Essays
Judgment / October 29, 2026
Every four years, somebody rediscovers vote pairing and reacts as if it were an attack on the ballot box. A Green Party voter in Wisconsin promises to vote...
1 min read
I know this will sound backwards to a lot of people, but the panic over super PACs may be the most misunderstood non-scandal in American politics. We are...
Washington treats the continuing resolution as a boring emergency valve, a temporary bridge between budgets, a procedural speed bump that keeps the lights...
Imagine you own a small manufacturing company in Ohio. A candidate for Congress visits your local Chamber of Commerce roundtable. You ask her a pointed...
Most people have an opinion about the Senate filibuster. Almost nobody has an opinion about the House rule that makes the filibuster unnecessary in the...
I'll open with a claim that will sound upside down to anyone raised on modern campaign-finance journalism: the real scandal in a straw donor contribution...
There is a moment in every budget fight when the conversation stops being about principles and starts being about points of order. The parliamentarian...
Before we argue about whether $174,000 is too high or too low, start with a question that should come first in a free republic: Who sets the price? In any...
Ask most Americans how many members serve in the House of Representatives, and they can usually give you the number: 435. Ask them why it is 435, and you...
No principle is more fundamental to the American constitutional order than this: governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed...