Chicken Fried Politics: “With candidate qualifying already underway for this year’s midterm election, a panel of federal judges have thrown a chunk of concrete into Alabama’s political pond, telling state legislators that they will have to recraft the state’s US House map to add a second majority-black district. Unless a higher court intervenes, the January…

Off the Kuff: “The lack of Latinos on the City Council undermines the legitimacy of Houston’s government, experts say, and is something that a prominent Hispanic organization is pushing to change with a lawsuit and ballot proposition. The League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the largest Hispanic civil rights organizations in the country,…

Political Wire: “A group of lawyers is working to disqualify from the ballot a right-wing House Republican who cheered on the Jan. 6 rioters unless he can prove he is not an ‘insurrectionist,’ disqualified by the Constitution from holding office, in a case with implications for other officeholders and potentially former President Donald Trump,” the New…

WaPo: “The Atlanta area prosecutor weighing whether former president Donald Trump and others committed crimes by trying to pressure Georgia election officials has been granted a special purpose grand jury to aid in her investigation. Fulton County Superior Court judges on Monday approved the request made last week by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis…

Axios: “U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, who sat at the mountaintop of Nashville Democratic politics for decades and mentored a generation of civic leaders, announced his retirement Tuesday after a bruising redistricting battle. Why it matters: The General Assembly’s plan to split Nashville among three congressional districts would have made him a re-election underdog. His retirement at the end of his current…

WaPo: “The big unknown about Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) as he ran for office last year — apart from the exact size of his vast fortune — was just how red the political newcomer really was behind that easygoing demeanor. One week into his term: mystery solved. Youngkin stormed into Richmond with an assertion of…

North State Journal: “Musician Clay Aiken, who last week announced his intent to run for Congress in the new Triangle-area 6th District, has come under fire from other candidates and influential progressives for his late entry into the race.  Nida Allam, a Durham County commissioner also in the race, seized on a tweet congratulating Aiken…

NY Times: “The top staff investigator on the House committee scrutinizing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has been fired by the state’s new Republican attorney general from his position as the top lawyer for the University of Virginia, from which he was on leave while working on the congressional inquiry. The office of…

North State Journal: “Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and the state’s Attorney General, Democrat Josh Stein, have jointly filed an amicus brief related to two redistricting cases making their way through the courts. The two cases are North Carolina League of Conservation Voters v. Hall and Harper v. Hall. The amicus brief filed with the N.C. Supreme Court raises…

TX Tribune: “Todd Smith, a top political consultant to Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, was indicted Tuesday on felony charges of theft and commercial bribery related to taking money in exchange for state hemp licenses that are doled out through Miller’s office, according to Travis County district attorney José Garza. Smith was arrested in May, accused of taking…