Last February, a federal court judge ruled that Louisiana’s legislative maps violate the Voting Rights Act and must be redrawn. The state of Louisiana appealed that decision, and its lawyers argued on Tuesday that a key part of the Act is unconstitutional. The Louisiana Illuminator’s Piper Hutchinson reports on the move and the damaging precedent it is trying to set:
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits voting laws or procedures that purposefully discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group. “Conditions that originally justified those measures no longer apply to Louisiana,” Deputy Solicitor General Morgan Brungard argued. “We ask the court to reverse and hold Section 2 unconstitutional as it applies to Louisiana.” … For over a decade, conservative attorneys and officials have sought to whittle down the Voting Rights Act. Nairne is one vehicle politicians have sought to use as a test case against Section 2.
The maps that must be redrawn were used to elect members of the Legislature to four-year terms ending in 2027. Hutchinson explains how the makeup of the Legislature could change if the federal court ruling stands.
Plaintiffs have said the state should add six in the Louisiana House and three in the Senate. Currently, 28 out of 105 House districts are majority Black, as are 11 of 39 Senate districts. State Rep. Edmond Jordan, D-Baton Rouge, who is Black, said he intends to file a bill with a new redistricting plan in the upcoming legislative session, which begins April 14.
Medicaid per-capita cap would harm millions
Conservative leaders are pushing to impose a per-capita cap for federal Medicaid spending or reconfigure the federal-state entitlement program into a block grant. A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains the many drawbacks of these proposals:
These proposals would dramatically change Medicaid’s funding structure, deeply cut federal funding, and shift costs and financial risks to states. Faced with large and growing reductions in federal funding, states would cut eligibility and benefits, leaving millions of people without health coverage and access to needed care.
Nearly all states would have exceeded a per-capita cap in at least one year from 2019 through 2022, according to the report. Louisiana would have exceeded the cap by 15% in 2019.
The benefits of universal welfare programs
Far too many families do not receive all the social welfare benefits they are eligible for due to paperwork or bureaucratic issues. The root of this shortchanging stems from means testing, such as income thresholds. Vox’s Abdallah Fayyad explains why means testing can sabotage policy goals:
“Though they’re usually framed as ways of curbing government spending, means-tested benefits are often more expensive to provide, on average, than universal benefits, simply because of the administrative support needed to vet and process applicants,” my colleague Li Zhou wrote in 2021. More than that, means testing reduces how effective antipoverty programs can be because a lot of people miss out on benefits. As Zhou points out, figuring out who qualifies for welfare takes a lot of work, both from the government and potential recipients who have to fill out onerous applications.
Fayyad explains why universal programs are better options:
But universal programs are often the better choice because of one very simple fact: They are generally much easier and less expensive to administer. Two examples of this are some of the most popular social programs in the country: Social Security and Medicare. Universal programs might also create less division among taxpayers as to how their money ought to be spent. A lot of opposition to welfare programs comes from the fact that some people simply don’t want to pay for programs they don’t directly benefit from, so eliminating that as a factor can create more support for a given program.
Scheming to keep rental prices high
Six major landlords have worked together to keep rental prices high, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the U.S. Justice Department. The typical American renter is “rent burdened,” meaning they must pay at least 30% of their monthly income to afford an average rent. The AP’s Jesse Bedayn explains how devoting such a large portion of one’s monthly income to housing leaves people struggling to afford basic necessities:
That means exhausting, day-to-day decisions between medications, groceries, school supplies and rent. It means eviction notices and protracted court cases in which children face the highest eviction rates, with 1.5 million evicted each year, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. While the housing crisis has been assigned several causes, including a slump in homes built over the last decade, the Justice Department’s lawsuit claims major landlords are playing a part.
Bedayn explains how the major landlords allegedly coordinated to keep rental prices high:
The lawsuit accuses the landlords of sharing sensitive data on rents and occupancy with competing firms via email, phone calls or in groups. The information shared allegedly included renewal rates, how often they accept an algorithm’s price recommendation, the use of concessions such as offering one month free, and even their approach to pricing for the next quarter.
Number of the Day
$886 billion – Amount of tax dollars levied by local governments each year. This equates to 1 in 7 tax dollars in the United States. (Source: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)