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Yesterday, a federal district court ruled in favor of the Terrebonne Parish NAACP and four Black voters, represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), the law firm of Cozen O'Connor, and longtime Louisiana civil rights attorney, Ronald L. Wilson, in an important voting rights case.
WASHINGTON - Yesterday, a federal district court ruled in favor of the Terrebonne Parish NAACP and four Black voters, represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), the law firm of Cozen O'Connor, and longtime Louisiana civil rights attorney, Ronald L. Wilson, in an important voting rights case.
Following an eight-day bench trial earlier this year, the court determined that Louisiana's use of at-large voting for electing five members to the 32nd Judicial District Court (32nd JDC), the state court encompassing Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the U.S. Constitution. This decision paves the way for an end to a nearly 50-year old discriminatory voting practice and for Black voters to have the equal opportunity--for the first time since that state court was created in 1968--to elect their preferred judicial candidates.
In a detailed and meticulous 91-page-ruling, the federal district court "found a strong case of vote dilution." The court observed that "no [B]lack candidate who has faced opposition in Terrebonne has been elected to an at-large position, and [B]lack candidates have received incredibly minimal support from white voters, a pattern which has been consistent over the course of more than twenty years." Further, the court determined that "a motivating purpose in maintaining the at-large electoral scheme for the 32nd JDC was to limit the opportunity of [B]lack individuals to participate meaningfully and effectively in the political process to elect judges of their choice." The court noted "the persistent advocacy of the [B]lack community [for a majority-Black single-member district], and the equally persistent opposition to this advocacy which was partially based on justifications that do not seem completely legitimate."
Plaintiffs filed the lawsuit to force the creation of a majority-Black single-member district that will provide them and other Black voters in Terrebonne with a chance to have a say-so as to who serves them on the 32nd JDC. Many other state courts in Louisiana's judicial system, including its highest court, the Louisiana Supreme Court, use district-based voting like the remedy Plaintiffs seek in this case. Indeed, the court recognized in its ruling that outside of New Orleans, a majority-Black city, "a majority of the JDC judges elected in Louisiana are elected by subdistrict." The court noted that in 1996, a task force created by the Louisiana Supreme Court had found that district-based voting was "the only feasible means of ensuring diversity" in the state court system.
"Having a voice in the political process is a central tenet of our democracy," said LDF Senior Counsel Leah Aden, lead counsel in this case. "This important decision correctly recognizes the intentionally discriminatory nature of the at-large voting scheme for the 32nd JDC in Terrebonne and ensures that every vote matters."
"For decades, Black voters and others have pressed to change the voting method for the 32nd JDC in Terrebonne," said Ronald Wilson. "Black voters looked to federal court to do what the Louisiana Legislature failed to do on six different occasions between 1997 and 2011 when it did not support proposals that would provide Black voters in Terrebonne with fair electoral opportunity."
"The most glaring example of how at-large voting has enshrined discrimination in Terrebonne is the fact that this voting method enabled a white judge to be reelected without opposition to the 32nd JDC in 2008 after the Louisiana Supreme Court suspended him in 2004 for wearing blackface, an orange prison jumpsuit, and handcuffs as a Halloween costume," said Michael de Leeuw of Cozen O'Connor.
"Today's victory is an example of what can be accomplished when Black communities in partnership with civil rights groups like LDF and other advocates defend our country's core democratic values," said Victorien Wu, Assistant Counsel at LDF. "On behalf of Black communities, LDF will continue to challenge voting practices that serve to weaken, discourage, or deny people of their fundamental right to vote."
Following this liability determination, plaintiffs will request that the court adopt a full and complete remedy to the vote dilution that Black voters have endured in elections for the 32nd JDC.
Read the full ruling.
To learn more about this case, visit our case page.
Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation's first civil and human rights law organization and has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957--although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
Judge Rossie Alston Jr. ruled the plaintiffs had failed to prove the groups provided "ongoing, continuous, systematic, and material support for Hamas and its affiliates."
A federal judge appointed in 2019 by US President Donald Trump has dismissed a lawsuit filed against pro-Palestinian organizations that alleged they were fronts for the terrorist organization Hamas.
In a ruling issued on Friday, Judge Rossie Alston Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found that the plaintiffs who filed the case against the pro-Palestine groups had not sufficiently demonstrated a clear link between the groups and Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The plaintiffs in the case—consisting of seven Americans and two Israelis—were all victims of the Hamas attack that killed an estimated 1,200 people, including more than 700 Israeli civilians.
They alleged that the pro-Palestinian groups—including National Students for Justice in Palestine, WESPAC Foundation, and Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation—provided material support to Hamas that directly led to injuries they suffered as a result of the October 7 attack.
This alleged support for Hamas, the plaintiffs argued, violated both the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Alien Tort Statute.
However, after examining all the evidence presented by the plaintiffs, Alston found they had not proven their claim that the organizations in question provide "ongoing, continuous, systematic, and material support for Hamas and its affiliates."
Specifically, Alston said that the claims made by the plaintiffs "are all very general and conclusory and do not specifically relate to the injuries" that they suffered in the Hamas attack.
"Although plaintiffs conclude that defendants have aided and abetted Hamas by providing it with 'material support despite knowledge of Hamas' terrorist activity both before, during, and after its October 7 terrorist attack,' plaintiffs do not allege that any planning, preparation, funding, or execution of the October 7, 2023 attack or any violations of international law by Hamas occurred in the United States," Alston emphasized. "None of the direct attackers are alleged to be citizens of the United States."
