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Protestors on a march, holding signs that read "Healthcare is a Human Right" and "Insulin or food should not be a choice: Medicare for All"

Health Care Reform’s History of Utter Failure

Repeated failures by both political parties to get a decent policy through our 18th-century constitutional structure led to the Affordable Care Act.
by Ryan Cooper via The Nation on November 28, 2021
The U.S. national debt clock.

Clearing the Air on the Debt Limit

This report clarifies five issues commonly raised in debt limit debates and explores some open questions.
by D. Andrew Austin, Sean M. Stiff via Congressional Research Service on November 10, 2021
illustration of Joe Biden and upside-down Capitol building

Is a Democratic Wipeout Inevitable?

Even when the president’s party passes historic legislation, voters don’t seem to care.
by Ronald Brownstein via The Atlantic on October 15, 2021
Mitch McConnell

How Did the Senate End Up With Supermajority Gridlock?

The Constitution meant for Congress to pass bills by a simple majority. But the process has changed over the decades.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Governing on October 13, 2021
A construction machine lifts giants stacks of paper money.

The U.S. Is Politically Bankrupt

For political reasons, powerful people don’t want the country to pay its bills. History shows all that could go wrong.
by Rebecca L. Spang via The Atlantic on October 8, 2021
Demonstrators supporting immigration reform.
partner

Avoiding Past Mistakes is Key to Congress Passing Immigration Reform That Works

Updating the Registry Act and uncoupling legalization from punitive measures could be first steps.
by Elizabeth F. Cohen via Made By History on September 30, 2021
A portrait of John C. Calhoun

No, John C. Calhoun Didn’t Invent the Filibuster

As convenient as it might be to blame the filibuster on the famous defender of slavery, the historical record is much messier.
by Robert Elder via The Bulwark on September 20, 2021
Protest signs from the 1963 March on Washington

A Federal Job Guarantee: The Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Movement

The 1963 March on Washington put a government guarantee to a job at the front of the civil rights agenda. It’s long past time to complete the work.
by Ayanna Pressley, David Stein via The Nation on September 2, 2021
Biden in front of George Washington painting
partner

A Conflict Among the Founders is Still Shaping Infrastructure Debates in 2021

What role should the federal government play in building our infrastructure?
by Susan Nagel via Made By History on August 30, 2021
Statue of Liberty, her face in shadow.

The United States Is Not “a Nation of Immigrants”

Celebrations of multiculturalism obscure the country’s settler colonial history—and the role that immigrants play in perpetuating it.
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz via Boston Review on August 12, 2021
Pennsylvania Avenue

A City-State for The Nation

The fallout of the January 6th riot and its effect on D.C. statehood.
by Alan Lessoff via The Metropole on August 9, 2021
U.S. Capitol riot

Echo Chambers

Parallels between the American Revolution and the U.S. Capitol riot.
by Sarah Swedberg via Nursing Clio on August 5, 2021
Chemical plant worker

Where Would We Be Without the New Deal?

A new history charts the forgotten ways the social politics of the Roosevelt years transformed the United States.
by Michael Kazin via The Nation on July 26, 2021

The Hidden Stakes of the Infrastructure Wars

The fight over the American Jobs Plan reflects a long history of competing visions of public works—and, most of all, who should benefit from rebuilding.
by David Alff via Boston Review on June 25, 2021
Crowd pointing to UFO over Chrysler Building

How Washington Got Hooked on Flying Saucers

A collection of well-funded UFO obsessives are using their Capitol Hill connections to launder some outré, and potentially dangerous, ideas.
by Jason Colavito via The New Republic on May 21, 2021
A map of the eastern US, with a line from Washington DC to St. Louis.

The Ill-Fated Idea to Move the Nation's Capital to St. Louis

In the years after the Civil War, some wanted a new seat of government that would be closer to the geographic center of a growing nation.
by Livia Gershon via Smithsonian on April 22, 2021
Protesters marching with a sign in support of the Twenty-sixth Amendment
partner

Americans Can Vote at 18 Because of Congressional Action 50 Years Ago

A brief history of the Twenty-sixth Amendment.
by Jennifer Frost via HNN on March 21, 2021
Census taker's bag from 1980

Immigration Hard-Liner Files Reveal 40-Year Bid Behind Trump's Census Obsession

The Trump administration tried and failed to accomplish a count of unauthorized immigrants to reshape Congress, the Electoral College and public policy.
by Hansi Lo Wang via NPR on February 15, 2021
A red, white, and blue star over a cropped portrait of James Madison.

America Must Become a Democracy

The authors of the Constitution feared mass participation would unsettle government, but it’s the privileged minority that has proved destabilizing.
by David Frum via The Atlantic on February 15, 2021
Marjorie Taylor Greene
partner

Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Just the Latest Radical White Woman Poisoning Politics

Such women have long pushed American politics to the right, and their ideas have become mainstream.
by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae via Made By History on February 6, 2021
Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican National Convention

How the GOP Surrendered to Extremism

Sixty years ago, many GOP leaders resisted radicals in their ranks. Now they’re not even trying.
by Ronald Brownstein via The Atlantic on February 4, 2021
A man during the Capitol Siege holding a Confederate flag.

The Case for a Third Reconstruction

The enduring lesson of American history is that the republic is always in danger when white supremacist sedition and violence escape justice.
by Manisha Sinha via New York Review of Books on February 3, 2021
An illustration of the caning of Charles Sumner.

The Caning of Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate: White Supremacist Violence in Pen and Pixels

Absent social media, the artists of the past shaped public knowledge of historical events through illustrations.
by Peter H. Wood, Harlin J. Gradinn via Tropics of Meta on January 20, 2021
A custodian moving furniture in the Capitol building.

The 'Racial Caste System' at the U.S. Capitol

After the Capitol was cleared of insurrectionists on January 6, it wasn't lost on many that cleaning up the mess would fall largely to Black and Brown people.
by Karen Grigsby Bates, James R. Jones via NPR on January 19, 2021
Members of the National Guard stand behind a fence outside of the U.S. Capitol building.

Impeachment May Not Work. Here’s the Next Best Way to Dump Trump

The 14th Amendment offers a remedy that is both simpler and likelier to work.
by Eric Foner via Washington Post on January 12, 2021

Republicans Rediscover the Dangers of Selling Bunk to Their Constituents

Cynical public speech aimed at winning political power has consequences.
by Rachel Shelden via The Atlantic on November 25, 2020
People holding protest signs

On the Fight for Black Voting Rights at the Turn of the 20th-Century

A rally at Faneuil Hall in support of the Fourteenth Amendment and congressional investigation of southern disfranchisement.
by Kerri K. Greenidge via Literary Hub on October 14, 2020
partner

George Washington Invoked Executive Privilege. But He’d Reject Barr’s Version.

Washington supported a much more limited conception of executive privilege.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Made By History on July 29, 2020
Holes punched in the Constitution.

There’s No Historical Justification for One of the Most Dangerous Ideas in American Law

The Founders didn’t believe that broad delegations of legislative power violated the Constitution, but conservative originalists keep insisting otherwise.
by Julian Davis Mortenson, Nicholas Bagley via The Atlantic on May 26, 2020

States Can't Fight Coronavirus on Their Own—And the Founding Fathers Knew It

It was a lesson they'd learned from experience.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via TIME on April 6, 2020
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