Category: Politics

NEW YORK — Two more members of a Young Republican group chat strewn with racist epithets and hateful jokes stepped down from their jobs Tuesday after POLITICO published an exclusive report on the Telegram exchanges.

Peter Giunta’s time working with New York Assemblymember Mike Reilly “has ended,” the Republican lawmaker said. Giunta served as chair of the New York State Young Republicans when the chat took place. Joseph Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for that group, is no longer an employee of the New York State Unified Court System, a courts spokesperson confirmed.

Another chat member, Vermont state Senator Sam Douglass, faced mounting calls for his resignation as well, including from the state’s Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, and Douglass’ fellow Republican lawmakers, who called his statements “deeply disturbing.”

POLITICO’s in-depth look into how one group of Young Republicans spoke privately was met Tuesday with widespread condemnation in New York, Washington and beyond. The members of the chat — 2,900 pages of which were leaked and reviewed by POLITICO — called Black people monkeys, repeatedly used slurs for gay, Black, Latino and Asian people, and jokingly celebrated Adolf Hitler.

In a bipartisan outcry, members of Congress and other political leaders from around the country said they were appalled by the contents of the group chat. The board of directors of the National Young Republicans said every member of the chat “must immediately resign” their state organization.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor, described the chat as “revolting” and “disgusting.”

“If this report is accurate, every single Republican leader from President Trump on down … ought to condemn these comments swiftly and unequivocally,” Schumer said.

Vice President JD Vance had a different view and broke with Republicans who broadly condemned the comments within the chat.

On X Tuesday night, Vance drew attention to Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general Jay Jones, who texted a colleague about shooting the then-Republican House speaker and wishing harm on his children.

“This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia,” Vance wrote with a screenshot of the text exchange. “I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”

The fallout over the Telegram group chat comes after two others in the slur-laced private exchanges saw their job statuses change before the article even published. William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair at the time of the chat, is “no longer employed” at Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach’s office. Bobby Walker, who was chair of the New York State Young Republicans as of Tuesday, will not be brought onto New York congressional candidate Peter Oberacker’s campaign as originally planned.

Maligno and Douglass did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In separate statements, both Giunta and Walker apologized for the messages they wrote in the chat but questioned whether they had been altered or taken out of context. They also attempted to blame the release of their chat on the New York Young Republican Club, a political group that operates at the city level and which is often at odds with the state group.

“I am so sorry to those offended by the insensitive and inexcusable language found within the more than 28,000 messages of a private group chat that I created during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans,” Giunta said. “These logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to POLITICO by the very same people conspiring against me in what appears to be a highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the New York City Young Republican Club.”

Walker struck a similar tone.

“There is no excuse for the language and tone in messages attributed to me. The language is wrong and hurtful, and I sincerely apologize,” he said. “It’s troubling that private exchanges were obtained and released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm, and the circumstances raise real questions about accuracy and motive but none of that excuses the language. This has been a painful lesson about judgment and trust.”

Wax declined POLITICO’s request for comment.

New York Republican leaders, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt and state party chair Ed Cox, had preemptively denounced the chat as POLITICO reported out the story.

“We are appalled by the vile and inexcusable language revealed in the Politico article published today. Such behavior is disgraceful, unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents,” the National Young Republicans group said Tuesday in a statement posted on X.

New York Democrats piled on after the conversations became public.

“Take them out of the party, take away their official roles, stop using them as campaign advisers. There needs to be consequences. This bullshit has to stop,” Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted an image of POLITICO’s article on Instagram and wrote: “These are sick people. Every single one of these racists and antisemites must be publicly exposed and held accountable.”

Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, quoted from the article — “Monkeys” “Watermelon people” “1488” — and added on X, “But when we say white supremacy is thriving on the right, they call us reactionary… Give me a break. The future of the Republican Party proudly embraces bigotry that belongs in the past, and every American needs to recognize how dangerous that is.”

Rep. Grace Meng, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said in a statement that “their willingness to engage in such vile rhetoric behind closed doors speaks volumes to their character and the tone set by our nation’s leaders.”

POLITICO’s reporting on the thousands of messages shared among a dozen Young Republican club members between January and August also reverberated Tuesday in one of the country’s most contentious congressional battlegrounds.

The Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC shared photos of Giunta and Walker with vulnerable New York GOP Rep. Mike Lawler at local GOP events. And some of Lawler’s Democratic challengers, including Beth Davidson, Cait Conley and Mike Sacks, amplified the connection between the New York Republicans.

“You are the company you keep,” Conley wrote on X.

Lawler, who represents the suburbs north of New York City, disavowed the chat members and called for their resignations.

“The deeply offensive and hateful comments reportedly made in a private chat among members of the New York State Young Republicans are disgusting,” his spokesperson Ciro Riccardi said in a statement. “They should resign from any leadership position immediately and reflect on how far they have strayed from basic human respect and decency.”

Ahead of next year’s midterms, the union- and Democrat-backed Battleground New York PAC ramped up the pressure on the state’s GOP representatives.

“These racist, anti-Semitic, and disgusting texts need to be disavowed, full stop, by New York Republicans,” the group’s spokesperson Andrew Grossman said. “Then, New York Republicans need to come clean about the rot within their party that even led to this moment.”

​Politics

NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n–ga” and “n–guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.

“Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued.

Two members of the chat responded.

“Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,” Joe Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for the New York State Young Republicans, wrote back.

“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committee member, said.

The exchange is part of a trove of Telegram chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than seven months of messages among Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont. The chat offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening. 

Since POLITICO began making inquiries, one member of the group chat is no longer employed at their job and another’s job offer was rescinded. Prominent New York Republicans, including Rep. Elise Stefanik and state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, have denounced the chat. And festering resentments among Young Republicans have now turned into public recriminations, including allegations of character assassination and extortion.

A liberating atmosphere

The 2,900 pages of chats, shared among a dozen millennial and Gen Z Republicans between early January and mid-August, chronicle their campaign to seize control of the national Young Republican organization on a hardline pro-Donald Trump platform. Many of the chat members already work inside government or party politics, and one serves as a state senator.

Together, the messages reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric circulate freely — and where the Trump-era loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders.

“The more the political atmosphere is open and liberating — like it has been with the emergence of Trump and a more right wing GOP even before him — it opens up young people and older people to telling racist jokes, making racist commentaries in private and public,” said Joe Feagin, a Texas A&M sociology professor who has studied racism for the last 60 years. He’s also concerned the words would be applied to public policy. “It’s chilling, of course, because they will act on these views.”

The dynamic of easy racism and casual cruelty played out in often dark, vivid fashion inside the chats, where campaign talk and party gossip blurred into streams of slurs and violent fantasies.

The group chat members spoke freely about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO, the love of Nazis within their party’s right wing and the president’s alleged work to suppress documents related to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex crimes.

“Trumps too busy burning the Epstein files,” Alex Dwyer, the chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, wrote in one instance.

Dwyer and Kaykaty declined to comment. Maligno and Hendrix did not return requests for comment.

