allegations that PornHub and other major pornography distributors knowingly host and profit from human trafficking and videos depicting rape, pedophilia, bestiality, and other aberrant content.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

CatholicVote Exposes Harris’s Support for Funding Gender Transition Surgeries for Kids

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A conservative Catholic advocacy group is launching an ad campaign across swing states exposing Vice President Kamala Harris’s support for taxpayer-funded mutilative gender transition procedures on children. CatholicVote began airing ads on Monday using Medicaid data to reveal that the incumbent Biden-Harris administration has been using American taxpayer dollars to fund the procedures — including mastectomies, hysterectomies, and penis amputations — on minors. The campaign’s target audience are Catholic voters and parents in swing states.

“Medicaid data shows 97 underage girls had their breasts completely removed, 14 underage girls underwent hysterectomies,” the ad airing in Pennsylvania exclaims. Billing the procedures as “taxpayer-funded experiments on kids,” the ad continues, “Sex-change operations attempting to make young boys into girls, penis amputations. Sound weird? Disgusting? It is. And you’re paying for it. Kamala Harris supports these taxpayer-funded sex change operations. A vote for Harris [is] a vote for medical experiments on kids.”

Tommy Valentine, director of CatholicVote’s Catholic Accountability Project, told The Washington Stand, “We thought it was about time someone exposed the graphic details of what transgender surgeries really do to children. These ‘surgeries’ are really just mutilations. They’re irreversible and life-changing.” He added, “People should be uncomfortable with the ad because they are paying for these surgeries with their tax dollars. If Kamala Harris gets elected, these numbers are going to skyrocket, and thousands of children will be left devastated.”

“Thousands of trans surgeries are happening — on kids — across the country. Double mastectomies on young girls. Hysterectomies. Amputation of boys’ genitalia. Full skin grafts to forehead, chin, underarms, genitals, hands, and feet,” CatholicVote President Brian Burch explained. “The Biden-Harris administration is using your tax dollars today to pay for them. And Kamala Harris wants to expand these medical experiments on kids. … This ad is hard to watch for a reason. Because the truth is sickening. America’s children are being carved up and sterilized.”

According to CatholicVote’s ads, 35 underage girls in Michigan were subjected to double mastectomies and seven to hysterectomies, as part of gender transition procedures. In Wisconsin, 86 girls were subjected to double mastectomies and 12 to hysterectomies. CatholicVote is airing an ad in Spanish in Nevada, to reach Hispanic-American Catholics. In the Silver State, 18 underage girls were subjected to double mastectomies and three to hysterectomies. “The number of trans mutilations on kids is already shockingly high. If Kamala Harris wins, how many more children’s bodies will she help destroy?” Burch asked. “None — if we stop her.”

The Biden-Harris administration has long been among the top promoters of gender transition procedures, including for minors. Harris’s recently-announced policies for a potential presidency include continuing and even ramping up that promotion of transgenderism and related surgeries. In addition to adjusting civil rights legislation to protect “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” likely forcing American Christians to violate their sincerely-held religious beliefs in order to avoid breaking the law, Harris also suggests scrapping state legislation like Ohio’s Saving Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, which bars targeting children for gender transition procedures, including puberty blockers and hormone drugs. In 2019, Harris endorsed using taxpayer dollars to perform gender transition procedures on federal prisoners and detained illegal immigrants, a position so outrageous that mainstream media “fact-checkers” labeled it as false last week, before correcting themselves.

Commenting to TWS on CatholicVote’s ad campaign, Family Research Council Senior Fellow Meg Kilgannon said, “Vice President Harris is completely on board with the gender agenda. From her time in California government to the present, Harris has supported the most radical LGBTQ+ demands. She believes that children can be born in the wrong body and should be allowed to change their sex.” Kilgannon continued, “The danger of such beliefs being weaponized by leaders in our government is apparent. This, along with Harris’s extremist abortion advocacy, should disqualify her from consideration for Catholic voters. Thanks to CatholicVote for pointing this out in such clear terms.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

DMV Loophole Could Lead to Millions of Illegal Votes, Expert Warns

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In the aftermath of an Arizona federal appeals court ruling last week that will allow individuals to vote without proof of citizenship, an election integrity expert is raising the alarm over the possibility of millions of illegal votes being cast due to a loophole in how individuals are registered to vote at their local DMV with the presidential election just three months away.

On Monday, Cleta Mitchell, founder of the Election Integrity Network, joined “Washington Watch” to analyze problems with verifying the citizenship of registered voters, starting with the Arizona court ruling.

“[P]oor Arizona, they’ve been trying for 20 years to be able to get documentary proof of citizenship in order to be able to register to vote in that state, literally starting in the early 2000s,” she lamented. “There is a statute in Arizona that you have to provide proof of citizenship when you register to vote. And they asked the Election Assistance Commission about a decade ago to add that to the federal form for use in Arizona, because Congress … 31 years ago passed what we call the ‘Motor Voter’ bill that requires every state to accept and use this federal form for voter registration. Arizona wanted to make sure that the form was consistent with its state law requiring documentary proof of citizenship.”

