What happened
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday allowed California to use its newly redrawn congressional map in this year’s midterm elections. There were no dissents in the brief emergency docket order, which rejected a “last-ditch plea from state Republicans and the Trump administration” to reject the voter-approved redistricting plan, The Associated Press said. 

Who said what
California’s new map is “designed to flip up to five seats now held by Republicans, part of a tit-for-tat nationwide redistricting battle spurred by President Donald Trump,” the AP said. Yesterday’s ruling came two months after the Supreme Court “cleared the way for the Texas map” that “kicked off” the “gerrymandering fight,” NPR said. With both maps upheld, “the end result is that the two states may essentially cancel out each other’s partisan gains.”

“Donald Trump said he was ‘entitled’ to five more congressional seats in Texas,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said on social media. “He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he’ll lose again in November.”

What next?
Legal battles are “still playing out over other new congressional maps,” NPR said. GOP-led Florida and Democratic-led Maryland have both taken steps to “join the list of states that have redistricted before the midterms.” Republicans are challenging new court-ordered Democratic-leaning districts in New York and Utah, and Virginia’s top court yesterday agreed to adjudicate a challenge to that state’s proposed Democratic gerrymander. The California ruling also “served as a reminder” that the Supreme Court has “yet to rule on a broader challenge” to a Voting Rights Act provision that considers race in redistricting, The New York Times said. 

What happened
Repercussions from the Justice Department’s recent dump of millions of Jeffrey Epstein files continue to mount outside the U.S., and yesterday they also prompted the ouster of Brad Karp as chair of Paul Weiss, one of America’s top corporate law firms. In Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer faced challenges to his leadership from both his Labour Party and the opposition Conservatives over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the U.S. last year. London’s Metropolitan Police on Tuesday opened a criminal inquiry into files suggesting Mandelson accepted money from Epstein and passed him confidential financial information while serving as a government minister 15 years ago. 

Who said what
Karp said he was stepping down as chair, though not leaving Paul Weiss, after “recent reporting” had “placed a focus on me that is not in the best interests of the firm.” In one newly released email, Karp asked Epstein to help get his son a job on a Woody Allen film. After a July 2015 dinner at Epstein’s New York mansion, Karp thanked his “extraordinary host” for “an evening I’ll never forget,” adding, “You’re amazing.” In 2019, Epstein asked Steve Bannon to help him secure Karp a membership at the exclusive Augusta National Golf Club.

Even before these “series of embarrassing emails” came out, Karp “faced intense scrutiny” for making Paul Weiss the first law firm to reach a deal with President Donald Trump to avoid sanctions, The New York Times. The deal was “widely seen” as “capitulation” to extortive demands, and “criticism of his decision only grew” after the “handful of law firms” that challenged Trump’s executive order “easily prevailed in court.”

What next?
Trump, who appears more than 6,000 times in the Epstein files, absolved himself on Tuesday and told reporters it was “time now for the country to maybe get on to something else.”