But some involved in the chat did respond publicly.

Giunta claimed the release of the chat is part of “a highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the New York City Young Republican Club” — an allusion to a once obscured internecine war that has now spilled into the open.

“These logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to POLITICO by the very same people conspiring against me,” he said. “What’s most disheartening is that, despite my unwavering support of President Trump since 2016, rouge [sic] members of his administration — including Gavin Wax — have participated in this conspiracy to ruin me publicly simply because I challenged them privately.”

Wax, a staffer in Trump’s State Department, formerly led the New York Young Republican Club — a separate, city-based group that is at odds with the state organization, the New York State Young Republicans. He declined to comment.

Despite his allusions to infighting, Giunta still apologized.

“I am so sorry to those offended by the insensitive and inexcusable language found within the more than 28,000 messages of a private group chat that I created during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans,” he said. “While I take complete responsibility, I have had no way of verifying their accuracy and am deeply concerned that the message logs in question may have been deceptively doctored.”

At least one person in the Telegram chat works in the Trump administration: Michael Bartels, who, according to his LinkedIn account, serves as a senior adviser in the office of general counsel within the U.S. Small Business Administration. Bartels did not have much to say in the chat, but he didn’t offer any pushback against the offensive rhetoric in it either. He declined to comment.

A notarized affidavit signed by Bartels and obtained by POLITICO also sheds light on the intraparty rivalry that led the “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM” Telegram chat to be made public. Bartels references Wax as well. He wrote that he did not give POLITICO the chat and that Wax “demanded” in a phone call that he provide the full chat log.

“When I attempted to resist that demand, after providing some of the requested information, Wax threatened my professional standing, and raised the possibility of potential legal action related to an alleged breach of a non-disclosure agreement,” Bartels claimed in the affidavit. “My position within the New York Young Republican Club was directly threatened.”

Walker, who now leads the New York State Young Republicans, touched on a similar theme, saying that he believes portions of the chat “may have been altered, taken out of context, or otherwise manipulated” and that the “private exchanges were obtained and released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm.”

He also apologized.

“There is no excuse for the language and tone in messages attributed to me. The language is wrong and hurtful, and I sincerely apologize,” Walker said. “This has been a painful lesson about judgment and trust, and I am committed to moving forward with greater care, respect, and accountability in everything I say and do.”

251 times

Mixed into formal conversations about whipping votes, social media strategy and logistics, the members of the chat slung around an array of slurs — which POLITICO is republishing to show how they spoke. Epithets like “f—-t,” “retarded” and “n–ga” appeared more than 251 times combined.

In one instance, Walker — who at the time was a staffer for Ortt — talked about how a mutual friend of some in the chat “dated this very obese Indian woman for a period of time.”

Giunta responded that the woman “was not Indian.”

“She just didn’t bathe often,” Samuel Douglass, a state senator from northern Vermont and the head of the state’s Young Republicans, replied to Giunta.

In a separate conversation, Giunta shared that his flight to Charleston, South Carolina, landed safely. Then, he offered some advice for his fellow Young Republicans.

“If your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word,” Giunta wrote.

Douglass did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement, Ortt called for members of the chat to resign.

“I was shocked and disgusted to learn about the racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic comments attributed to members of the New York State Young Republicans,” Ortt said. “This behavior is indefensible and has no place in our party or anywhere in public life.”

Walker had been in line to manage Republican Peter Oberacker’s campaign for Congress in upstate New York, but a spokesperson for the campaign said Walker won’t be brought on in light of the comments in the chat.

Seeking Trump’s endorsement

The private rhetoric isn’t happening in a vacuum. It comes amid a widespread coarsening of the broader political discourse and as incendiary and racially offensive tropes from the right become increasingly common in public debate. Last month, Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated video that showed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero beside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose fabricated remarks were about trading free health care for immigrant votes — a false, long-running GOP trope. The sombrero meme has been widely used to mock Democrats as the government shutdown wears on.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump spread false reports of Haitian migrants eating pets and, at one of his rallies, welcomed comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and joked about Black people “carving watermelons” on Halloween.

Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson, rejected the idea that Trump’s rhetoric had anything to do with the chat members’ language.

“Only an activist, left-wing reporter would desperately try to tie President Trump into a story about a random groupchat he has no affiliation with, while failing to mention the dangerous smears coming from Democrat politicians who have fantasized about murdering their opponent and called Republicans Nazis and Fascists,” she said. “No one has been subjected to more vicious rhetoric and violence than President Trump and his supporters.”

In the “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM” chat, Giunta tells his fellow Republicans that he spoke with the White House about an endorsement from Trump for his bid to become chairman of the national federation. Trump and the Republican National Committee ultimately decided to stay neutral in the race.

A White House official said that it has no affiliation with Restore YR and that hundreds of groups ask the White House for its endorsement.

Giunta was the most prominent voice in the chat spreading racist messages — often encouraged or “liked” by other members.

When Luke Mosiman, the chair of the Arizona Young Republicans, asked if the New Yorkers in the chat were watching an NBA playoff game, Giunta responded, “I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey play ball.” Giunta elsewhere refers to Black people as “the watermelon people.”

Hendrix made a similar remark in July: “Bro is at a chicken restaurant ordering his food. Would he like some watermelon and kool aid with that?”

Hendrix was a communications assistant for Kansas’ Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach until Thursday. He also said in the chat that, despite political differences, he’s drawn to Missouri’s Young Republican organization because “Missouri doesn’t like f–s.”

POLITICO reached out to Danedri Herbert, a spokesperson for the attorney general who also serves as the Kansas GOP chair, and shared with her excerpts of the chat involving Hendrix. In response, Herbert said that “we are aware of the issues raised in your article” and that Hendrix is “no longer employed” in Kobach’s office.

In another exchange, Dwyer, the Kansas’ chair, informs Giunta that one of Michigan’s Young Republicans promised him the group “will vote for the most right wing person” to lead the national organization.

“Great. I love Hitler,” Giunta responded.

Dwyer reacted with a smiley face.

Few minority groups spared

Giunta, who serves as chief of staff to New York state Assemblymember Mike Reilly, ultimately fell six points short of winning the chairship to lead the Young Republican National Federation earlier this year — despite earning endorsements from Stefanik and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone.

Reilly did not respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this year, Stefanik accepted an award from the New York State Young Republicans. She lauded Giunta for his “tremendous leadership” in August and had her campaign and the political PAC she leads donate to that state organization. Alex deGrasse, a senior adviser for Stefanik, said the congresswoman “was absolutely appalled to learn about the alleged comments made by leaders of the New York State Young Republicans and other state YRs in a large national group chat.”

“According to the description provided by Politico, the comments were heinous, antisemitic, racist and unacceptable,” he continued, noting Stefanik has never employed anyone in the chat. “If the description by Politico is accurate, Congresswoman Stefanik calls for any NY Young Republicans responsible for these horrific comments in this chat to step down immediately.”

Stone also condemned the comments in a statement.