“However,” Mitchell continued, “the Supreme Court of the United States said that the Election Assistance Commission didn’t have the authority to do that because Congress didn’t put it in the language of the statute. So what the Supreme Court ordered as a remedy 11 years ago was for Arizona to be able to have two separate voter rolls. If you want to vote in state elections, you have to provide documentary proof of citizenship. But if you don’t have documentary proof of citizenship, guess what? You can register to vote on the federal only list, which means if you don’t prove citizenship, you can get a ballot for president, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House.”

Despite the appeals court setback, Mitchell expressed hope that the Arizona legislature will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court due to gravity of the situation. “I hope that they’ll move for emergency consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court. And I wish that the Trump campaign would also weigh in, and a lot of people would weigh in and ask the court to keep Arizona from sending ballots to people who are not confirmed to be U.S. citizens. If you want to pick the number one thing I’m worried about for 2024, that’s it. And it’s not just in Arizona. It’s everywhere.”

In response to Democratic lawmakers who say that illegal voting is “not happening,” Mitchell detailed how non-citizens have gained access to ballots over the last two decades.

“[W]e know that it’s an issue because we know that there are non-citizens on the voter rolls,” she pointed out. “[We] have to remember that this has happened gradually. And the laws regarding the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 says that every state … must verify identity and residency of a voter before adding that person to the voter rolls. What’s missing from that list? Citizenship, because nobody could envision a time when we would have massive disregard of our immigration laws by the existing administration. And so what we have is this massive number of illegals coming across the border. We have laws on the books against that. They’re here illegally. But somehow we’re supposed to imagine that the same people who came across the border illegally are somehow going to say, ‘Oh, but it’s illegal for me to register and vote?’”

Mitchell further emphasized how easy it is for illegal immigrants and non-citizens to get registered to vote.

“The two things that the federal law requires is confirming identity and residency for [voter] registration,” she explained. “Well, guess what? You know how you do that under this federal law? Driver’s license number and social security number. Every state issues driver’s licenses to non-citizens [living in the U.S. legally]. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia issue driver’s licenses to illegals. So what does that verify? [It] doesn’t verify citizenship. And the Social Security Administration issues Social Security numbers to non-citizens because they are supposed to be working with work permits if they’re here illegally. … That’s where they’re going to get their driver’s licenses and ID cards … and then they are getting registered to vote. And once they get on those rolls, you have no way of knowing whether they’re voting.”

“They know,” remarked guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice. “That’s why the borders have been wide open for the last three and a half years.” “They do know,” Mitchell nodded in agreement. One recent study found that up to 2.7 million non-citizens are likely to cast illegal votes in the November elections.

Mitchell pointed to the Only Citizens Vote Coalition as a way for the public to combat illegal voter registration. “We have formed the Only Citizens Vote Coalition. … We send out a weekly newsletter. We’ve created a national working group on Only Citizens Vote that meets by Zoom every Thursday at 11 a.m. EST. It’s free. We’re trying to get people activated. We’ve created toolkits and resources, and we’re going to have a national week in September to shine a bright light on the national online Only Citizens Vote Week. … We have got to create essentially a national citizens watch at our local DMV.”

Mitchell went on to put into perspective the outsize influence that non-citizens could have in the November elections.

“[T]here is a website called Justfacts.com [which] says on a very conservative basis that 10 to 12% of those who are in this country are non-citizens, and that includes both people here legally and illegally, because we have many, many people who are here legally [student visas, work visas, permanent residents with green cards], plus all these illegals. … The Department of Homeland Security says they don’t know how many there are, but [some] estimate 22 million. If 10% of those 22 million actually register and vote … how many does it take to flip Utah, which has mainly mail-in voting? How many does it take to flip North Dakota, which doesn’t have voter registration? People just show up and vote. And how are they supposed to deal with that?”

Mitchell concluded by encouraging conservatives to get involved at the local level by serving as poll watchers and election volunteers and turning out friends and family to vote in large numbers.

“[W]e have so many people around the country who’ve worked so hard on trying to clean voter rolls,” she highlighted. “I do urge people to sign up and be a poll observer and sign up to be an election worker. … I really do believe that it is going to take all of us getting everyone we know to vote. … I think [Trump] has to win by such big margins that they can’t manipulate the outcome. [T]he closer it is, the harder it is for us to overcome the shenanigans. But number one … let’s all work hard at getting our friends and neighbors and family members to register, to vote, and to look around and basically create a national neighborhood watch. Do we see pockets of illegals registering at driver’s license agencies? Raise the stink about it in your local communities.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.