Essays

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Judgment / September 29, 2026

The Democratic Caucus Chair Is the Unelected Party Boss Replacing Judgment with Conformity

Most Americans can name the Speaker of the House. Many can name the minority leader. Almost no one can name the chair of the House Democratic Caucus. That...

1 min read

JudgmentSeptember 29, 20261 min read

The House Has 435 Members. That Number Is a Constitutional Mistake.

Ask most Americans how many people serve in the House of Representatives and the answer comes quickly: 435. By law, that is correct. But as a matter of...

JudgmentSeptember 29, 20261 min read

Why the Morning Hour Still Matters in Congress

Most people have never heard of the morning hour, and that says something about our politics. It is not a vote, not a hearing, not a committee mark-up. In...

JudgmentSeptember 28, 20261 min read

Cracking and Packing Gerrymandering: The Real Cure Is Smaller Government

The moment the political class starts talking about gerrymandering, I reach for my wallet. Not because the problem is fake-it is real, corrosive, and a...

JudgmentSeptember 28, 20261 min read

The Question of Privilege: Congress’s Forgotten Check on Majority Power

You have heard the phrase "check your privilege." It is usually an order to sit down, confess group guilt, and accept that your views are tainted by...

AttentionSeptember 28, 20261 min read

The Senate’s Executive Calendar Is the Constitutional Dashboard No One Checks

I hesitate to call it a scandal, because a scandal usually requires someone to notice. Yet the most important public document in the United States Senate is...

JudgmentSeptember 28, 20261 min read

The Shadow Constitution: How Budget Reconciliation Instructions Override Judgment

The most consequential words in Washington are not in the bill that makes the evening news. They are in a budget resolution, hidden in a set of internal...

JudgmentSeptember 27, 20261 min read

Omnibus Bills and the Death of Legislative Judgment

There is a particular arrogance in a legislative body that calls itself representative but no longer votes on laws in any meaningful sense. The omnibus bill...

JudgmentSeptember 27, 20261 min read

Reconciliation Instructions: The Constitutional Bypass Hiding in Plain Sight

Most Americans have never heard of reconciliation instructions. They sound like the kind of language buried in a quarterly budget report, the sort of...

JudgmentSeptember 27, 20261 min read

The Supreme Court’s Line-Item Veto Ruling Was a Victory for Limited Government

In 1996, a Republican Congress passed and Bill Clinton signed the Line Item Veto Act. The idea sounded responsible. Give the president the ability to sign a...