“I of course, have never seen this alleged chat room thread,” he said. “If it is authentic, I would, of course, denounce any such comments in the strongest possible terms, This would surprise me as it is inconsistent with Peter that I know, although I only know him in his capacity as the head of the New York Young Republicans, where I thought he did a good job.”

Few minority groups are spared from the Young Republican group’s chat. Their rhetoric — normalized at most points as dark humor — mirrors some popular conservative political commentators, podcasters and comedians amid a national erosion of what’s considered acceptable discourse.

Giunta’s line on a darker-skinned pilot, for example, echoes one used by slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year when he said, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.” Kirk was discussing how diversity hiring “invites unwholesome thinking.”

Walker also uses the moniker “eyepatch McCain” (originally coined by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson) in an apparent reference to GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw. Crenshaw lost his eye while serving as a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan. Walker also makes the remark, “I prefer my war heroes not captured,” a repeat of a similar 2015 line from Trump.

Art Jipson, a professor at the University of Dayton who specializes in white racial extremism, surmised the Young Republicans in the chat were influenced by Trump’s language, which he said is often hyperbolic and emotionally charged.

“Trump’s persistent use of hostile, often inflammatory language that normalizes aggressive discourse in conservative circles can be incredibly influential on young operatives who are still trying to figure out, ‘What is that political discourse?’” Jipson said.

White supremacist symbols

Jipson reviewed multiple excerpts of the Young Republicans’ chat provided by POLITICO. One was a late July message where Mosiman, the chair of the Arizona Young Republicans, mused about how the group could win support for their preferred candidate by linking an opponent to white supremacist groups. But Mosiman then realized the plan could backfire — Kansas’ Young Republicans could end up becoming attracted to that opponent.

“Can we get them to start releasing Nazi edits with her… Like pro Nazi and faciam [sic] propaganda,” he asked the group.

“Omg I love this plan,” Rachel Hope, the Arizona Young Republicans events chair, responded.

“The only problem is we will lose the Kansas delegation,” Mosiman said. Hope and the two Kansas Young Republicans in the chat reacted with a laughing face to the message. Hope did not respond to requests for comment. Mosiman declined to comment.

Jipson said the Young Republicans’ conversations reminded him of online discussions between members of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.

“You say it once or twice, it’s a joke, but you say it 251 times, it’s no longer a joke,” Jipson said. “The more we repeat certain ideas, the more real they become to us.”

Weeks later, someone in the chat staying in a hotel asks its members to “GUESS WHAT ROOM WE’RE IN.”

“1488,” Dwyer responds. White supremacists use the number 1488 because 14 is the number of words in the white supremacist slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” H is the eighth letter in the alphabet, and 88 is often used as a shorthand for “Heil Hitler.”

In another conversation in February, Giunta talks approvingly about the Orange County Teenage Republican organization in New York — which appears to be part of the network of national Teen Age Republicans — and how he was pleased with its young members’ ideological bent.

“They support slavery and all that shit. Mega based,” he said. The term “based” in internet culture is used to express approval with an idea, often one that’s bold or controversial.

In a statement, Orange County GOP Chair Courtney Canfield Greene said the party was disappointed to learn its teen group was mentioned in the chat.

“Our teen volunteers have no affiliation with the NYSYR’s or the YRNF,” she said. “This behavior has no home within the Republican Party in Orange County.”

Ed Cox, the chair of the New York State GOP, also condemned the remarks made in the chat.

“I was shocked and disgusted to learn about the reports of comments made by a small group of Young Republicans,” he said. “Just as we call out vile racist and anti-Semetic rhetoric on the far left, we must not tolerate it within our ranks.”

Vicious words for enemies

Members of the Telegram chat speak about their personal lives, too. Extensive discussions about their everyday lives include one exchange about how devoutly Catholic some chat members are and how often they attend church.

Many of the slurs, epithets and violent language used in the chat often appear to be intended as jokes.

Mosiman was derided by members of the chat as “beaner” and “sp-c.”

“Stay in the closet f—-t,” Walker of New York also jested in July, though he is the group’s main target for the same epithet.

The group used slurs against Asians, too.

“My people built the train tracks with the Chinese,” Walker says at one point, referring to his Italian ancestors.

“Let his people go!” Maligno responds. “Keep the ch–ks, though.”

In another instance, Mosiman tells the group that, “The Spanish came to America and had sex with every single woman.”

“Sex is gay,” Dwyer writes.

“Sex? It was rape,” Mosiman replies.

“Epic,” Walker says.

There’s more explicit malice in some phrases, too, especially when they turn their ire on opponents outside the chat, such as the leader of the rival Grow YR slate, Hayden Padgett, who defeated Giunta and was reelected chairman of the Young Republican National Federation this summer.

“So you mean Hayden F—-t wrote the resolution himself?” Giunta asked the group about the National Young Republicans chair in late May.

“RAPE HAYDEN,” Mosiman declared the following month.

“Adolf Padgette is in the F—-tbunker as we speak,” Walker said in July.

Padgett responded to the chat’s language in a statement.

“The Young Republican National Federation condemns all forms of racism, antisemitism, and hate,” Padgett said. “I want to be clear that such behavior is entirely inconsistent with our values and has no place within our organization or the broader conservative movement.”

Giunta also had expletive-laden criticism for the Young Republicans in states that were supporting or leaning toward Padgett’s faction.

“Minnesota – f—-ts,” he messaged, continuing: “Arkansas – inbred cow fuckers Nebraska – revolt in our favor; blocked their bind and have a majority of their delegates Maryland – fat stinky Jew … Rhode Island – traitorous c—s who I will eradicate from the face of this planet.”

Giunta also said he planned to make one of the competing Young Republicans “unalive himself on the convention floor.”

In another instance, Douglass, the Vermont state senator, describes to the group members how one of Padgett’s Jewish colleagues may have made a procedural error related to the number of Maryland delegates permitted at the national convention.

“I was about to say you’re giving nationals to [sic] much credit and expecting the Jew to be honest,” Brianna Douglass, Sam’s wife and Vermont Young Republican’s national committee member, replied to her husband’s message. Brianna Douglass did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

‘If we ever had a leak of this chat…’

While reporting this article, POLITICO was examining a separate allegation: that Giunta and the Young Republicans mismanaged the New York organization’s finances and hadn’t paid at least one venue for a swanky holiday party it hosted last year. POLITICO’s report detailed how the organization was missing required financial disclosure forms and how their subsequent efforts to file the forms revealed the organization was in more than $28,000 of debt. As of Tuesday, updated records show the organization is in more than $38,000 of debt.

Donations to New York State Young Republicans’ political account must be reported to the state Board of Elections. Expenditures must be reported too.

At the time, Giunta told POLITICO the allegations were “nothing more than a sad and pathetic attempt at a political hit job.” But in their “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM” chat, he and Walker speak flippantly about mishandling the club’s finances.

“NYSYR Account be like: $500 – Balding cream $1,000 – Ozempik,” Walker said in one message. “NYSYR will be declaring bankruptcy after this I just know it,” he said in another.

