Install
Blog page 8 of 28
Harry and Louise and the Collapse of the 1994 Clinton Health Plan Two actors at a kitchen table helped sink the Clinton health plan. Here is how the ads worked, why the bill died without a floor vote, and what reformers learned. Hart-Celler at the Statue of Liberty and the Country It Remade Why Lyndon Johnson told a crowd on Liberty Island that the 1965 immigration law was not revolutionary, and how its family-first design changed the country anyway. Harvey Milk, the Briggs Initiative and the Campaign That Changed Minds In 1978 California voters were expected to pass a ballot measure to fire gay teachers. They rejected it. Here is how a coalition, not a single hero, turned that vote around. Henry Dunant at Solferino and the Founding of the Red Cross How a Genevan businessman who stumbled onto the battlefield of Solferino in 1859 wrote the book that created the Red Cross and the first Geneva Convention, and why his idea still matters. Hostage-Taking Is a War Crime, and the Law Behind the Families' Campaign From the families in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square to the Geneva Conventions: why taking hostages is forbidden to every party in every war, how the rule was built, and where its edges are argued. Housing First and the Thirty Years of Evidence Behind It Housing First began in 1992 New York with a simple bet: give people a home without preconditions. Three decades of trials show it keeps people housed. Here is the case and its limits. How 146 Deaths at the Triangle Factory Rewrote New York's Labor Laws How a 1911 garment factory fire, two Tammany legislators and a young investigator named Frances Perkins turned grief into the laws the New Deal later copied. How a 2012 Supreme Court Ruling Made Medicaid Expansion a State Choice NFIB v. Sebelius saved the ACA's insurance mandate as a tax but let states refuse Medicaid expansion. Here is how that ruling created the coverage gap and how voters answered it. How a Congressional Subpoena Works and What Happens When Someone Ignores It Steve Bannon's 2022 conviction shows the three ways Congress can enforce a subpoena, why each is slow, and what a new majority can realistically do when witnesses refuse. How Asylum Works, From the 1980 Refugee Act to a Border Interview What asylum law actually requires, from the 1980 Refugee Act's definition of a refugee to the credible fear interview at the border and the years-long wait in immigration court. How Committee Gavels Are Assigned, From Steering Panels to Term Limits Committee chairs decide which bills live or die, and each party picks them differently. Here is how steering panels, seniority, caucus votes and the 1995 term-limit rule decide who holds a gavel. How Congress Writes Twelve Spending Bills, and Why It So Often Fails Since the 1974 Budget Act set the fiscal year to start October 1, Congress has finished all its spending bills on time only four times. Here is how the process is meant to work and where it breaks.