Long heralded as one of the most powerful and deepest-pocketed interest groups in the country, the National Rifle Association is now saying it could be forced out of business. In court filings and public statements, the NRA says that a campaign by Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and the state's Department of Financial Services has cost it "tens of millions of dollars" and left it scrambling to find basic banking services and essential corporate liability coverage. But they are certainly not broke. The gun group did accrue debt and run a deficit in 2016, the last year for which its tax forms are available. But it also finished that year with a reported $36 million in net assets.  

As we mark the anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, its landmark guarantees have since dimmed. To be sure, the revolutionary law expanded the right to vote to millions of people historically excluded from our participatory democracy. It dismantled some of the systems that kept minority voters from casting a ballot, like abolishing literacy tests. Over the past half century, it's been credited for everything from the election loss of Jim Clark - the Selma, Alabama sheriff who ordered his troopers to charge civil rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge - to bringing turnout levels of black voters close to that of white voters. There can be no question that it has played a key role in protecting the ability of all voters to cast a ballot that counts on Election Day. 

Those who believe - as we do - that partisan gerrymandering has become so extreme that it violates constitutional principles and threatens our democracy were disappointed when the Supreme Court dodged the issue last term. Its refusal in June, on technical grounds, to consider two egregious cases of partisan gerrymandering seemed to dash a good chance for reform. Lawmakers in statehouses who control the process, after all, have little incentive to fix a system they have rigged to benefit themselves.