“I drained $10k tonight to pay for my next vacation to Italy,” Giunta appeared to joke about the organization’s bank account.

“I spent it on massage,” he says of another check that was deposited in the account.

“Great. Can’t wait to get sued by our venue,” Walker replies.

Members of the chat occasionally appeared to be aware of its toxicity and even made remarks that considered the possibility someone outside their tight-knit group could view it.

Walker seemed to consider that possibility the most.

In one instance, he joked about bombing the Young Republican National Federation’s convention in Nashville and then remarked, “Just kidding for our assigned FBI tracker.”

In another, he considered the totality of the thousands of messages he and his peers had written, and what would happen if the public saw them come to light.

“If we ever had a leak of this chat we would be cooked fr fr,” he wrote.

​Politics

On Oct. 15, 2025, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in one of the most anticipated cases of the 2025-2026 term, Louisiana v. Callais, with major implications for the Voting Rights Act, racial representation and Democratic Party power in congress.

The central question in the case is to what extent race can, or must, be used when congressional districts are redrawn. Plaintiffs are challenging whether the longstanding interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires protection of minority voting power in redistricting, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that individuals should be treated the same by the law.

In short, the plaintiffs argue that the state of Louisiana’s use of race to make a second Black-majority district is forbidden by the U.S. Constitution.

This is the second time that the court will hear oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais after no decision was reached last term. From my perspective as a scholar of U.S. federal courts and electoral systems, this case represents the collision of decades of Supreme Court decisions on race, redistricting and the Voting Rights Act.

Long legal battle

To understand the stakes of the current case, it’s important to know what the Voting Rights Act does. Initially passed in 1965, the act helped end decades of racially discriminatory voting laws by providing federal enforcement of voting rights.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act forbids discrimination by states in relation to voting rights and has been used for decades to challenge redistricting plans.

The current case has its roots in the redistricting of Louisiana’s congressional districts following the 2020 Census. States are required to redraw districts each decade based on new population data. Louisiana lawmakers redrew the state’s six congressional districts without major changes in 2022.

Soon after the state redistricted, a group of Black voters challenged the map in federal court as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs argued that the new map was discriminatory because the voting power of Black citizens in the state was being illegally diluted. The state’s population was 31% Black, but only one of the six districts featured a majority-Black population.

The federal courts in 2022 sided with the plaintiffs’ claim that the plan did violate the Voting Rights Act and ordered the state legislature to redraw the congressional plan with a second Black-majority district.

The judges relied on an interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act from a 1986 Supreme Court decision in the case known as Thornburg v. Gingles. Under this interpretation, Section 2’s nondiscrimination requirement means that congressional districts must be drawn in a way that allows large, politically cohesive and compact racial minorities to be able to elect representatives of their choice.

In 2023, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a similar racial gerrymandering case in Alabama.

Louisiana lawmakers redraw districts

Following the court order, the Louisiana state legislature passed Senate Bill 8 in January 2024, redrawing the congressional map and creating two districts where Black voters composed a substantial portion of the electorate in compliance with the Gingles ruling. This map was used in the 2024 congressional election and both Black-majority districts elected Democrats, while the other four districts elected Republicans.

These new congressional districts from Senate Bill 8 were challenged by a group of white voters in 2024 in a set of cases that became Louisiana v. Callais.

The plaintiffs argued that the Louisiana legislature’s drawing of districts based on race in Senate Bill 8 was in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which requires equal treatment of individuals by the government, and the 15th Amendment, which forbids denying the right to vote based on race.

Essentially, the plaintiffs claimed that the courts’ interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional and that the use of race to create a majority-minority district is itself discriminatory. Similar arguments about the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause were also the basis of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions striking down race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

In 2024, a three-judge district court sided with the white plaintiffs in Louisiana v. Callais, with a 2-1 decision. The Black plaintiffs from the original case, and the state of Louisiana, appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The court originally heard the case at the end of the 2024-2025 term before ordering the case re-argued for 2025-2026.

High stakes and significant precedent

If the Supreme Court ultimately upholds the lower court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, deciding that Louisiana’s congressional districts are unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, it will have substantial impacts on minority representation. The decision would upend decades of precedent for Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

For 39 years, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has required redistricting institutions to consider racial and ethnic minority representation when devising congressional districts. Majority-minority districting is required when a state has large, compact and cohesive minority communities. Historically, some states have redistricted minority communities in ways that dilute their voting power, such as “cracking” a community into multiple districts where they compose a small percentage of the electorate.

Section 2 also provides voters and residents with a legal tool that has been used to challenge districts as discriminatory. Many voters and groups have used Section 2 successfully to challenge redistricting plans.

Section 2 has been the main legal tool for challenging racial discrimination in redistricting for the past decade. In 2013, the Supreme Court effectively ended the other major component of the Voting Rights Act, the preclearance provision, which required certain states to have changes to their elections laws approved by the federal government, including redistricting.

If the court overrules the current interpretation of Section 2, it would limit the legality of using race in redistricting, end requirements for majority-minority districts and eliminate the most common way to challenge discriminatory districting.

Additionally, because of the strong relationship between many minority communities and the Democratic party, the court’s decision has major implications for partisan control of the House of Representatives.

If Section 2 no longer required majority-minority districts, then Republicans could use the ruling to redraw congressional districts across the country to benefit their party. Politico reported that Democrats could lose as many as 19 House seats if the Supreme Court sides with the lower court.

Recent Supreme Court precedent gives conflicting signals as to how it will decide this case.

In 2023, the court rejected a challenge to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act related to Alabama’s congressional districts. In 2024, the court overruled a lower court’s finding of racial vote dilution in South Carolina.

Sam D. Hayes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

A series of recent events has sparked alarm about rising levels of political violence in the U.S. These episodes include the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025; the murder of a Democratic Minnesota state legislator and her husband in June 2025; and two attempts to kill Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Some surveys have reported that a large number of Americans are willing to support the use of force for political ends, or they believe that political violence may sometimes be justified.

My research is in political science and data analytics. I have conducted surveys for almost 25 years. For the past three years, I have studied new techniques that leverage artificial intelligence to conduct and analyze interviews.

My own recent surveys, which use AI to ask people about why they give their answers, show that the surprisingly high level of support in response to these questions is likely the result of confusion about what these questions are asking, not actual support for political violence.

A failure to communicate

Why would multiple surveys get the answers to this important question wrong? I believe the cause is an issue called response error. It means that respondents don’t interpret a question in the way the researcher thinks they will.

As a result, the answers people provide don’t really reflect what the researcher thinks the answers show.

For example, asking whether someone would support the use of force to achieve a political goal raises the question of what the respondent thinks “use of force” means in this context. It could be interpreted as violence, but it could also be interpreted as using legal means to “force” someone to do something.

Such response errors have been a concern for pollsters ever since survey research began. They can affect even seemingly straightforward questions.

What did you mean by that?

