President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate are pushing through nominations for federal judges at an unusually fast pace ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. That’s when the GOP could lose its majority and end the easy path to confirmation for Trump’s nominees. As political scientists who study diversity and the federal...
The latest G-7 summit, held June 8 to 9 in Quebec, was one of the most contentious in years. That’s because Donald Trump and his counterparts from six other industrialized countries have been at loggerheads over the president’s aggressive but unstable trade policy. Trump’s renunciation of the Iran nuclear deal, his efforts to renegotiate NAFTA...
Once upon a time, there was a prominent, powerful man in government who cared deeply about integrity and following the rules. He said, “You cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgment, not till he’s shown his colors … Experience, there’s the test.” Leaders have a sacred obligation to those they...
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced last week that the 2020 census will include a question about citizenship. Ross argued that such a question is required for a “complete and accurate” count of Americans. Others in the Department of Justice have argued that the knowledge produced would be useful in ensuring against voter fraud. Much recent...
In 2017, just a few days after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, a freshman GOP lawmaker with only a few days on the job of his own, proposed House Resolution 861. Its language was ominous: “The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018.” I was in my sixth year on the...
President Donald Trump recently raised the ante with his promise to unleash a wave of new infrastructure spending. During his first State of Union address, he conjured up images of “gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways and waterways all across our land” without getting into the details. The White House will soon unveil Trump’s “Infrastructure...
More than one billion women lack legal protection against domestic sexual violence, says new research from the World Bank. The study, Global and Regional Trends in Women’s Legal Protection Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Harassment, also found that close to 1.4 billion women lack legal protection against domestic economic violence. Economic abuse entails controlling a woman’s ability to access...
The federal government is on the brink of shutting down for the first time in a little more than four years after Republicans and Democrats appeared unable to agree on a last-minute deal to keep funds flowing for another few weeks. The immediate and most visible impact would be in the government’s day-to-day operations. Many...
On Jan. 4, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Cole memo, a 2013 document that limits federal enforcement of marijuana laws. This opens the door for a crackdown in the nine states with legal recreational marijuana. The Cole memo is one of two documents that prevent the U.S. Justice Department from treating marijuana as a...
Judge Richard A. Posner, a legendary judicial figure, retired abruptly earlier this month to make a point: People without lawyers are mistreated in the American legal system. In one of his final opinions as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, he expressed frustration at the dismissal of one...
