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February 22, 2018 - As civil rights groups challenge racially discriminatory judicial elections under the Voting Rights Act, North Carolina legislators are moving forward with a judicial gerrymandering plan that could lead to less racial diversity on the bench.

February 16, 2018 - People who have not been convicted of any crime languish in jails simply because they can't afford to post bail. To address the injustice, several Southern cities have reformed their bail policies — and organizers in one North Carolina community are trying to make their city next.

February 14, 2018 - The news that North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest solicited millions of dollars from a Durham businessman for supposedly "independent" political groups highlights loopholes in state campaign finance law that need to be closed.

January 18, 2018 - Thomas Farr's nomination to serve as a federal judge in eastern North Carolina has met opposition because of his involvement in efforts to suppress the African-American vote. Less well-known are his efforts to quash workers' organizing rights.

December 15, 2017 - Over half of the South's governor's offices, six of its U.S. Senate seats, and all of its U.S. House seats are up for grabs next year. We run down the races to keep an eye on.

November 22, 2017 - A lawsuit that led to judicial elections in Louisiana's Terrebonne Parish being declared racially discriminatory will move to the remedial stage despite efforts by the governor and attorney general — with help from a controversial law firm — to block a fix.

November 17, 2017 - Democrats, liberal-leaning independents and a growing number of progressives lead two-thirds of the South's 30 largest cities, but their agenda is under attack from the region's conservative legislatures through preemption and other efforts to limit local control.

October 20, 2017 - Facing legal action in North Carolina for filing false claims of voter fraud after last year's close governor's race, Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky is now opposing the NAACP in a lawsuit over judicial elections in Louisiana's Terrebonne Parish. The Virginia-based firm's managing partner is a GOP state senator and candidate for lieutenant governor in that state.

August 28, 2017 - Though their states' governors and coastal communities oppose offshore oil and gas development, U.S. Reps. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina and David Rouzer of North Carolina are co-sponsoring a bill that would make it easier for companies to conduct seismic tests for offshore deposits by weakening marine life protections.

August 17, 2017 - Law professor Angela A. Allen-Bell of Southern University discusses the connections between slavery and mass incarceration in the context of the planned Aug. 19 march in Washington, D.C. The gathering is calling for the 13th Amendment's enslavement clause to be amended to abolish legalized slavery in prisons.