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I miss Anthony Kennedy already. Other people have written eloquently about Kennedy’s contributions to the Supreme Court. After the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor (whom I miss, too), Kennedy became the swing vote in case after case. When a seminal case was argued before the high court, Kennedy was the justice who had to be persuaded. When a 5-4 decision came down, Kennedy was usually that crucial fifth vote. Sometimes he voted with the more liberal wing of the court; sometimes he voted with t

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has garnered a swell of well-deserved attention after the 28-year-old socialist democrat's stunning upset defeat of a ten-term incumbent (US Rep. Joe Crowley) in the closed Democratic primary for NY-14. The senior congressman chairs the House Democratic Caucus and was considered a strong contender to replace Nancy Pelosi's position within the party. Portraying Crowley as the too-cozy, career politician that he is, Ocasio-Cortez rode the wave of Bernie Sanders-style demo

I am writing from a spot nestled in the woods in Washington County in rural New York, listening to the chatter of the morning birds and looking forward to a walk along the Battenkill River later today. It is summer vacation and that means summer reading, somehow especially delicious done by the sea, or in a hammock, or a shady spot under a tree. How did reading become so identified with the summer lexicon? In a 2012 Boston Globe article, author Craig Fehrman posits that the idea of summer readi

Advocates of the nonpartisan, top-two open primary system are collecting signatures to get the reform on the 2020 ballot in Florida. The effort comes after the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission rejected a proposal for nonpartisan primary reform earlier this year. "After engaging the Florida Constitution Revision Commission on the subject of open primaries for over a year, the commission failed to act on the second most popular issue brought before them," explained Steve Hough, Chairman

In a 5-0 vote, California’s Senate Judiciary Committee passed a data privacy compromise bill, AB 375, which for the first time passes greater control of personal data and privacy to consumers. It's expected to be signed into law later this week. California is among the first states in the nation to tackle this issue. The bill lays out a citizens' right to know what personal data is collected, who it is sold to as well as the right to take legal action against a company after a data breach. Also

My purpose in writing this essay is to evaluate the immigration policy that is commonly supported by conservatives today, especially in the years leading up to and including the Obama-Trump era in U.S. politics, and to show you how this immigration policy is not conservative in any way, how its underlying arguments and mindset are entirely foreign to the American conservative tradition, and how it in fact has far more in common with the ideas and mindset of radical leftist ideologies like those

WASHINGTON – If like most Americans you’re angry that our democracy feels broken, that elections are being corrupted by billionaire and corporate money, and that politicians are rigging elections through gerrymandering, we’ve got good news for you. Grassroots America is staging a political comeback. Citizen rebellions against the politicians and the power brokers are in full swing – from the student March for Our Lives to the spreading teacher strikes from Kentucky to Oklahoma and Arizona to t

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.- The San Francisco mayor’s race was a cliffhanger. After the initial tally of votes for San Francisco mayor, London Breed had 37%, Mark Leno had 24%. Then ranked-choice voting’s instant runoffs kicked in--due to the non-majority result--and Leno and Breed were suddenly neck-and-neck. Breed’s and Leno’s collective 61% totals meant that 39% of voters had chosen one of the six other candidates on the ballot.  As all of those others were eliminated, RCV did its job of determin

The San Francisco mayor’s race was a cliffhanger. After the initial tally of votes for San Francisco mayor, London Breed had 37%, Mark Leno had 24%. Then ranked-choice voting’s instant runoffs kicked in...

Iowa independent voters are watching the nation's politics as closely as the nation watches Iowa to understand political trends. As goes Iowa, so goes the nation. So they've been saying since at latest 2000, and probably even before that. One letter to the editor of the New York Times, dated January 28, 2000, noted how remarkably close national presidential vote tallies tracked Iowa's votes in 1992 and 1996: "In November 1992, Iowa voted: Bill Clinton, 43.3 percent; George Bush, 37.3 percent;