To avoid this problem, I used an AI interviewing system developed by CloudResearch, a well-known survey research company, to ask respondents some of the same questions about political violence from previous surveys. Then I used it to ask what they were thinking when they answered those questions. This process is called cognitive interviewing.

I then used AI to go through these interviews and categorize them. Two short reports that summarize this process as applied to both polls are available online. These analyses have not been peer-reviewed, and the results should be considered very preliminary.

Nonetheless, the results clearly demonstrate that respondents interpret these questions in very different ways.

Nuance matters

For example, in my survey, about 33% of Democrats agreed with the statement that “use of force is justified to remove President Trump from office.” However, when asked why they agreed, more than 57% gave responses like this: “I was not thinking physically but more in the sense that he – the president – might need to be ‘fired’ or forced out of office due to rules or laws.” Still others were envisioning future scenarios where a president illegally seizes power in a coup.

Once you account for these different interpretations of the question, the AI only coded about 8% of Democrats as supporting use of force in violent terms under current conditions.

Even here, there was substantial ambiguity – for example, this type of response was not unusual: “The language ‘use of force’ was a bit too broad for me. I could not justify killing Trump, for example, but less extreme uses of force were valid in my eyes.”

Similarly, 29% of Republicans agreed that “use of the military is justified to stop protests against President Trump’s agenda.” However, almost all of the respondents who agreed with this statement envisioned the National Guard interceding nonviolently to stop violent protests and riots. Only about 2.6% of Republicans gave comments supporting use of the military against nonviolent protests.

Almost all those who agreed that use of the military was justified expressed thoughts like this: “I see the military coming and acting as a police force to stop or prevent the demonstrations that become violent. Peaceful protesters must be allowed to exercise their right to free speech.”

When is political violence justified?

Even questions that explicitly ask about political violence are open to wide interpretation. Take, for example, this question: “Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals?”

The lack of a specific scenario or location in this question invites respondents to engage in all kinds of philosophical and historical speculation.

In my survey, almost 15% of respondents said violence could sometimes be justified. When asked about the examples they were thinking of, respondents cited the American Revolution, the anti-Nazi French Resistance and many other incidents as a reason for their responses. Only about 3% of respondents said they were thinking about actions in the U.S. at the current time.

Moreover, almost all respondents stated that violence should be a last resort when all other peaceful and legal methods fail.

One respondent illustrated both problems with one sentence: “The (American) colonists tried petitions and negotiations first, but, when those efforts failed, they resorted to armed conflict to gain independence.”

A call for understanding

Even these numbers likely overestimate Americans’ support for political violence. I read the interviews, checking the AI system’s labeling, and concluded that, if anything, it was overestimating support for violence.

Other factors may also be distorting reports of public support for political violence. Many surveys are conducted primarily online. One study estimated that anywhere from 4% to 7% of respondents in online surveys are “bogus respondents” who are selecting arbitrary responses. Another study reported that such respondents dramatically increase positive responses on questions about political violence.

Respondents may also be willing to espouse attitudes anonymously online that they would never say or do in real life. Studies have suggested that “online disinhibition effects” or “survey trolling” can impact survey results.

In sum, my preliminary research suggests that response error is a substantial problem in surveys about political violence.

Americans almost universally condemn the recent political violence they have witnessed. The recent poll results showing otherwise more likely stem from confusion about what the questions are asking than actual support for political violence.

Ryan Kennedy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Democrats’ hardline opposition to rising health care costs isn’t earning them voters’ trust on economic issues — a disconnect that lays bare the party’s challenge heading into next year’s midterms.

Voters blame Republicans more than Democrats for the federal government shutdown, according to a review of polling conducted after services shuttered. An Economist/YouGov survey of 1,648 Americans showed 41 percent hold the GOP accountable for the lapse in federal funding, compared to 30 percent who point a finger at Democrats and 23 percent who hold the parties equally responsible. A 2,441-person CBS News/YouGov survey also found Americans blame Republicans more than Democrats — 39 percent to 30 percent — with 31 percent faulting both. And a Harvard/Harris poll demonstrated 2,413 voters impugned Republicans more than Democrats by 6 points.

Those same voters, however, delivered the GOP a 4-point advantage when asked which party they trust more on economic issues. And a survey from Democratic-aligned firm Navigator Research showed 1,000 registered voters faulting Republicans for the shutdown by 11 points, but giving them a 2-point advantage on inflation and cost of living.

That dichotomy underscores an electoral hurdle for the party locked out of power: Even as Democrats hold the line over expiring health care subsidies that could send millions of Americans’ insurance prices soaring, voters still favor Republicans on the economy and cost of living.

“Are we going to get all the working class back? Probably not,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who is seeking reelection in a redrawn Texas district while facing federal bribery charges. “[But] I see an opening here. … And we need to jump on that and just really focus and repeat over and over and over that we Democrats are interested in bringing costs down.”

The next challenge for his party, he added: “Make sure people understand we are a viable alternative.”

The shutdown-polling paradox has shown up in surveys for months, as Democrats struggle to move voters who are souring on President Donald Trump and his party’s handling of the economy and inflation into their corner. And it underscores the uphill battle Democrats face in wresting power from Republicans, even as they narrow their scattered messaging to affordability.

Frontliner Rep. Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.) called her party’s shutdown stance “an important step” toward convincing voters Democrats can tackle rising costs.

“And it’s a crucial step to take right now … to make sure that people don’t see their premiums go up exponentially,” said Gillen, who is defending the Long Island swing seat she flipped last year. “But then it needs to be part of a broader discussion to show that we are on the side of the American people and we care about the economic pain they’re feeling and we have a concrete plan.”

The party is still hashing out the particulars of that plan, which depending on the candidate ranges from pitching a hardscrabble background to railing against a rigged economy and vilifying the billionaires that benefit from it.

Right now, Democrats are trying to leverage their minimal power to force Republicans to stop Affordable Care Act subsidies from expiring at the end of the year, attempting to squeeze out a policy win on a top cost-of-living issue as they scramble to regain working-class voters.

The political winds have been shifting in Democrats’ favor on the economy. Trump’s net approval rating on the subject has nosedived since the start of his second term, polling averages show. Voters routinely rank inflation as one of their top issues, but disapprove of his handling of it. The latest CBS/YouGov poll showed three-quarters of adults don’t think Trump is doing enough to lower prices — one of his 2024 campaign trail pledges. Labor Department statistics show the job market is slowing.

Despite signs of economic distress, Republicans consistently enjoy a polling advantage on the economy. And Liam Kerr, who co-founded the centrist WelcomePAC, warned that Democrats won’t be able to erase it through a single stand on health care costs.

“You can’t just do it one time and all is forgotten,” Kerr said. “Playing against type requires even more effort.”

Nevertheless, Democrats remain confident they can reverse their heavy losses in 2024 by drilling down on voters’ cost-of-living concerns, according to interviews with half a dozen congressional candidates.

