#state-legislatures

#state-legislatures

Lawmakers across the country have introduced hundreds of bills targeting transgender people in the first month of 2026, a surge that advocates said reflects a decadelong political strategy that has steadily escalated since major court victories for LGBTQIA+ rights. The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking just shy of 400 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills in state legislatures nationwide, including measures carried over from prior sessions that remain active this year.

Republicans could gain nearly 200 state legislative seats across the South if the U.S. Supreme Court guts a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, a new analysis finds. The bulk of the gains would be concentrated in 10 GOP-controlled state legislatures in Southern states, according to the analysis, produced by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, in partnership with Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters.

But even in a state that went for Trump by 16 percentage points in 2024, Republicans could not rally enough support this fall for a special session on redistricting. "I haven't heard a good reason yet to vote for it," said Mark Schreiber, one of 10 Republican holdouts in the Kansas state House. "To me that's not the purpose of redistricting. It's not used as a political tool to increase your majority, it's to adjust for population changes."