Install
Blog page 11 of 30
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. How Constituent Mail Works and How to Write a Letter That Gets Read Why a paper letter to Congress can take weeks to arrive, how staff sort and answer constituent mail, and how to write a short letter or email that a staffer reads and answers. How DACA Works and Why It Has Lived on Court Orders Since 2012 What Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals gives and never gave, how it survived a rescission and a Supreme Court case, and why its future still rests with judges and Congress. How Euclid v. Ambler Made Exclusionary Zoning the Law of the Land A 1926 fight over 68 acres outside Cleveland gave every American town the power to ban apartments. Here is how that happened and what reformers are doing about it. How Exonerations Happen and What DNA Evidence Changed How wrongful convictions are discovered and overturned, what DNA testing revealed about eyewitnesses, confessions and forensic science, and the reforms that make mistakes less likely. How Illinois Became the First State to Abolish Cash Bail How the Illinois Supreme Court's July 18, 2023 ruling cleared the way for the end of money bail, what pretrial detention hearings look like now, and what other states can learn from it. How Independent Redistricting Commissions Work, From Arizona to Michigan How Arizona, California, Michigan and Colorado choose their mapmakers, what happened when commissions in Virginia and New York stalled, and how to judge whether a commission is working. How Iowa Became a Wind Power State Under Republican Governors Iowa now makes more than half its electricity from wind. The story runs through a 1983 law, a Republican senator's tax credit, farm lease checks and governors of both parties. How Medication Abortion Works and Why Its Safety Record Matters in Court General information on the two-drug medication abortion regimen approved in 2000, what decades of research show about its safety, and why that evidence keeps deciding legal fights. How Obergefell v. Hodges Made Marriage Equality the Law Everywhere A plain guide to the 2015 marriage ruling: the couples behind it, the two constitutional clauses it relied on, the dissents' strongest points, and what keeps it standing a decade later. How Public Schools Are Funded and Why ZIP Codes Decide So Much A plain guide to where school money comes from: local property taxes, state formulas and a small federal share, and why a 1973 Supreme Court case left the gaps in place. How Rent Strikes Work, and the Legal Risks Before You Withhold Rent General information on rent strikes, rent escrow, repair-and-deduct and the eviction risk of withholding rent, starting from the Harlem strikes of 1963 and 1964.