Congress

The U.S. Congress is the country’s legislative body and is made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Read stories here about elections to these bodies, the laws they introduce and the ways lawmakers shape peoples’ lives.

Keeping Score: Supreme Court Blow to Voting Rights Will ‘Silence Our Voices’; Conservative Judges Try to Restrict Mifepristone; Moms Worry About Putting Food on the Table

PUBLISHED 5/14/2026 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, slashing protections against racially discriminatory voting laws.
—A record high amount of books were censored from libraries in 2025, often due to LGBTQ characters or plotlines addressing racism.
—A third of moms living on low incomes have gone into debt or skipped meals so their kids could eat.
—Just 22 percent of American voters have significant confidence in the Supreme Court.
—In 2025 the number of abortions in the U.S. remained stable, but more patients in states with bans turned to telehealth services instead of traveling out of state.
—The Department of Justice announced plans to expand the use of the federal death penalty.
—An Epstein-Maxwell survivor, who asked to remain anonymous, laments, “I kept my identity protected as Jane Doe. I woke up one day with my name mentioned over 500 times. While the rich and powerful remain protected by redaction, my name was exposed to the world.”
—The Trump administration launched a Moms.gov site on Mother’s Day that refers pregnant people to unregulated crisis pregnancy centers.
—A Ms. piece on solitary confinement by Kwaneta Harris and her daughter Summer Knight won Kwaneta second place in the Collaboration category of the Stillwater Awards for prison journalism.
—Liberation, a play about 1970s feminism by Bess Wohl, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Wohl was inspired by her own life: Her mother, Lisa Cronin Wohl, was an early Ms. contributor.

… and more.

From the Halls of Congress to Out on the Trail, Women Beg the Question: Why Not You?

PUBLISHED 5/8/2026 by

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world—with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!

This week:
—Rachel Entrekin makes history by setting a new course record at the Cocodona 250 ultramarathon, becoming the first woman to win the race outright.
—Amy Acton could become Ohio’s first woman governor.
—Mother’s Day has always been about women’s political power.

… and more.

The First Mother’s Day Was a Protest

PUBLISHED 5/8/2026 by

Far from mimosa brunches and hallmark greetings, the first Mother’s Day in the United States occurred against the scourge of war. In 1870, abolitionist and suffragist Julie Ward Howe who still had the horrors of the Civil War on her mind and was disturbed by the plight of war abroad called for an international movement of mothers as a way to call for peace and to protest the devastation of war.

History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes. Mother’s Day comes this year as our nation and those across the globe are living with the dire consequences of a war with Iran Congress never authorized. The war has cost American lives as well as the lives of innocent children–including nearly 100 schoolgirls—in Iran. Former U.S. military officials have criticized the Pentagon’s strike and the lack of transparency around it. The president continues to threaten many of our global allies, as the rate of autocracies across the globe rise while democracies decline. All the while, costs continue to rise, making it harder and harder for working people to make ends meet. 

The only way this crisis will become a catalyst for change is if we commit not just to rebuilding our nation, but to reimagining it as a nation that can hold all of us and to demand that our leaders drive bold change to achieve true democracy and true change for the next generation. A nation where it is unacceptable for children to go hungry while others enjoy nation-building wealth. A nation where it is unacceptable to detain children and infants based on their skin color or who their parents are or where they are from. A nation where every person finds the courage to call out the cruelty. 

On this Mother’s Day, may we all be the mothers—and the fighters—our children need. If we don’t, who will? 

Trump Administration Launches a Legally Bogus Investigation into Smith College

PUBLISHED 5/8/2026 by and

The Trump administration claims its investigation into Smith College is about defending women. In reality, it is an attack on the rights of women at Smith to define their own community, values and mission without political interference from Washington.

The Department of Education argues that by admitting transgender women and allowing them access to campus housing and facilities, Smith may have violated Title IX. But that argument collapses under even a basic reading of the law. Title IX simply does not apply to admissions at private undergraduate colleges like Smith.

The administration’s complaint is also striking because it is not based on evidence that Smith students have been harmed or excluded from campus life. There is no public record of students filing complaints about the college’s housing, bathrooms or locker rooms policies. Instead, this investigation grew out of pressure from a conservative advocacy group determined to use federal power to impose its ideological agenda on colleges and universities.

Smith’s campus policies were shaped over years by students, faculty and administrators themselves—including cisgender women students who pushed the college to open admissions to transgender women more than a decade ago.

At its core, this investigation is about far more than one women’s college. It reflects the Trump administration’s broader campaign against trans rights, higher education and liberal arts institutions that encourage critical thought, inclusion and intellectual independence.

Congress passed Title IX to expand educational opportunities for women. Now, the administration is attempting to weaponize that same civil rights law to undermine women’s education and bully colleges into abandoning their own principles.

The Supreme Court Gutted the Voting Rights Act. Women Will Pay the Price.

PUBLISHED 5/2/2026 by and

The Court didn’t strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—but it didn’t need to. By requiring proof of intentional discrimination, the majority has made it dramatically harder to challenge maps that dilute the voting power of communities of color. As Justice Elena Kagan warned, the provision is now “all but a dead letter.”

For the women elected from majority-minority districts, that shift is not abstract. These are the very districts that made their representation possible—and now, those districts are among the most vulnerable to being redrawn or erased.

The consequences were immediate. Within hours of the ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, Florida lawmakers advanced a new congressional map targeting majority-minority districts, including seats held by women.

In the 11 states most likely to face redistricting pressure, up to 36 such districts could be redrawn—12 of them currently represented by women.

As voting rights litigator Yael Bromberg explained, the Court is now effectively looking for a “smoking gun” of discrimination. Short of that, legislatures can redraw maps along partisan lines, even when the racial impact is clear.