Alston was unconvinced by the plaintiffs' claims that the pro-Palestinian organizations "act as Hamas' public relations division, recruiting domestic foot soldiers to disseminate Hamas’s propaganda," and he similarly dismissed them as "vague and conclusory."
He then said that the plaintiffs did not establish that these "public relations" activities purportedly done on behalf of Hamas had "aided and abetted Hamas in carrying out the specific October 7, 2023 attack (or subsequent or continuing Hamas violations) that caused the Israeli Plaintiffs' injuries."
Alston concluded by dismissing the plaintiffs' case without prejudice, meaning they are free to file an amended lawsuit against the plaintiffs within 30 days of the judge's ruling.
"Putin got one hell of a photo op out of Trump," wrote one critic.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday morning tried to put his best spin on a Friday summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin that yielded neither a cease-fire agreement nor a comprehensive peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Writing on his Truth Social page, the president took a victory lap over the summit despite coming home completely empty-handed when he flew back from Alaska on Friday night.
"A great and very successful day in Alaska!" Trump began. "The meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia went very well, as did a late night phone call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and various European Leaders, including the highly respected Secretary General of NATO."
Trump then pivoted to saying that he was fine with not obtaining a cease-fire agreement, even though he said just days before that he'd impose "severe consequences" on Russia if it did not agree to one.
"It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Cease-fire Agreement, which often times do not hold up," Trump said. "President Zelenskyy will be coming to DC, the Oval Office, on Monday afternoon. If all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin. Potentially, millions of people's lives will be saved."
While Trump did his best to put a happy face on the summit, many critics contended it was nothing short of a debacle for the US president.
Writing in The New Yorker, Susan Glasser argued that the entire summit with Putin was a "self-own of embarrassing proportions," given that he literally rolled out the red carpet for his Russian counterpart and did not achieve any success in bringing the war to a close.
"Putin got one hell of a photo op out of Trump, and still more time on the clock to prosecute his war against the 'brotherly' Ukrainian people, as he had the chutzpah to call them during his remarks in Alaska," she wrote. "The most enduring images from Anchorage, it seems, will be its grotesque displays of bonhomie between the dictator and his longtime American admirer."
She also noted that Trump appeared to shift the entire burden of ending the war onto Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and he even said after the Putin summit that "it's really up to President Zelenskyy to get it done."
This led Glasser to comment that "if there's one unwavering Law of Trump, this is it: Whatever happens, it is never, ever, his fault."
Glasser wasn't the only critic to offer a scathing assessment of the summit. The Economist blasted Trump in an editorial about the meeting, which it labeled a "gift" to Putin. The magazine also contrasted the way that Trump treated Putin during his visit to American soil with the way that he treated Zelenskyy during an Oval Office meeting earlier this year.
"The honors for Mr. Putin were in sharp contrast to the public humiliation that Mr. Trump and his advisers inflicted on Mr. Zelenskyy during his first visit to the White House earlier this year," they wrote. "Since then relations with Ukraine have improved, but Mr. Trump has often been quick to blame it for being invaded; and he has proved strangely indulgent with Mr. Putin."
Michael McFaul, an American ambassador to Russia under former President Barack Obama, was struck by just how much effort went into holding a summit that accomplished nothing.
"Summits usually have deliverables," he told The Atlantic. "This meeting had none... I hope that they made some progress towards next steps in the peace process. But there is no evidence of that yet."
Mamdani won the House minority leader's district by double digits in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, prompting one critic to ask, "Do those voters not matter?"
Zohran Mamdani is the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, but Democratic U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries—whose district Mamdani won by double digits—is still refusing to endorse him, "blue-no-matter-who" mantra be damned.
Criticism of Jeffries (D-N.Y.) mounted Friday after he sidestepped questions about whether he agreed with the democratic socialist Mamdani's proposed policies—including a rent freeze, universal public transportation, and free supermarkets—during an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" earlier this week.
"He's going to have to demonstrate to a broader electorate—including in many of the neighborhoods that I represent in Brooklyn—that his ideas can actually be put into reality," Jeffries said in comments that drew praise from scandal-ridden incumbent Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who opted to run independently. Another Democrat, disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is also running on his own.
"Shit like this does more to undermine faith in the institution of the Democratic Party than anything Mamdani might ever say or do," Amanda Litman, co-founder and executive director of Run For Something—a political action group that recruits young, diverse progressives to run for down-ballot offices—said on social media in response to Jeffries' refusal to endorse Mamdani.
"He won the primary! Handily!!" Litman added. "Does that electorate not count? Do those voters not matter?"
Writer and professor Roxane Gay noted on Bluesky that "Jeffries is an establishment Democrat. He will always work for the establishment. He is not a disruptor or innovator or individual thinker. Within that framework, his gutless behavior toward Mamdani or any progressive candidate makes a lot of sense."
City College of New York professor Angus Johnston said on the social network Bluesky that "even if Jeffries does eventually endorse Mamdani, the only response available to Mamdani next year if someone asks him whether he's endorsing Jeffries is three seconds of incredulous laughter."
Jeffries has repeatedly refused to endorse Mamdani, a staunch supporter of Palestinian liberation and vocal opponent of Israel's genocidal annihilation of Gaza. The minority leader—whose all-time top campaign donor is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, according to AIPAC Tracker—has especially criticized Mamdani's use of the phrase "globalize the intifada," a call for universal justice and liberation.
Mamdani's stance doesn't seem to have harmed his support among New York's Jewish voters, who according to recent polling prefer him over any other mayoral candidate by a double-digit margin.