All of this.

This is a provocative piece. Some features of federal sector bargaining might address some of these critiques if ported over to state and local sectors. (E.g., wages are set by boards rather than directly bargained over; law enforcement is prohibited from unionizing).

Democrats have a public-sector union problem. It’s not a popular thing to say, but continuing to ignore it won’t serve us well. My latest, together with the excellent @robertgo.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

Democrats have a public-sector union problem. It’s not a popular thing to say, but continuing to ignore it won’t serve us well. My latest, together with the excellent @robertgo.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

Good news! I have been reliably informed that the Fed Soc has put an end to this practice, which is great!

Pretty sure I'm one of the folks Mark's subtweeting. While I don’t feel compelled to respond, this actually provides a beautiful lesson for how academics and other serious observers might think about engaging with the Court and law. (thread)

ICYMI - this week, we're featuring the earliest essays in @nyulaw.bsky.social Democracy Project's "100 ideas in 100 days" series From Day 1 - @nbagley.bsky.social - "On Procedures and Democracy" Read the full piece here: democracyproject.org/posts/on-pro...

"Burkeanism and the Administrative State" I really enjoyed doing this podcast episode with Sarah Isgur, @williambaude.bsky.social, and @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social. It was framed around separation of powers debates, but the conversation ranged much more widely. thedispatch.com/podcast/advi...

Things are bad, but pushback can still work. Keep it up.

My “my 17 references to George Soros aren’t political” footnote is raising a lot of questions answered by my footnote.

An important piece of reporting. Even congressional Republicans wanted to include appropriations-bill language to protect Congress's power of the purse. But Russ Vought has pressured them to cut the language, and the House Republicans rolled over. www.notus.org/congress/mar...

Now, following last week's elections, Democrats are talking seriously about retaking the Senate. This is one of the states to watch. @citizencohn.bsky.social breaks down the Michigan Democratic Senate primary in the latest edition of The Breakdown: www.thebulwark.com/p/michigan-s...

The technical term is shitshow. But it's much worse than that. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

This, from FDR's 1936 convention speech bears repeating, as always, but especially now: "Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. . . . (1/3)

As the ABA discusses the proposal to double the required number of experiential credits, here's a very informative and timely paper from Chilton, Joy, and Rozema. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... It provides grounds for real skepticism, and so far I have not seen good counter-evidence from the ABA.

A quick 🧵 on this ruling, which as Steve notes, effectively requires grant recipients challenging grant freezes/cancellations in two fora - Federal Claims to recoup wrongfully withheld grants, and District Court to challenge the policy/basis on which the admin is illegally withholding grants ...

A really informative piece.

I don't even know what to say anymore. People are going to get sick, suffer, and die because of this decision and so many others -- all because we handed the keys of the health department over to anti-vax zealots.

This is so great for Ann Arbor.

Ann Arbor friends -- if you haven't yet voted, remember to cast your ballots today and vote YES on Proposals A and B.

Oh god this, yes a thousand times this. I will respect you vastly more if the piece is 15k words, not 30k, I promise.

Part of this is the distortion created by social media. We have lost all sense of prevalence, which we've been misled, often deliberately and spectacularly, into conflating with visibility and virality. This is an existential threat to human problem-solving.

YES. THIS.

The Michigan @aclu.org is looking to hire a senior staff attorney. These jobs don't come around that often, and they've got a great team -- wanted to make sure folk saw it! www.aclumich.org/en/jobs/staf...

"A case that was about PrEP turned into a case that was about every preventive service except PrEP—only to become, in a roundabout way, a case about PrEP again. And maybe also wearables." My latest in the New Eng J Medicine, via @dividedargument.bsky.social: blog.dividedargument.com/p/less-prep-...

I AM SHRIEKING 💀🤣 Forget the statue at City Hall, this guy is the *real* Spirit of Detroit. 🫡

"I Watched It Happen in Hungary. Now It's Happening Here." (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...

very smart thoughts on the slow-motion decay of the filibuster

Today’s district court ruling shows that Trump’s birthright citizenship EO remains vulnerable even after SCOTUS’s ruling in Trump v. CASA. Lawyers representing babies born after Feb. 20, 2025 and subject to Trump’s order can move forward with a class action. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/u...

Our member @nbagley.bsky.social's comments about the Supreme Court ruling on the HHS secretary's ability to pick the members of the US Preventive Services Task Force are cited in this @cnn.com story about the cancellation of the task force's planned meeting today: www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/h...

The Opposite of Doom

It has been overshadowed because the law is silly and there’s so much other lawlessness, but there is no legal justification whatsoever for the president deeming this not to be an enforceable law, and companies relying on that representation do so at their peril.

So glad Gov. Whitmer is highlighting the effect Medicaid cuts will have not only on the millions of people who lose their health care, but also on *entire regional economies* michiganadvance.com/2025/07/02/w...

🚨🚨 Medicaid contributes more to Houston's local economy than the CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. It contributes almost 2x as much to LA as the MOVIE INDUSTRY. We are talking about DECIMATING local economies when we talk about cutting Medicaid 🚨🚨 bsky.app/profile/robe...

🚨 Medicaid contributes as much to metro Detroit's economy as THE AUTO INDUSTRY 🚨

Another of many examples of SCOTUS needlessly ampliyfing cultural conflict (see chapter 6 of How Rights Went Wrong). Part of what defenders of CASA v. Trump miss is how much broader the Court's docket control is than the Court claims it to be.

@nbagley.bsky.social and me came to an understanding. He understood my point, I acknowledged his intentions. Respectfully. You showed up disrespectful and racist, all after that fact, late, loud and wrong. I'm glad I disappointed you. Disappointing racists is my favorite thing to do.

+1. I've repeatedly asked to be removed as a "contributor" - a designation I have because I once (in 2015) participated in a moot for an advocate who was arguing in front of SCOTUS & the moot was cosponsored by Fed Soc & ACS.

I am once again begging Fed Soc to stop the practice of suggesting anyone who has ever done a panel for them is a member. Not a member! Disagree with Fed Soc on … LOTS. Tons of hatred today from people assuming I’m some kind of right-winger. fedsoc.org/contributors...

This is a super important point. Strongly recommend at least scanning Nick’s thread from here. The CASA op is a shanda. But in thinking through next moves, it’s crucial to be clear eyed about the paths to broad relief that remain, esp class actions, associational standing, and APA vacatur.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson called yesterday's decision about nationwide injunctions "an existential threat to the rule of law." She's mistaken. My latest in @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Gorsuch’s opinion is like a big fat pitch down the middle for @richardprimus.bsky.social to swing at.

A lot of the discussion of the reconciliation bill has focused--rightly--on the consequences for beneficiaries of these programs. 11 million people are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage, and 4.5 million stand to lose SNAP. That's a ton. But the economic impacts may be even more widespread

In Kentucky's 5th congressional district, recently profiled by Arlie Hochschild for @nytimes.com, Medicaid makes up a quarter of the entire economic base. The SNAP and Medicaid cuts would be like losing one-third of all traded private sector industries www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/o...

If we look just at the proposed *cuts* to Medicaid and SNAP, it's the economic equivalent of Maine losing its entire forestry and paper manufacturing industries, all at once--or Alaska losing 60% of its oil and gas industry.

New working paper alert! Posted at @equitablegrowth.bsky.social, it investigates the economic geography of social transfer programs and financial income--with implications for the Medicaid and SNAP cuts proposed in the reconciliation bill 👀 equitablegrowth.org/working-pape...

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