They cast their party’s shutdown play as part of a broader strategy that ranges from hammering Republicans over tariffs that could drive up prices for consumers and for businesses, to battling utility companies over rising bills. And they believe the slate of working-class candidates the party is putting up for House and Senate seats, from a firefighter in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley to a waitress in western Wisconsin, can convince voters that Democrats care about blue-collar Americans who have turned toward Trump in recent years.

They’re getting backup from Democrats’ national campaign arm, which on Friday launched a five-figure digital-and-billboard ad campaign and organizing effort to alert voters to the pending increase in their premiums.

Still, shutdowns carry risks for both parties, especially the longer they drag on. The Trump administration on Friday began firing federal workers, which could increase pressure on both sides to bring their standoff to an end. And some polls already show voters think Democrats should cave and reopen the government; a sentiment expressed by nearly two-thirds of voters in the Harvard/Harris survey and just over half of respondents to the Navigator poll.

But Democrats are dug in.

“We have to give people a reason to fight, and we have to get back to catering to the many over the few,” Cherlynn Stevenson, a state representative running for the Democratic nomination in Kentucky’s open 6th District, said. “This can be a big turning point for our party.”

Alec Hernández contributed to this report.

​Politics

Maine Gov. Janet Mills joined her state’s crowded Democratic Senate primary as the establishment favorite on Tuesday, aiming to flip Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ seat in a pivotal midterm year.

Democrats view the seat as one of their top pickup opportunities — the only in a state Kamala Harris won in 2024 — and Mills is among a few top-tier candidates Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer aggressively recruited to run this cycle. But first the term-limited governor must contend with a competitive primary against breakout candidate Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who announced he has more than $3 million in the bank and already received the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Maine Beer Company owner Dan Kleban is also running for the nomination and his fundraising figures will be made public Wednesday, when federal filings are released.

In her launch video, Mills highlighted her recent fight with President Donald Trump over transgender sports and accused Collins of enabling him. “I won’t sit idly by while Maine people suffer and politicians like Susan Collins bend the knee as if this were normal,” Mills said.

Despite initial hesitation, the governor started interviewing staff and telling local reporters she was seriously considering a bid last month.

She addressed that long contemplation in her announcement, saying in the video, “Honestly, if this president and this Congress were doing things that were even remotely acceptable, I wouldn’t be running for the U.S. Senate.”

The race sets up the latest generational clash for a party struggling to find its footing after losing the White House and both branches of Congress last year.

Mills, who won her seat by wide margins in her last two races, is 77 years old, making her five years Collins’ senior at a time when Americans are grappling with debates about the age of their politicians. If elected, she would be the oldest first-year senator ever. Platner is 41 and unlikely to leave the race for Mills; Kleban, who is 48, has so far dodged questions about what he would do if Mills jumped in.

Democrats need to pick up four seats in order to win back control of the Senate, a difficult task that all but has to include a pickup in Maine, where Harris won by 7 points.

Democrats poured millions of dollars into an ultimately-unsuccessful effort to unseat Collins in 2020 — but her declining popularity in the bluing state is giving Democrats hope that next year’s race could be their best chance yet.

Republicans are eager to expose Mills’ weaknesses, and have already targeted her public fight Trump, as well as her age.

​Politics

The assassination in September 2025 of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has heightened attention on the relationship between political rhetoric and political violence.

Even before police had identified a suspect, President Donald Trump blamed the shooting on the “rhetoric” of the “radical left.” The Trump administration has since acted to silence left-leaning speakers and is threatening to intensify its attacks on left-wing political speech.

But my decades of studying free speech law have convinced me that suppressing political rhetoric, even through social norms rather than law, undermines the discussion, debate and constructive disagreement essential for a healthy democracy.

Gun proliferation complicates the problem by making political violence much easier to carry out.

Rise of political violence

Political violence – by which I mean any physical attack on people that aims to achieve a political goal – harms democracy by shifting the field of political disagreement from debate to aggression.

Under the U.S. constitutional system of limited government and individual rights, political violence by the government – for example, government assaults on anti-government protesters – is among the gravest threats to liberty.

But political violence committed by private individuals or groups also corrodes constitutional democracy. In the United States, acts of private political violence against members of government and against ordinary people have both increased dramatically in recent years.

Political assassinations are the most vivid form of political violence. The Kirk assassination is only the latest example.

In June 2025, a shooter with a “hit list” of left-liberal targets assassinated Minnesota Democratic Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband. In December 2024, a shooter angry about health insurance costs killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. In July 2024, a shooter wounded Trump at a campaign rally in a failed assassination attempt.

Political violence also includes bias-motivated murders. In 2022, a white supremacist murdered 10 Black patrons at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. In 2019, an anti-immigrant racist murdered 23 mostly Latino shoppers at a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas. In 2018, an antisemite murdered 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

In those incidents and numerous others, extreme political ideas appear to have motivated the attackers. The linkage of extremist speech to lethal violence has prompted calls to legally restrict or punish extremist speech.

Political violence, free speech and cultural editing

The First Amendment, however, protects extremist speech, including advocacy of violence. Violent rhetoric must actually incite or threaten violence to lose the First Amendment’s shelter.

If law cannot curb the sorts of speech that may inspire political violence, what about social norms – widely shared beliefs about what speech is socially acceptable or appropriate?

Much speech that the First Amendment protects from government regulation eventually disappears from public discourse. That happens through a process I call “cultural editing”: popular and institutional rejection of outmoded or repellent ideas. For example, no serious medical conference discusses treating hay fever with cocaine, and no respectable political science panel includes Nazis.

The Trump administration’s blaming of the Kirk assassination on “radical left” rhetoric points toward a deeper level of cultural editing.

Trump and other conservatives have not cited speech that advocated violence against Kirk. Instead, some conservative activists, spurred on by Trump administration officials, called for harassing and punishing critics of Kirk’s statements and actions.

But such criticisms of Kirk, whatever their merits or lack thereof, fall within the scope of ordinary political debate.

Kirk was not a government official, but he had strong influence in the Trump administration. Robust democratic discourse requires space for people to criticize such powerful figures. Large-scale cultural editing of those criticisms, amounting to suppression of left-leaning views, would hurt the public’s ability to discuss and resolve political disagreements.

However, Trump and others who push for suppressing harsh political rhetoric might argue that the stakes of verbal attacks have increased. They might say that U.S. political culture can no longer indulge political invective because political violence has become more common.

Political violence and guns

That argument for suppressing harsh political speech ignores an independent cause of political violence: gun proliferation.

Most political violence in the U.S. involves guns. Guns make political violence easier by erasing the distance between extremist ideas and lethal action. Hate or fanaticism can end a life in an instant, hundreds of yards from the victim.

The U.S. has by far the highest number of civilian guns and rate of civilian gun ownership in the world. Since 2008, when the Supreme Court declared an individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, annual U.S. gun purchases have increased from about 9 million to about 16 million.

Governments often find regulating speech easier, even though less effective, than tackling underlying problems. At times, federal and state governments have addressed political violence by regulating guns. The 1994 federal assault weapons ban exemplifies regulatory efforts to curb overall gun violence.

