I made it through touchless security at ATL in about 10 minutes and didn’t have to show ID. I’m living in a bizarro world.

If I work for myself do I still show my ID?

Is it old school for conference chairs to send out an email with info about when to circulate papers for panels? It seems like this doesn't happen as much now.

They are arguing that you need to show ID to fly but that isn’t true everywhere. We just flew from OKC and with the touch less option they just snap a photo to match to the database.

Went and watched Hoppers yesterday. It took a weird turn for a kid’s movie.

Enjoying my last pour over of good coffee before going to Keurig jail for a week.

A random way AI was useful for teaching. We were discussing Squire 2007 (Leg. professionalism) and I was curious about the numerical differences in the rankings so I uploaded the pdf to Claude and asked it to make a chart from the last column of the table on the page to visualize the size difference

The same ticket is now ~$500 more. This could be typical price changes but I doubt it.

Had kiddo’s parent teacher conference and unfortunately she takes after her dad and less so her mom.

I was part of a grant on this list. ChatGPT said it did not have a DEI component but it was terminated anyway.

I purchased my summer travel airplane tickets over the weekend. The prices were already high but I wonder if they will turn out to be a bargain.

Here's an important new article about how academics and election officials can work together to find ways to build trust in elections. www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsand... Title: How Research–Practice Partnerships Can Strengthen Experiments Designed to Build Trust in American Elections

The quick answer is the governor will appoint someone until the election is certified but that person must pledge to not run for the seat. Mullin was up for reelection in 2026 so no special election.

Not me frantically googling special election laws in Oklahoma.

I'm curious how other departments are handling the typical take home comprehensive exam now that AI can write passable answers. Is the exercise even useful now?

And the award for the best use of air quotes in a hearing goes to....Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont.

A big congratulations to Carl Albert Center and OU Political Science graduate student Nathan Barron on accepting a tenure track job in the political science department at Florida Atlantic University. Nathan will defend his dissertation this summer and start with the Owls in the fall!

The CFP for the Prairie Political Science conference is now out. The meeting will be held in Banff, Alberta, Canada (Sept. 19-20). If anyone is interested in putting together a panel submission let me know. My (coauthored) paper will be on measuring rurality www.prairiepsa.com/call-for-pap...

Not great.

Step one was to take 2.5 tons of soil from the raised bed. Now I need to put it all back after moving the bed 20 feet. My supervisor is still on the job.

Oklahoma legislature proposes to name a yet to be built turnpike after Toby Keith. Keith opposed the building of the turnpike. okcfox.com/news/local/l...

One of my favorite parts of teaching a legislative internship class in Oklahoma is watching kids who grew up on more urban/suburban areas learn about feral hogs. I ask them to google "hogzilla" and then watch their faces.

I thought that college towns had an incentive for their team not to get a playoff bye for financial reasons. Turns out it is a pretty substantial gain for Norman at least. www.oudaily.com/news/college...

For universities that have semester in DC programs, is it better for students to go in the fall or spring? I would think fall in election years might be a limited experience.

Poor planning means I get to move a couple tons of dirt twice so this raised bed is no longer in the shade.

Can’t wait to see Hughes biting the gold medal with newly broken teeth.

My six year old just informed me that I don’t have rizz but I am sus.

I assigned "“In the Interests of Millennials? Exploring Generational Representation in U.S. State Legislatures" and think my printing out and marking up the paper does a great job of making the point of the paper.

Goal!!

The Carl Albert Center is saddened to hear about the passing of civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. Jackson ran for president in 1984 and 1988. You can watch many of his campaign ads here youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Bonus points for inclusion I guess.

So much for the big tax refund from the OBBBA. Yes, yes I know you don't want to give the gov't an interest free loan.

I had to give a report to faculty senate and almost told someone if they wanted me to change something they needed to offer a motion to recommit with instructions. I thought better of it and just said the body could amend it if they want.

University: Please use the system to complete this important task by a specific date. System the day before the date: Nah. I'm not working today.

lol

Does anyone have a good matzoh ball soup recipe? My go to place back home closed.

Local news is crazy. Leading is a story about the Trump Truth Social post followed by a hard hitting Super Bowl snack story.

Life is lifeing at me pretty hard this week, messing up my usual writing schedule. But I did manage to join @nytimes.com's John Guida to discuss Backlash Presidents and what it tells us about Trump's second term. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/o...

If anyone is interested in attending the Prairie Political Science Annual Meeting in Banff, Alberta, Canada I can be persuaded to put together a panel. September 18–20. www.prairiepsa.com/conference/

This is who runs this account.

This week the Carl Albert Center kicked off the Public Service Leadership Program matching students interested in public service careers with mentors in those jobs. The goals are to help students learn about public service careers and keep OU talent in Oklahoma after they graduate. I'm excited.

It's wild to think that NY has steadily lost representation since 1940 when they were at 45 seats. PA has been losing since the 1910 round (36). Illinois also a steady loss from the 30s, with one hold from 1960-70. CA gained every year from statehood until 2010 (+1 in 2000, no change in 2010).

Today the Supreme Court hears oral argument on state bans on transgender athletes. In our recent paper, Fiona Rodger and I find that the public distinguishes between different kinds of trans policies, but only about a quarter of Americans oppose those bans. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

The Republican Study Committee is using AI to predict and I assume get around Byrd rule violations. Pretty interesting.

My semiannual post that if you are looking for primary documents for a class, check out the American Congress Digital Archives Portal (congressarchives.org), and the Campaign Television Advertisement Project for presidential campaign ads (campaigntvads.org). More documents here (bit.ly/4raCssr)

i have a new article out in @psrm.bsky.social with Scott Blatte exploring respondent attentiveness in the Cooperative Election Study. we find fairly low rates of inattentiveness but our intervention failed to nudge respondents to pay more attention (thread) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I'm looking to update some readings for my state politics(ish) class. Is there anything relatively new related to term limits, polarization, budgets, and maybe legislative professionalism? This is an upper division class where students intern in the state legislature.

RIP to Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who unexpectedly passed. Unexpected deaths in a narrowly-divided Congress have an impact on policy outcomes, as @NicholasNapolio and I show in our research on past Congresses with unexpected deaths. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Apparently they only read about McKinley's tariff and not some of the other stuff he did.