With both House and Senate now in their summer recess, and SCOTUS having largely worked its way through what has accumulated on the shadow docket, you’d think there might not be that much to talk about these days. Yeah, right…

A major story this month has been efforts by the Republican-led Texas government to call a special legislative session for the purpose of performing a highly unusual mid-decennial Congressional districting. This was suggested by President Trump, and the gerrymandered map that Texas Republicans want to implement is carefully designed to transfer 5 seats from the Democrats to Republicans. So far, the Texas state Democratic caucus has thwarted these plans by escaping to various Blue states, although there is talk that the FBI might attempt to bring them back to Texas (under extremely questionable authority) and/or that their legislative seats might be declared vacant with Republicans appointed to fill them (ditto).

While this percolates, other Democratic-held states have threatened a gerrymandering race to the bottom. On the one hand, it is perhaps refreshing to see Democrats finally respond to a naked exercise of power on the other side of the aisle with a willingness to hold their noses and respond in kind. On the other hand, it is clearly hideous for the long-term legitimacy of our democratic form of government if we end up in a gerrymandering cold war.

Later this week, and to the disgust of many, Russian President Putin will be visiting U.S. soil for a summit meeting with Trump. The Alaska summit’s purpose is to discuss an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, without participation from either Ukraine or Europe. Of course we’re now over six months into Trump’s second term and his promised “day one” resolution to the war.

Today a three-day-long federal trial commenced in Newsom v. Trump over whether Trump’s use of military forces in L.A. in June violated the Posse Comitatus Act. In related news, today Trump announced that he was federalizing the D.C. National Guard and also asserting federal control over the D.C. police, citing a purported emergency regarding violent crime (notwithstanding that crime rates in D.C. have declined significantly from 2023 to 2025). The Home Rule Act of 1973 gives the President the ability to seize control of the D.C. police on an emergency basis for 48 hours, and then brief Congress on why such control may need to be extended for up to 30 days.

Finally, Trump just announced a further 90-day delay in the implementation of higher tariffs for China, which I think makes it the only country besides Mexico for which higher tariffs have yet to go into effect. At present the aggregate effective tariff rate has been estimated by J.P. Morgan Chase to be 15.3%, up from 2.3% at the end of 2024. Analysis from Goldman Sachs indicates that in the first half of 2025, businesses chose to absorb 64% of the impact from higher tariffs; however by late 2025, U.S. consumers are expected to be absorbing two-thirds of the tariff burden.