But the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment cases now appear to bar strong gun regulations.

People in a democratic society need freedom to make harsh, even extreme political statements with a minimum of cultural editing. The Second Amendment protects access to lethal weapons. This combination of free speech and gun rights makes the growing problem of political violence much harder to solve.

Gregory P. Magarian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Airports across the United States have been experiencing significant flight delays recently because of a shortage of air traffic controllers, who have been required to work without pay since a government shutdown began on Oct. 1, 2025. Reports suggest employees have been calling in sick in increased numbers. And since there was already a shortage of controllers before the shutdown, the impact has been severe, with over 52,000 flights canceled ahead of the Columbus Day weekend.

The Conversation U.S. asked Brian Strzempkowski and Melanie Dickman, aviation experts at The Ohio State University, to explain how the shutdown is affecting air travel, what that means for passengers and air safety, as well as the air traffic controller shortage that has been plaguing U.S. airports for years.

How is the shutdown affecting air traffic controllers?

Air traffic controllers are deemed essential workers, meaning they are still required to work while not receiving compensation – which they would typically then receive in a lump sum after the shutdown ends. President Donald Trump created some uncertainty around this by suggesting workers may not get their back pay without explicit authorization from Congress, despite having signed a law in his first term that makes it a legal requirement.

Working without regular pay, combined with the possibility that they won’t get paid at all, is resulting in real financial stress for air traffic controllers, who perform one of the most stressful jobs there is.

As a result, there have been reports of air traffic controllers calling in sick in large numbers. This happened in previous shutdowns as well. During the 2018-2019 shutdown, for example, sickouts started to happen around the two-week mark, roughly when the first paycheck was missed. Controllers, airport security employees, and other essential workers were calling in sick often so they could work another part-time job to pay their bills.

In the current shutdown, this appears to be happening sooner, less than a week after it began. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said around 10% of the controller workforce is engaging in this practice and threatened to fire these “problem children.”

What does this mean for people about to take a flight?

Before the shutdown, there was already a critical shortage of air traffic controllers. Coupled with workers calling in sick in recent days, this has led to severe travel delays at many major airports, such as those in Atlanta and Denver, and regional ones, like those serving Burbank, California, and Daytona Beach, Florida.

A big question on travelers’ minds is whether this will affect air safety.

The air traffic control system is multi-layered and has redundancies built into it to ensure an incredibly safe environment. While controller shortages do begin to erode some of those redundancies, contingency plans are in place to help protect the system. For example, air traffic can be diverted away from affected locations or delayed, or the flight may even be be canceled before the plane leaves the gate.

As an example, Newark Liberty International Airport can accommodate approximately 80 aircraft departing or arriving per hour when the airport and airspace is fully operational. However, due to technical failures, staffing shortages and construction at the airport, capacity was limited to between 28 and 34 aircraft per hour in June 2025. Due to technology upgrades and procedural changes, that number was recently increased to between 68 and 72 aircraft per hour. By regulating the amount of traffic, the system can be protected to ensure the safety of every aircraft.

This was an example of high-level oversight in which the secretary of transportation was personally involved in seeking a solution to ensure air travel remained safe while trying to increase capacity.

How does the US keep air travel safe?

On a more day-to-day level, the Federal Aviation Administration relies on the Air Traffic Control System Command Center, located about 40 miles away from Washington, D.C. This facility oversees the entire national airspace system and essentially “controls” the controllers. Air traffic professionals monitor staffing at air traffic facilities, weather conditions, equipment failures and unexpected disruptions to the system.

When an incident arises, such as Burbank Airport recently reporting that no controllers were available, the command center issues an alert stating that any aircraft inbound to Burbank must divert to an alternate airport, and any aircraft that has not yet taken off will be held on the ground.

Staffing shortages at other air traffic control facilities may require alternate plans, such as transitioning workloads from one facility with fewer controllers, to another that is appropriately staffed. There is a wide range of tools that the Air Traffic Control System Command Center can utilize to protect the system, but it all stems from the idea of managing the capacity. Flight delays and cancellations, while disruptive to individual travelers, are actually good from a system perspective, because they prevent congestion in the airspace.

Why was there an air traffic controller shortage in the first place?

There has been a systemic problem with hiring of air traffic controllers for more than a decade.

Over the years, the FAA has fallen behind on training enough controllers to replace those who retire each year. In May 2025, we wrote about the FAA’s plan to utilize colleges across the country to provide the professional training for this career field. While it will take a little time for the students to matriculate through college and into the workforce, this plan will be a significant contributor to solving the controller shortage problem.

Meanwhile, the FAA Academy, which trains U.S. air traffic controllers, only has limited funding from the previous federal budget for current students. The shutdown means no new students can begin training. Depending on the length of the shutdown, the funding may run out as additional employees are furloughed. The ripple effects of a shutdown can remain for many months after the government reopens.

What’s the government doing to end the shortage?

In July, Congress authorized over US$12 billion in funding to help modernize the air traffic control system.

Secretary Duffy is currently leading an effort to identify a contractor to implement the technology upgrades needed to modernize the system and make it more robust. Duffy has said an additional $19 billion investment will be needed to complete the task.

Melanie Dickman is a member-at-large of Air Traffic Controllers Association (ATCA)

Brian Strzempkowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

In one of his stand-up sets, comedian David Cross rejects all political commentary that tries to answer the question, “What would America’s Founding Fathers think if they were alive today?”

For Cross, it is pointless to speculate about the present-day views of men who could not have imagined cotton candy, let alone the machine that makes it.

“What’s a machine? What’s a machine???” he screams in their collective voice, recoiling from the sorcery of the state fair.

The first time I saw this bit, something odd happened. Having just read the 1776 political pamphlet “Common Sense,” I could hear its author, one of America’s founders, laughing louder than anybody.

That would be Thomas Paine, the man credited with turning the American Revolution from a complicated Colonial fracas into a titanic struggle for the soul of liberty itself.

If Cross is skeptical that anything 250 years old still holds up, Paine, were he alive today, could probably name one thing: skepticism. Ways of thinking and being do not grow out of the ground; we make them ourselves, then hand them down as best we can. Paine would smile to see his favorite heirloom, the skeptical worldview, still intact.

Saying “no” – especially to those in power – is an underrated American pastime, and Paine was its Babe Ruth. If you plan on joining No Kings rallies and have yet to find a slogan for your sign, Paine’s got you covered: “In America, the law is king!” “No King! No Tyranny!” “Monarchy hath poisoned the republic.”

I could go on. Because he did.

Birth of a revolutionary

Where did all this anti-monarchical fire come from? Originally, from a small town in Norfolk, England, in 1737. Turning from his father’s trade of corset-making, Paine tried his hand at business, met and impressed Benjamin Franklin in London, sailed to America, and there found his true metier as a pamphleteer and radical.

Using simple yet incandescent prose, Paine renounced, repudiated and ridiculed at a clip seldom witnessed in print before or since. Hereditary privilege, colonialism, the supernatural: no, no, no.

