Last week, the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana congressional map in a 6–3 decision tied to a 1986 amendment to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. As Sarah Isgur explains, “What the Supreme Court has said now for 25 years, whether it's affirmative action or voting rights, is we're going to stop discriminating on the basis of race, whether you think it's good discrimination or bad discrimination or whatever else in-between, but you will not take race into account. Not when it comes to admissions to universities and not when it comes to voting.” At the heart of the debate is an ongoing misunderstanding of equality of opportunity vs equity of outcome. With both parties seeking political advantage in a zero-sum game, disentangling racial and partisan lines in congressional districting becomes nearly impossible, especially within the framework of constitutional fealty. Thus, we arrive at our regular theme: "Congress do your job!" Instead of judicial activism, can lawmakers create a neutral redistricting framework that truly separates race from politics and regulates partisan gerrymandering?

Sarah Isgur is a senior editor at The Dispatch and is based in northern Virginia. She is the host of Advisory Opinions and the editor of SCOTUSblog. Prior to joining the company in 2019, she worked in every branch of the federal government and on three presidential campaigns. She’s also an ABC News contributor and the author of Last Branch Standing, a deep dive into the inner workings of the Supreme Court.

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On the eve of talks in Washington between leaders in Lebanon and Israel, Beirut has signaled a push to extend the 10-day, U.S.-mediated ceasefire set to expire this Sunday. The ongoing conflict with Iran has put its proxies’ regional struggles into the limelight, as flashpoints continue to emerge, Lebanon chief among them. As a platform for Hezbollah, Lebanon is in a unique political position, balancing an adversary at home while aligning itself more closely with the West amid regional confrontation. Donald Trump has a historic opportunity to rid the Middle East of the Iranian regime if he is willing to commit to the persistence and patience needed to see this operation through. For Israel and Lebanon, is now the time?

Ambassador David Hale is a Career Ambassador and Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at the Middle East Institute. He also currently serves as a Distinguished Fellow with the Wilson Center. Ambassador Hale previously served as US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; US Ambassador to Pakistan, Lebanon, and Jordan; and Special Envoy for Middle East Peace. He is the author of American Diplomacy Toward Lebanon: Lessons in Foreign Policy and the Middle East, published by Bloomsbury/I.B. Tauris in February 2024.

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While we celebrate the US military's accomplishments over the first forty days of the Iran conflict, a less desirable outcome has been the significant expenditure of munitions and reallocation of critical resources to the region. In Last Rounds? Status of Key Munitions at the Iran War Ceasefire, Colonel (Ret.) Mark Cancian and associate Chris Park crunch the numbers on the seven most heavily used munitions. Rest assured, there's enough left to cover any scenario with Tehran, but a future conflict with China in the Western Pacific highlights inadequate Pentagon inventories. Much like Ukraine before it, this conflict exposes the fragility of America's defense industrial base, making urgent, creative solutions from what Cancian and Park call the "primordial soup of R&D" essential. So, is Washington finally ready to take that lesson seriously?

Mark Cancian (Colonel, USMCR, ret.) is a senior adviser with the CSIS Defense and Security Department. He joined CSIS in April 2015 from the Office of Management and Budget, where he spent more than seven years as chief of the Force Structure and Investment Division, working on issues such as Department of Defense budget strategy, war funding, and procurement programs, as well as nuclear weapons development and nonproliferation activities in the Department of Energy. Previously, he worked on force structure and acquisition issues in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and ran research and executive programs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Chris H. Park is a research associate for the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

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