The statute remains on the books, but its practical force does not. And what replaces it is not neutrality—it is discretion. State legislatures can choose which incumbents to protect and which to leave exposed, creating new opportunities to sideline women and weaken the political power of the communities that elected them.

What happens next will not hinge on another sweeping ruling, but on a series of decisions that are easier to overlook and harder to challenge—and that will determine, district by district, who gets to remain represented at all.

War on Women Report: Rise of ‘Sleep Porn’; Georgia Midwives Sue for Right to Practice; Louisiana Family Massacre Exposes Deadly Intersection of Domestic Violence and Guns

PUBLISHED 4/29/2026 by and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide: the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.”

We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—Access to mifepristone remains protected for now, after a U.S. district court granted a stay in Louisiana v. FDA.
—A new CNN investigation reveals a sprawling online network where drug-facilitated sexual assault, marketed as “sleep porn, ” is filmed, shared and monetized, drawing millions of viewers. Meanwhile, survivors face steep barriers to reporting and justice.
—The Ohio House passed the Indecent Exposure Modernization Act, an extreme bill that seeks to ban any expression or performance of drag where minors are or may be present. The proposed ban includes even daytime family-oriented events such as drag queen story hours, where performers dress up as storybook characters and read to children at libraries or bookstores.
—In a devastating shooting spree spanning three locations, Shamar Elkins shot and killed eight children, seven of whom were his own, and severely wounded two women: his wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, and Christina Snow. Both women are mothers to the deceased victims.
—In Georgia, a group of reproductive healthcare advocates is challenging the state’s restrictions on some forms of maternal healthcare, arguing that Georgia’s current laws give doctors too much control over midwives’ ability to practice.
—Nine women in Tennessee are suing the state over its abortion ban after nearly denying due to being denied abortion care.

… and more.

When Power Protects Abuse: Eric Swalwell Accusations Reveal Architecture of Male Entitlement in Congress

PUBLISHED 4/29/2026 by

When survivors of Jeffrey Epstein stood in the Capitol during the State of the Union earlier this year, we were meant to read it as a sign that this Congress takes the sexual exploitation of women and children seriously. But weeks later, that symbolism rings hollow to anyone who watched Kevin McCarthy appear on television, bluntly telling the world that “every member of Congress” knew about allegations against Eric Swalwell.

Let’s sit with that for a moment. Lawmakers invited Epstein survivors into the chamber, while simultaneously elevating a colleague with his own credibly documented history of violence against young women—one who was until very recently, positioning himself as California’s next governor.

If we cannot connect those two facts, we are not serious about addressing these issues.

Justice Kagan Sounds the Alarm as Supreme Court Dismantles Voting Rights Protections: ‘Elected Politicians Picking Their Voters’

PUBLISHED 4/29/2026 by and

In a 6-3 decision in Callais v. Louisiana on Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s current congressional map—drawn after the 2020 census to include a second majority-Black district—and, in doing so, weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last remaining nationwide tool for challenging racially discriminatory voting laws.

Rep. Maxine Dexter and the Girls of San Benito: Investigating the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Treatment of Pregnant Unaccompanied Minors

PUBLISHED 4/29/2026 by | UPDATED 5/6/2026 at 8:38 A.M. PT

U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter—a physician and member of Congress from Oregon—visited a remote immigration detention center in San Benito, Texas. Her goal: to talk to the girls living there. She wanted to assess for herself a place deemed ill-equipped to handle the potential medical complications faced by pregnant minors and young mothers by immigrant rights and healthcare advocates. 

In an interview with Ms., Rep. Dexter raises urgent concerns about secrecy, missing girls, and inadequate medical care for pregnant unaccompanied minors in federal custody.

“The staff clearly were not helping us speak with them. And that gives me extraordinary concerns that there’s something they’re hiding …”

In the end, Dexter and her group visited a ghost town. They did not see a single child on their tour of the shelter, which currently houses two pregnant girls, two young mothers and their babies and three other girls.

“Just a few months ago they had many more girls. I asked where, where have they gone? Have they been returned to other countries? Are they in foster care? Are they transferred? And they said they couldn’t share that information with us. So, you know, it’s clear they’re trying to limit the number of girls in these facilities now. But where the hell are they?”

America Is Detaining Children for Profit, With Your Tax Dollars

PUBLISHED 4/25/2026 by

As we ramp up for Mother’s Day in the United States, children in this country are being locked up in immigration detention—not just as policy, but as part of a growing, for-profit system. 

American tax dollars are subsidizing this extension of collective punishment to the youngest among us, including babies and toddlers, here at home.

Making it possible is the $45 billion cash infusion U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received from Congress last year for detention operations. Over 90 percent of facilities are privately run.  

One ICE corporate partner, CoreCivic, reported $2.5 billion in 2025 revenue, including $180 million from its Dilley Immigration Processing facility, the sole destination for U.S. warehousing of families. Dilley is where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was sent after ICE agents detained him and his father outside their Minnesota home—galvanizing Americans aghast by the image of a child in a bunny hat taken into federal custody.

But Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were not alone. This month, Human Rights First and RAICES published a new report, “A New Era of ICE Family Prisons,” documenting the unjust, prolonged and abusive detention of over 5,600 children and parents at Dilley since the Trump administration reopened it in April 2025.

Extensive interviews of detained families reveal patterns of harm and denial of due process that shock the conscience and demand accountability. Meanwhile, 121 pregnant, postpartum and nursing women were detained in ICE custody as of February 2026.

Children belong in school, not detention, and with their moms and dads. Together, we can shutter the Dilley facility, and let immigrant families live their lives in dignity.