But what Paine made his name lambasting – what he knocked out of the park with almost steroidal force – were kings. All of them, from the figures of ancient legend and Scripture to those who warmed England’s throne during his lifetime.

“Common Sense,” his first major work, was an urgent wake-up call to every light-sleeping lover of liberty within earshot. In that pamphlet, Paine labels kingship “the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry.” He never minced words; he wanted the right people to choke on them.

‘Simple facts, plain arguments’

Exactly what was Paine’s problem with kings?

The same problem you’ll have, “Common Sense” promises, when you examine the evidence.

This is partly the secret of Paine’s rhetorical power: It’s hard to imagine any wordsmith demanding more vigorously that you not take his word for it.

Paine was a student of history, and history is chock-full of receipts. It shows that abuses of kingly power extend back to the “early ages of monarchy,” when some “principal ruffian” first took power, and “it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed … to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar.”

Since that time, says Paine, even those fortunate enough to live under benevolent rule have seldom been more than one generation away from yet another dreadful monarch.

“One of the strongest NATURAL proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.” What a tweet this would have made, caps and all.

Bring the Paine

The only thing Paine liked less than monarchical rule was its enablers, anyone who relinquished their freedom willingly to an aspiring tyrant.

This is not only wrong, Paine insists, but against nature, since all of us are created equal.

But even that’s not the worst part. Those who sacrifice their own freedom on the altar of monarchy also sacrifice that of future generations. Their “unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool.” Ouch.

“Most wise men,” Paine adds, “in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.”

Federal worker firings, court settlements, a government shutdown. Paine would loathe how right the U.S. is proving him.

Besides criticizing both tradition and manipulative elites for their role in abetting monarchs, Paine’s writing gestures toward a more widely accessible sense of false freedom that comes with getting what you want from whoever happens to wear the crown.

This kind of pleasure obscures a painful reality: that the tyrant can strike as well as stroke.

The problem of unchecked power is not nearly counterbalanced by any number of indulgences the wielder of that power deigns to bestow. Freedom, Paine insists, is not transactional; whatever price you name, you’re getting fleeced.

Or, to put it his way: “O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!”

Matthew Redmond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

When fire erupted at the Intercontinental Terminals Co. bulk liquid petroleum storage terminal, large plumes of dark smoke billowed into the clear skies over Deer Park, Texas. Despite the efforts of site staff and local firefighters, more than 70 million gallons of petroleum products burned or were otherwise released into the environment over the following three days in March 2019.

Even while the fire was still burning, investigations began looking into what had happened and what was still happening. The Environmental Protection Agency tested air and water samples to determine how much pollution was being released – both to determine cleanup efforts and to assess fines. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration reviewed what had happened, but found that with no workers injured, there was no reason to investigate further or impose fines or other penalties on the company.

A third federal agency, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, often known as the CSB, got to work figuring out what had gone wrong, without assigning legal or financial responsibility, but rather seeking to learn from this disaster how to prevent future accidents. It’s an approach much like the National Transportation Safety Board takes toward airplane crashes, train derailments and other transportation-related tragedies: document what happened and identify every opportunity to prevent or reduce the chances of it happening again.

That deep investigative process reportedly will not happen in the wake of the October 2025 explosion and fire at a Chevron refinery in El Segundo, California, because of the federal government shutdown and lack of funding for the organization.

As scholars of chemical disasters, we believe this absence – and the potential for the board to be eliminated entirely under the proposed 2026 federal budget – raises the risk of more, and more serious, chemical disasters, not just in the U.S. but around the world.

Many serious incidents

The CSB investigation of that 2019 fire that burned 15 petroleum tanks at the Intercontinental Terminals Co., near the Port of Houston, yielded key recommendations to the company, OSHA and the EPA. They included necessary updates to safety management systems, the need for flammable-gas detectors to identify leaks, and remotely operated emergency shutoff valves so workers could close tanks containing hazardous material without exposing themselves to danger. The company has addressed the first recommendation and is reportedly working on the next two.

The board also recommended to the petroleum industry that storage tanks be spaced farther apart so they would be less likely to catch each other on fire – a recommendation that is still under review.

And the Texas fire was just one of several disasters the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board investigated that year. Since its activation in 1998, the board has conducted in-depth investigations of 102 chemical disasters in the chemical and industrial sectors – an average of about four per year. And its reports are regularly used worldwide, including in France, South Korea and China.

Creation and goals of the CSB

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board was created by Congress in a 1990 amendment to the Clean Air Act, in the wake of several high-profile chemical disasters around the world.

Those included the 1976 dioxin release in Seveso, Italy, which caused skin lesions on over 600 people and contaminated nearly 7 square miles of land; the deaths of thousands in Bhopal, India, from the 1984 release of methyl isocyanate from a Union Carbide pesticide plant; and the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986 in what was then the Soviet Union. The goal was to prevent similar accidents from occurring on U.S. soil by investigating the causes of incidents and providing recommendations for improvement.

Specifically designed to be independent of other organizations and political influence, the CSB cannot be forced to modify its findings by other agencies, branches or political parties, ensuring its impartiality.

It has no power to issue regulations, nor any authority to impose fines or other punishments for wrongdoing. Rather, it is a fact-finding, investigative body designed to learn from past disasters and issue voluntary recommendations so chemical companies can improve their equipment and processes to prevent future tragedies. The vast majority of its recommendations are adopted by the industries affected, usually by the investigated company, though sometimes recommendations become industry standards. These recommendations can range from changes in procedure, the addition of safety devices or even overall facility design recommendations.

What does the board do?

There are several kinds of events companies must report to the federal government, including deaths and releases of particular chemicals, such as chlorine, naphthalene and vinyl chloride.

The board reviews those reports and decides on its own which to investigate. When an inquiry is opened, a group of experts who work for the board travel to the incident site to gather evidence to understand not only what happened in the big picture but a detailed view of how events unfolded.

After the investigation, the board issues a report detailing what it found and recommending specific changes to the company to reduce the risk of that sequence of events happening again. The board also delivers its information to other federal agencies, such as the EPA and OSHA, which can determine whether changes would be appropriate to federal regulations that apply to all companies in an industry.

The board’s value

The board had a US$14 million annual budget for 2025, which is a tiny part of the more than $6 trillion the U.S. government spends each year.

The current administration’s justification for eliminating the CSB is that its capabilities are duplicated by agencies such as the EPA and OSHA. But the EPA focuses specifically on environmental violations and potential threats to human life. OSHA investigates regulatory violations leading to personal injury.

In fact, the CSB has helped the EPA and OSHA evaluate and improve regulations, such as for the open burning of waste explosives, and improved methods of investigating accidental chemical releases and implementing new emergency response rules.

The CSB is the only organization that looks into improving processes to prevent future accidents instead of punishing past acts. It’s the difference between investigating who robbed a bank to hold the robbers accountable and improving bank security so another robbery can’t occur.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation