Virginia Leader Dismisses Plan to Undo Court Ruling While Dems Try A Hail Mary at SCOTUS

As Virginia Democrats take their map fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D) flatly rejects Democrats’ thoughts on how to overturn the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision striking down a recently passed redistricting amendment.

Surovell said similar things Monday to a local reporter and to The New Republic: that there wasn’t enough time to redraw the maps before the state’s August primary, and that forcing Supreme Court justices into early retirement — the most ambitious part of the reported plan — is too radical.

(I add an asterisk to all of this; if the power of the national Democratic Party falls on Surovell, he might give in. If he resists, he might bring down Bill Ferguson.)

The timing argument is pretty hard to swallow, considering Louisiana’s suspension of primaries (and rejection of 42,000 votes) and Alabama and South Carolina’s attempts to do the same.

As for the “too extreme” aspect: if Democrats refuse to rig the system in the states they control, even if Southern states triumphantly wipe black representatives off the map, what are voters supposed to think? That unilateral respect for norms is more important than protecting minority voters? That leaving a conservative court in charge of a blue state is more of a priority than depriving President Trump of a winning trio in his last two years? This righteousness trumps victory?

Democrats cannot both sound the alarm about the existential threat to democracy and refuse to use the power at their disposal to reverse the authoritarian drift. Virginia will be a crucial early data point in determining whether Democrats have the courage to save democracy if they take control in 2028.

TPM’s Kate Riga and Josh Marshall Join Heather Cox Richardson’s American Conversations

The Supreme Court authorizes access to the abortion pill for a few days

Judge Samuel Alito extended his administrative stay Monday evening following a ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that would reimpose in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone, preventing providers from mailing it.

Red states – including Louisiana, the plaintiff in the case – are targeting mifepristone mailed from Dobbswhen it became the primary way for women living in barren deserts to obtain care.

The new expiration date for the stay of the 5th Circuit’s ruling is Thursday at 5 p.m. ET.

This is a fairly short extension and I wonder if it would allow the justices to write their dissenting opinion. This all happens on the shadow folder, so no one needs to write at all. But if conservatives reimpose restrictions while the case plays out, liberals will likely have a say.

AOC for president?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was asked the question at an event in Chicago with Obama World’s David Axelrod: What is your response to people who want you to run for president or Senate?

His response caught fire online (starts around 1:05 in this CSPAN recording):

“The funny thing is they assume my ambition is positional. They assume my ambition is a title or a seat. And my ambition is much bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country.

Presidents come and go. Seats in the Senate, in the House, elected officials come and go. But single-payer health care is forever, a living wage is forever, workers’ rights are forever, women’s rights, all of that. A more subtle point to your question is that when you’re not attached, right, when you haven’t fantasized about being this or that since you were seven, it’s extremely liberating because I can wake up every day and say, “How am I going to live in the present moment?” And conditions change radically at any time.

…The good thing is, no billionaire can stop this. No concentrated level of power, no elite, no gatekeeper can stop me from doing all I can, from waking up every day in service to the working class. And I can do it in the House, I can do it in the Senate, I can do it from the White House, I can do it from a cabin in upstate New York, chopping wood and being exhausted, I can do it from anywhere.

In case you missed it

Our liveblog on the fallout from Callais continues: Democrats rally around Virginia as red states rush to eliminate black votes

Morning memo: What Democrats must now overcome to win the House

Josh Marshall: Groundhog Day in the US-Iran War

Yesterday’s most read story

There’s an Obvious Reason Republican Justices Seem So Nervous – Madiba K. Dennie

What we read

“Bill Cassidy sold his soul to the devil and got nothing in return” – Gary Sernovitz, New York Times

Democrat makes Republicans nervous in Iowa — Julie Bosman, New York Times

“Hondurasgate,” the alleged US and Israeli interference plot to destabilize Mexico and other progressive governments — Andrés Rodríguez, El País

Your use of AI is breaking my brain – Jason Koebler, 404 Media