Portland, Oregon, first used its new proportional ranked-choice voting electoral system to elect city council members in November 2024. A variety of groups endorsed candidates in this nonpartisan election. Analyses of these groups’ endorsements point to the emergence of four political blocs: national progressivism, pro-business pragmatism, local progressivism, and laborism…. (Read more)
An Initial Assessment of Proportional Ra...
Restoring the power of the purse: Earmar...
However well-intentioned, the earmark moratorium has had real shortcomings. As various observershave noted, forbidding earmarks has shifted spending authority to the executive branch agencies, which are not directly accountable to the public. The moratorium also has not reduced federal spending, as some advocates anticipated. Troublingly, the earmark moratorium encouraged legislators to attempt to direct spending […]
Separating myth from fact about the trou...
The US Postal Service (USPS) generally does not make much news, but it burst into the headlinesduring the summer of 2020. The media and social media were suddenly full of allegations that theDonald Trump administration has unleashed “attacks” designed to “cripple” the Postal Serviceto justify its eventual privatization and undermine the election….(Read more)