In an almost offhand fashion last week, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told several congressional committees that his Department of Homeland Security had created a new body, the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB). He offered few specifics as to how it was combating disinformation, and few have come since, apart from his meaningless comment that the DGB would […]
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Why are serious debates in Congress so r...
The Senate’s recent consideration of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was quite the spectacle. Any American who bothered to tune in to it likely felt dismay. Here was a person being considered for an important position. In any other job interview, there would have been a frank and open dialogue about her credentials and work history— and, in […]
Requiring majority winners for congressi...
Most elections for Congress feature a general election with a Democrat and a Republican who previously were picked by partisan primaries. These first-past-the-post elections present voters with a singular choice: Pick the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate. This limited choice is becoming increasingly problematic for Americans as fewer and fewer of them much like either of […]
Is democratic debate dead?
In mid-January, the Senate convened to consider election reform legislation. Many years had passed since the “world’s greatest deliberative body” had formally taken up the issue. The chamber spent a little over a dozen hours on the matter, almost all of which were consumed by senators delivering monologues to a mostly empty chamber. Democrats name-checked […]
A democratic norm endures January 6th: C...
The siege of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the effort to subvert the counting of all states’ lawfully submitted electoral slates appeared to validate the narrative of democracy’s impending demise. The incident sent shock waves through all three branches of government, and the day will live in infamy. Yet, for all the […]
This year, Congress used the spending bi...
Much media and talking head attention has focused on the size of the recent omnibus spending package. This is understandable — 2,741 pages and $1.5 trillion is a lot of money. Much commentary appropriately has cited what was included in the legislation (aid for Ukraine) and what was not (more COVID-19 spending). Almost altogether ignored is the investment Congress made […]