RFK Jr. reportedly plans to fire preventive care task force
Why it matters: About 100 million people get no-cost cancer screenings, counseling and other services under the ACA. But some conservatives have urged Kennedy to replace the current members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, saying they push race and gender ideology on doctors.
Kennedy postponed a meeting of the panel scheduled for earlier this month amid speculation in the public health community that he could fire its members.
The latest: Kennedy plans to dismiss all the members of the advisory panel because he views them as too "woke," the Wall Street Journal first reported, quoting people familiar with the matter.
The Supreme Court last month upheld the structure of the task force in a case surrounding coverage of HIV prevention drugs, ruling that the long-standing panel of volunteer scientists are accountable to the Health and Human Services secretary, who has the power to remove and replace members at will.
The case stemmed from a 2020 lawsuit by Christian-owned companies over a task force recommendation requiring them to cover no-cost HIV drugs in their employer-sponsored insurance.
Kennedy has already fired all members of the panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on immunization recommendations, removing all 17 of its members and replacing them with handpicked successors.
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Fox News
36 minutes ago
- Fox News
Trump's tariff power grab barrels toward Supreme Court
A federal court fight over President Donald Trump's authority to unilaterally impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court for review, legal experts told Fox News Digital, in a case that has already proved to be a pivotal test of executive branch authority. At issue in the case is Trump's ability to use a 1977 emergency law to unilaterally slap steep import duties on a long list of countries doing business with the U.S. In interviews with Fox News Digital, longtime trade lawyers and lawyers who argued on behalf of plaintiffs in court last week said they expect the ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a matter of "weeks," or sometime in August or September – in line with the court's agreement to hear the case on an "expedited" basis. The fast-track timeline reflects the important question before the court: whether Trump exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) when he launched his sweeping "Liberation Day" tariffs. Importantly, that timing would still allow the Supreme Court to add the case to their docket for the 2025-2026 term, which begins in early October. That could allow them to rule on the matter as early as the end of the year. Both Trump administration officials and lawyers for the plaintiffs said they plan to appeal the case to the Supreme Court if the lower court does not rule in their favor. And given the questions at the heart of the case, it is widely expected that the high court will take up the case for review. In the meantime, the impact of Trump's tariffs remains to be seen. Legal experts and trade analysts alike said last week's hearing is unlikely to forestall the broader market uncertainty created by Trump's tariffs, which remain in force after the appeals court agreed to stay a lower court decision from the U.S. Court of International Trade. Judges on the three-judge CIT panel in May blocked Trump's use of IEEPA to stand up his tariffs, ruling unanimously that he did not have "unbounded authority" to impose tariffs under that law. Thursday's argument gave little indication as to how the appeals court would rule, plaintiffs and longtime trade attorneys told Fox News Digital, citing the tough questions that the 11 judges on the panel posed for both parties. Dan Pickard, an attorney specializing in international trade and national security issues at the firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, said the oral arguments Thursday did not seem indicative of how the 11-judge panel might rule. "I don't know if I walked out of that hearing thinking that either the government is going to prevail, or that this is dead on arrival," Pickard told Fox News Digital. "I think it was more mixed." Lawyers for the plaintiffs echoed that assessment – a reflection of the 11 judges on the appeals bench, who had fewer chances to speak up or question the government or plaintiffs during the 45 minutes each had to present their case. "I want to be very clear that I'm not in any way, shape or form, predicting what the Federal Circuit will do – I leave that for them," one lawyer for the plaintiffs told reporters after court, adding that the judges, in his view, posed "really tough questions" for both parties. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who helped represent the 12 states suing over the plan, told Fox News Digital they are "optimistic" that, based on the oral arguments, they would see at least a partial win in the case, though he also stressed the ruling and the time frame is fraught with uncertainty. In the interim, the White House forged ahead with enacting Trump's tariffs as planned. Pickard, who has argued many cases before the Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, noted that the oral arguments are not necessarily the best barometer for gauging the court's next steps – something lawyers for the plaintiffs also stressed after the hearing. Even if the high court blocks the Trump administration from using IEEPA, they have a range of other trade tools at their disposal, trade lawyers told Fox News. The Trump administration "has had more of a focus on trade issues than pretty much any other administration in my professional life," Pickard said. "And let's assume, even for the sake of the argument, just hypothetically, that the Supreme Court says this use of IEEPA exceeded your statutory authority. The Trump administration is not going to say, like, 'All right, well, we're done. I guess we're just going to abandon any trade policy.' "There are going to be additional [trade] tools that had been in the toolbox for long that can be taken out and dusted off," he said. "There are plenty of other legal authorities for the president. "I don't think we're seeing an end to these issues anytime soon – this is going to continue to be battled out in the courts for a while." Both Pickard and Rayfield told Fox News Digital in separate interviews that they expect the appeals court to rule within weeks, not days. The hearing came after Trump on April 2 announced a 10% baseline tariff on all countries, along with higher, reciprocal tariffs targeting select nations, including China. The measures, he said, were aimed at addressing trade imbalances, reducing deficits with key trading partners, and boosting domestic manufacturing and production. Ahead of last week's oral arguments, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said lawyers for the administration would continue to defend the president's trade agenda in court. Justice Department attorneys "are going to court to defend [Trump's] tariffs," she said, describing them as "transforming the global economy, protecting our national security and addressing the consequences of our exploding trade deficit." "We will continue to defend the president," she vowed.
an hour ago
Texas dispute highlights nation's long history of partisan gerrymandering. Is it legal?
When Democratic lawmakers fled Texas to try to prevent the Republican-led Legislature from redrawing the state's congressional districts, it marked the latest episode in a long national history of gerrymandering. The word 'gerrymander" was coined in America more than 200 years ago as an unflattering means of describing political manipulation in legislative map-making. The word has stood the test of time, in part, because American politics has remained fiercely competitive. In many states, like Texas, the state legislature is responsible for drawing congressional districts, subject to the approval or veto of the governor. District maps must be redrawn every 10 years, after each census, to balance the population in districts. But in some states, nothing prevents legislatures from conducting redistricting more often. In an effort to limit gerrymandering, some states have entrusted redistricting to special commissions composed of citizens or bipartisan panels of politicians. Democratic officials in some states with commissions are now talking of trying to sidestep them to counter Republican redistricting in Texas. If a political party controls both the legislature and governor's office — or has such a large legislative majority that it can override vetoes — it can effectively draw districts to its advantage. One common method of gerrymandering is for a majority party to draw maps that pack voters who support the opposing party into a few districts, thus allowing the majority party to win a greater number of surrounding districts. Another common method is for the majority party to dilute the power of an opposing party's voters by spreading them among multiple districts. The term dates to 1812, when Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a bill redrawing state Senate districts to benefit the Democratic-Republican Party. Some thought an oddly shaped district looked like a salamander. A newspaper illustration dubbed it 'The Gerry-mander' — a term that later came to describe any district drawn for political advantage. Gerry lost re-election as governor in 1812 but won election that same year as vice president with President James Madison. Not under the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court, in a 2019 case originating from North Carolina, ruled that federal courts have no authority to decide whether partisan gerrymandering goes too far. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: 'The Constitution supplies no objective measure for assessing whether a districting map treats a political party fairly.' The Supreme Court noted that partisan gerrymandering claims could continue to be decided in state courts under their own constitutions and laws. But some state courts, including North Carolina's highest court, have ruled that they also have no authority to decide partisan gerrymandering claims. Yes. Though it's difficult to challenge legislative districts on political grounds, the Supreme Court has upheld challenges on racial grounds. In a 2023 case from Alabama, the high court said the congressional districts drawn by the state's Republican-led Legislature likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting strength of Black residents. The court let a similar claim proceed in Louisiana. Both states subsequently redrew their districts. Statisticians and political scientists have developed a variety of ways to try to quantify the partisan advantage that may be attributable to gerrymandering. Republicans, who control redistricting in more states than Democrats, used the 2010 census data to create a strong gerrymander. An Associated Press analysis of that decade's redistricting found that Republicans enjoyed a greater political advantage in more states than either party had in the past 50 years. But Democrats responded to match Republican gerrymandering after the 2020 census. The adoption of redistricting commissions also limited gerrymandering in some states. An AP analysis of the 2022 elections — the first under new maps — found that Republicans won just one more U.S. House seat than would have been expected based on the average share of the vote they received nationwide. That was one of the most politically balanced outcomes in years.
Vox
an hour ago
- Vox
The Supreme Court just revealed its plan to make gerrymandering even worse
is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court. One of the biggest mysteries that has emerged from the Trump-era Supreme Court is the 2023 decision in Allen v. Milligan. In Milligan, two of the Republican justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh — voted with the Court's Democratic minority to strike down Alabama's racially gerrymandered congressional maps, ordering the state to redraw those maps to include an additional district with a Black majority. SCOTUS, Explained Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. As Roberts emphasized in his opinion for the Court in Milligan, a lower court that also struck down these maps 'faithfully applied our precedents.' But the Roberts Court frequently overrules or ignores precedents that interpret the Voting Rights Act — the federal law at issue in Milligan — to do more than block the most egregious forms of Jim Crow-like voter suppression. And the Court's Republican majority is normally hostile to lawsuits challenging gerrymanders of any kind. Most notably, in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), the Republican justices held that federal courts may not hear suits challenging partisan gerrymanders. Among other things, Rucho enables tactics like Texas Republicans' current plans to redraw that state's congressional maps to maximize GOP power in Congress. So why did two Republican justices break with their previous skepticism of gerrymandering suits in the Milligan case? A new order that the Supreme Court handed down Friday evening appears to answer that question. The new order, in a case known as Louisiana v. Callais, suggests that the Court's decision in Milligan was merely a minor detour, and that Roberts and Kavanaugh's votes in Milligan were largely driven by unwise legal decisions by Alabama's lawyers. The legal issues in the Callais case are virtually identical to the ones presented in Milligan, but the Court's new order indicates it is likely to use Callais to strike down the Voting Rights Act's safeguards against gerrymandering altogether. The Callais order, in other words, doesn't simply suggest that Milligan was a one-off decision that is unlikely to be repeated. It also suggests that the Court's Republican majority will resume its laissez-faire approach to gerrymandering, just as the redistricting wars appear to be heating up. A brief history of the Supreme Court's approach to gerrymandering Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of lawsuits alleging that a legislative map is illegally gerrymandered. Partisan gerrymandering suits claim that a map was drawn to maximize one major political party's power at the expense of the other. Racial gerrymandering suits, meanwhile, allege that a state's legislative maps improperly dilute the voting power of voters of a particular race. Prior to Rucho, the Court imposed minimal — but not entirely nonexistent — limits on partisan gerrymandering. It has historically been more aggressive in policing racial gerrymanders. The Supreme Court held in Davis v. Bandemer (1986) that federal courts may hear claims alleging that a state's maps are so egregiously partisan that they amount to unconstitutional discrimination. The idea is that maps that intentionally inflate Democratic voters' power, while minimizing Republican voters' power (or vice-versa) violate the Constitution's guarantee that all voters should have an equal say in elections. Notably, however, no five justices agreed to a single legal standard that would allow courts to determine which maps are illegal partisan gerrymanders in Davis. Nor did a majority of the Court set such a standard in later lawsuits challenging partisan gerrymanders. In Rucho, the Republican justices essentially announced that the Court would give up its quest to find such a standard. A few years later, in Alexander v. NAACP (2024), those justices went even further, declaring that 'as far as the Federal Constitution is concerned, a legislature may pursue partisan ends when it engages in redistricting.' Though Davis's limits on partisan gerrymandering were always fuzzy, it is likely that this ambiguity deterred at least some states from enacting extreme gerrymanders that might have caused the courts to intervene. At the very least, Rucho changed how states litigate gerrymandering suits. Before Rucho, states accused of gerrymandering would often try to offer another explanation for why their maps benefited one party or the other. Now, they will openly state in their briefs that they drew maps for partisan reasons — confident that federal judges will do nothing, despite these confessions. Historically, however, the Court has imposed more concrete limits on racial gerrymanders. In Milligan, for example, the Court struck down Alabama congressional maps that would have given Black voters a majority in just one of the state's seven districts (or 14 percent of the districts), despite the fact that Black people make up about 27 percent of the state's population. The Court ordered the state to draw new maps with two Black-majority districts. The linchpin of Milligan and similar cases is the Court's decision in Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), which laid out the rules governing when an alleged racial gerrymander violates the Voting Rights Act (which broadly prohibits race discrimination in elections). The framework laid out in Gingles is notoriously complicated, but it turns on whether voters in a particular state vote in racially cohesive blocs. Thus, for example, in a state where the white majority supports Republicans nearly all of the time, while the Black minority supports Democrats nearly all of the time, Gingles sometimes requires courts to redraw the state's maps to ensure that the Black minority is adequately represented. This is because, in such a state, the white majority can wield its near-unanimous support for Republicans to cut Black voters (and Democrats) out of power altogether. In a different state, where both Black and white voters sometimes vote for either party, Gingles tells courts to stay out of redistricting. Black voters, after all, are United States citizens who have as much of a right to choose their leaders as anyone else. So, if they choose to be represented by a white Republican in a free and fair election, that's their choice and the courts should honor it. Because Gingles only kicks in when an electorate's racial demographics closely match its partisan voting patterns, it places some practical limits on both partisan and racial gerrymandering. In Milligan, for example, Alabama was not able to draw maps that maximized Republican voting power because doing so required the state to dilute Black voting power. So, even though Rucho prevents lawsuits that challenge partisan gerrymandering directly, Gingles sometimes allows suits which target it indirectly by alleging that a partisan gerrymander is also an impermissible racial gerrymander. But now the Court is signaling that it is likely to overrule Gingles and abolish suits alleging that racial gerrymanders violate the Voting Rights Act altogether. So what's the deal with the Court's new order in Callais? The Callais case is virtually identical to Milligan — indeed, the cases are so similar that Louisiana said in a brief to the justices that Callais 'presents the same question' as the Alabama redistricting case. Before the Callais case reached the justices, a lower court determined that Louisiana's congressional maps violate Gingles, and ordered the state to draw an additional Black-majority district. Nevertheless, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Callais last March, all six of the Republican justices appeared to disagree with this lower court's decision — although the lower court's decision merely applied the same legal rules that the Supreme Court applied two years earlier in Milligan. Then, at the end of June, the Court issued a brief order announcing that it would hold an unusual second oral argument in Callais, and that it would seek additional briefing from the parties in this case. On Friday, the Court issued a new order laying out what these parties should address in those briefs. Those briefs should examine whether the lower court order requiring Louisiana to draw an additional Black-majority district 'violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.' The justices, in other words, want briefing on whether Gingles — and the Voting Rights Act's safeguards against racial gerrymandering more broadly — are unconstitutional. This suggestion that the Voting Rights Act may be unconstitutional — or, at least, that it violates the Republican justices' vision of the Constitution — should not surprise anyone who has followed the Court's voting rights cases. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Republican justices neutralized a different provision of the Voting Rights Act, which required states with a history of racist election practices to 'preclear' new election laws with federal officials before they take effect. The Court's Republican majority labeled this provision 'strong medicine' that could be justified to combat the kind of widespread racial voting discrimination that existed during Jim Crow. But they argued that the United States was not racist enough in 2013 to justify letting preclearance remain in place. 'There is no denying,' Roberts wrote for the Court in Shelby County, 'that the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions.' Although Kavanaugh joined nearly all of the majority opinion in Milligan, he also wrote a separate opinion indicating that he wanted to extend Shelby County to gerrymandering cases in a future ruling. 'Even if Congress in 1982 could constitutionally authorize race-based redistricting under [the Voting Rights Act] for some period of time,' Kavanaugh wrote, 'the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.' Gingles also suggests that Voting Rights Act suits challenging racial gerrymanders should eventually cease to exist. If the electorate ceases to be racially polarized — something that appears to be slowly happening — then Gingles plaintiffs will no longer be able to win cases, and the federal judiciary's role in redistricting will diminish. But Kavanaugh seems to be impatient to end these suits while many states remain racially polarized. Read in the context of Kavanaugh's Milligan opinion, in other words, the new Callais order suggests that a majority of the justices have decided the Voting Rights Act's safeguards against racial gerrymandering have reached their expiration date, and they are looking for arguments to justify striking them down. It now looks like Milligan was Gingles's last gasp. The Republican justices remain hostile both to the Voting Rights Act and toward gerrymandering suits more broadly. And they appear very likely to use Callais to remove one of the few remaining safeguards against gerrymanders.
