Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. Democrats, led by members of Congress, manipulated California’s redistricting process by enlisting lobbyists, union officials, and community groups to influence the state’s new independent redistricting panel, ProPublica reports. At open hearings in front of the independent panel that drew up new boundaries for Congressional and state legislative districts, numerous people with ties to the Democratic Party portrayed themselves as average citizens. The resulting districts heavily favored Democrats in California and short-circuited reform efforts designed to create more competitive political races in the state.