William Howard Taft

100 years ago, Chief Justice William Howard Taft made the Court more efficient and more powerful, marking a turning point whose effects are still being felt.

Much more than time separates the 27th president from the 45th.

This isn’t the first effort by a president’s appointee to streamline government.

A new book celebrates an American political dynasty dedicated to public service. Why have they been forgotten?

Some early progressives may have been advocates of states’ rights, but they misunderstood the philosophy of the American Founding.

The White House's most terrifying ghost and the maid who saw it.

Fake photographs of the US president sparked calls for regulation of analog photo editing.

History illustrates that voters become galvanized and change their party allegiance when former US presidents run for a nonconsecutive term.

Sean O’Brien’s speech at the RNC may represent a return to nonpartisan realpolitik for unions. But does that reflect labor's strength or its decline?

The gravest danger to American democracy isn’t an excess of vitriol—it’s the false promise of civility.

Why the American public is infatuated with the relationship between physical fitness and the presidency.

Teddy used nearly 10 times as many executive orders as his predecessor. The repercussions are still felt today.

In working through the Winter case files, I often felt pinpricks of déjà vu: an exact turn of phrase, an absurdly specific expenditure.

Trump claimed that the income tax was passed for “reasons unknown to mankind” and caused the Great Depression. Here’s the real history.

For centuries, theorists of liberal governance have worried about how emergencies can unfetter executive power. Trump has given those fears new urgency.

That’s not how separation of powers works under the U.S. Constitution.

He’ll run into the same roadblocks as Presidents Taft, Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush, among others.

He's not the first to set his sights on the island.

Theodore Roosevelt started a version of DOGE too, but it failed to achieve much.

The forgotten history of the Lloyd-La Follette Act and of whistleblowing in the federal workforce.