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Blog page 12 of 30
How Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Worked, and What Louisiana v. Callais Changed For forty years, Section 2 let minority voters challenge maps that diluted their votes. How those claims worked, how Louisiana got a second Black district, and what Callais narrowed in 2026. How Senator Harry Truman's Committee Investigated Wartime Contract Waste A little-known Missouri senator drove to military bases in 1941, found waste, and built a bipartisan committee that became the model for policing defense spending. How Social Security's Trust Funds Work and the Choices Ahead Where Social Security's money comes from, what the trust funds hold, what the trustees project for the 2030s, and the real menu of benefit and revenue choices Congress has to close the gap. How Texas Republicans Chose Treatment Over New Prisons in 2007 In 2007 a Republican engineer from Plano and a Houston Democrat persuaded Texas to fund treatment and probation instead of new prisons. Here is how the deal worked and what it changed. How Texas Under Rick Perry Built the Lines That Made It a Wind Giant A 2005 Texas law ordered thousands of miles of high-voltage lines to carry West Texas wind to the cities. Here is how the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones worked and what they teach about building. How the Emergency Docket Became a Second Supreme Court What stays, applications and unsigned orders are, how a term coined in a 2015 law review article came to describe a parallel Court, and why it now decides fights over presidential power. How the First Step Act Passed a Divided Congress in 2018 How a federal prison and sentencing bill won 87 senators and a Republican president in 2018, what it changed, what it left out, and what the coalition behind it teaches now. How the First Step Act Shortened Federal Sentences A plain guide to the 2018 First Step Act: the sentencing changes, earned time credits and good-conduct fix that cut federal prison terms, and the limits and fights that followed. How the Inflation Reduction Act Became the Biggest US Climate Law How a bill declared dead in late 2021 passed the Senate on a tie-breaking vote in August 2022, and what its tax credits, grants and loans were built to do. How the Paris Agreement Actually Works, From the Gavel at Le Bourget Why the Paris climate deal runs on national pledges, a five-year ratchet and public scrutiny instead of penalties, and what that design can and cannot do. How the Speaker Is Elected on the First Day of a New Congress The House cannot swear in members, adopt rules or do anything else until it picks a Speaker. Here is how the vote works, why it took fifteen ballots in 2023, and what can stall it. How the Voting Rights Act's Preclearance Worked Before Shelby County For nearly fifty years, some states needed federal approval before changing a voting rule. How that system worked, why the Supreme Court switched it off in 2013, and what states did next.