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Republicans Turn on Trump After Democrats Post Big Gains, Control Shifted

You can feel the shift in Washington before a single committee gavels in. When an election changes who controls Congress, the agenda changes with it. And after a brutal midterm showing, Republicans are already arguing about what went wrong, and who made it worse. Among some GOP operatives, aides,...

Voting 100 Years Ago: The Election Rules That Would Shock Us Today

When people tell me voting used to be “simpler,” I always want to ask: simpler for whom? A century ago, the act of voting could be surprisingly public, heavily mediated by party power, and shaped by rules that made it easier for some citizens and far harder for others. In 1926, Calvin Coolidge was...

The Key 2026 Midterm Races Hollywood Is Watching

Hollywood loves a clean story arc: tension, stakes, a ticking clock, and a final scene that changes what comes next. The 2026 midterms have all of that. Not because actors and executives are suddenly the main characters of American politics, but because campaigns still run on attention and money,...

Trump’s Reflecting Pool Makeover Takes Center Stage on Midterm Eve

Less than 24 hours before polls opened across the country, President Donald Trump delivered his final scheduled public remarks not from a battleground state, but from one of Washington’s most recognizable landmarks: the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. In a midterm closing moment when voters have...

After the Blue Wave, Republicans Turn on Trump

When voters flip power in Washington, the losing party always faces the same uncomfortable question: Who owns the loss? After Tuesday’s elections gave Democrats control of both the House and the Senate heading into the final two years of the Trump administration, that question has turned into a...

Ballot Measures and the Constitutional Back Door

American civics has a loophole, and it is not hidden in fine print. It is right there on the ballot. When a legislature will not act, or cannot act, voters in many states have a second route. They can write policy directly. In some places, they can even rewrite their state constitution, the...

SCOTUS Case Watch: Public Preschool Funds and Nondiscrimination Rules

When government money pays for education, it rarely comes with no strings attached. States attach safety rules, staffing rules, and often civil-rights rules. The question in a new Supreme Court case is whether a state can keep one particular string firmly tied: a promise not to discriminate. The...

Election Winners and Losers: A First Take

The morning after an election is when Americans do something we rarely admit we enjoy. We sort. We label. We point to a scoreboard and declare winners and losers, as if a republic were a football game and not a long argument about power. Still, those first-take instincts matter, because they reveal...

Ballot Initiatives 2026: Quiet Power, Loud Consequences

Most voters think the biggest decisions are made in marble buildings: legislatures, courthouses, maybe the occasional executive mansion. But 2026 is a reminder that some of the most durable changes in American law can happen in the most ordinary places: a school gym with folding chairs, or a county...

Texas Voters Oust Ken Paxton: A New Checks-and-Balances Moment in Austin

Democratic state legislator James Talarico defeated Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a Texas Senate race that drew extraordinary spending and a late push from President Donald Trump . Talarico had nearly 60 percent of the vote with about 64 percent counted, while Paxton stood at 39 percent. The...

Why Trump’s Epstein Letter Libel Suit Got Tossed

When a president sues the press for libel, the case is never just about one story. It is a stress test for the rules that let Americans argue about powerful people without having to hire a lawyer first. In Trump v. Dow Jones & Co., Inc. , U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles (Southern District of...

Ranked: 10 Supreme Court Retirements That Flipped American Law

I used to tell my civics students that the Supreme Court is the least democratic branch because we do not vote justices out. What I did not always tell them, at least not until they were ready for the hard truth, is that we also do not “vote in” most of the biggest shifts in American law. Those...

Can State Legislatures End-Run the Electoral College?

Trent England is warning that Democrats could change the Electoral College to elect presidential candidates by the national popular vote if they win majorities in four state legislatures. One idea already in the public debate is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact , which would award...

Judge Bars DOJ From Threatening Election Workers Nationwide

A federal judge on Friday ordered the Justice Department to stop threatening state and local election officials with criminal prosecution over their handling of disputes about voter qualifications. U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson issued a temporary restraining order that also requires the...

Can a President-Linked Project Ignore a Stop-Work Order?

If you have ever dealt with a school rule, a workplace policy, or even a library code of conduct, you already understand the basic idea behind a court order: once an authority with jurisdiction issues a clear instruction, you do not get to treat it as optional just because you dislike it. That...

Jimmy Kimmel Mocks Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Quip

Jimmy Kimmel, in his Wednesday night monologue, called out President Donald Trump for telling what he described as “ridiculous and relentless” lies in the days leading up to next week’s midterm elections. Kimmel’s main target was Trump’s promise: a $5,000 check to every American adult if...

Supreme Court Leaves Immigration Case Pauses Frozen

In civics class, I used to ask students a question that never stopped annoying them: Who gets to slow the government down ? Not who gets to stop it forever. Not who gets to win. Just who gets to tap the brakes long enough for rules to matter. This week, the Supreme Court quietly gave an answer in...

A Judge Blocks New York’s Body Armor Ban

New York tried something bold in 2022: it turned the ordinary act of acquiring or transferring body armor into a crime for most civilians. On Oct. 21, a federal judge said the Constitution does not allow that kind of sweeping prohibition. On Oct. 21, U.S. District Judge John Sinatra, sitting in the...

Can Border Agents Make You Unlock Your Phone?

If you have ever felt your stomach drop when a border officer says, “Can you unlock your phone?”, you are not alone. At the U.S. border, device searches operate under rules that give officers far more access than most travelers expect. And when the “thing being searched” is your entire digital...

Supreme Court Lets New Hampshire Reject Student IDs at the Polls

Student IDs feel like the most obvious “identity” document in the world. Your name. Your photo. Your institution vouching for who you are. For many students, it is the ID they carry every day, the one they use to get into buildings, borrow books, and prove they belong. But for voting in New...