Should Republicans lose their majority in the House of Representatives mid-session, how exactly could Democrats assert control? We have the answer to that question from Max Spitzer, who previously served in the House Parliamentarian's Office.

Announcing the replacement of the CIA Fact Book with the presidential vibe book. www.cia.gov/stories/stor...

What has happened at the Washington Post is horrible.

So, the filibuster fiasco is going down precisely how @americalabs.org said it would: Facing demands from Luna to kill it, Thune was like "uh, we'll think about it" and that was enough for her www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

I just canceled my subscription to @wired.com, which is unfortunate. Their reporting is excellent and I want to encourage great journalism. But their website and access to it is awful, especially their app, and I'm so frustrating I'm giving up.

Statement on the U.S. Government's withdrawal from the Open Government Partnership. Also online here: americalabs.org/2026/01/28/s...

Something I've observed about "shut-down" politics in the Trump II era. The first calls for using the appropriations process to constrain Trumpism were for the FY25 appropriations bill in March 2025. The majority of Democrats & pundits rejected it out of hand, saying it would politically backfire.

Which algorithm did I piss off to get Asha in my feed? JFC, last time I interacted with her she was arguing why the USG need the power to surveil Americans without a warrant.

Soon from the Senate.... > The Department of Imperial Affairs is building a "Death Star." - We are. > Scary weapon. You've used it against civilian ships. My constituents are pissed. Don't do it again. We'll fund DIA, but attach a rider preventing you from using it vs the planet Hoth. - It's a deal.

Why would any Democrat or Republican vote to fund an agency that has used violence against American citizens and, if it receives continued funding, will continue to escalate that violence for the foreseeable future? What possible legislative limit on their behavior would you trust they'd follow?

It appears Schumer has seen where his caucus members are going and is running to get ahead of them.

There's only one way out.

Children shouting "let us out, let us out" so loud you can hear it from the parking lot.

The House moved from a strong committee chair system to a caucus system so the party and its leaders could impose policy uniformity on key issues. Cuellar is ranking member on the approps committee overseeing ICE and he voted to fund them. Why are Dems keeping him in that job?

The Center for American Progress's nonstop promotion of Rahm Emanuel on Twitter says everything you need to know.

Ummm, what's happening?

Are Republican and Democratic leaders serious about preventing members from trading securities based on confidential information? If not, then why are they moving forward with a "reform" bill? We tackle that thorny question, and more in this week's First Branch Forecast.

Gene Dodaro just retired as Comptroller General after 52 years of public service, including 17 leading @usgao.bsky.social. In his final interview in that role, he joined @nehls.bsky.social and me to talk about GAO’s role as Congress’s watchdog, how Congress has changed, and the future of oversight.

Tomorrow the Trump insurrectionists will re-enact their January 6th march to sack the Capitol and topple democracy, starting at the Ellipse and working their way down Pennsylvania Avenue. They will celebrate their victory. Our political leaders have learned nothing. Here's what they should know.

2025 wasn’t just another year of partisan fights—it exposed deeper structural failures in how Congress governs, spends, and defends its own power. We told that story each week in the First Branch Forecast. Here's what we learned. firstbranchforecast.substack.com/p/four-lesso...

Trump's DOJ rolls back provision of reproductive health services to veterans through potemkin legal opinion. www.justice.gov/olc/media/14...

House members keep surrendering power—until they don’t. Last week’s discharge petition showed members still have tools to assert control. The path to 218 doesn’t have to run through party leadership. It can run through factions assembling majorities when leadership blocks action.

What's is like serving as the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives, responsible for its non-legislative technology and operations? Chris Nehls and I interviewed CAO Catherine Szpindor, who will be stepping down from her role after 14 years of service to the Congress.

Congress is quietly shaping how AI will interact with democratic institutions—and doing so largely on its own terms. Much of this work isn't “AI policy,” but it may matter more than many headline-grabbing initiatives. The focus on reliable data and transparency about government to empower all of us.

Today, the Senate Rules Committee will vote on freezing senatorial pay during a partial gov't shutdown. This bad faith resolution may stoke some populist support, but it's terrible policy. It puts pressure on senators to change their votes even when the holdup is the House or the president.

The National Defense Authorization Act often contains matters unrelated to the national defense. To wit:

Who actually runs Congress’s agencies—and why does the White House keep trying to install its own people inside them? A new bill could reshape the balance of power over the Library of Congress, GPO, and more. The stakes: legislative independence itself.

Speaker Johnson shut the House down for 54 days — and he could do it again, ceding yet more power to an out-of-control president. With a party revolt brewing & tough calls looming on appropriations, war crimes, and more, we interviewed Max Spitzer, a former House parliamentarian, on what to do.

The huddle??? @ktullymcmanus.bsky.social

MTG’s exit is a sideshow — but it spotlights what’s truly broken in the House. The real fix starts with organized blocs and serious rules reform. How would that work? Glad you asked....

I spy... bill text and report language for Senate FSGG and Energy & Water, published today.

Thank you, Catherine Szpindor, for your service as the House's Chief Administrative Officer. Anne Dressendorfer Binsted

As a retiring but still sitting member of the House, MTG has the opportunity to read into the public record documents that otherwise could not be released... and would be protected by the constitution's speech or debate clause from prosecution.

So, do we need to write an explainer on what it takes to officially quit as a member of Congress?

@americalabs.org and I spoke with ND prof James Curry about how leadership in Congress restricts info to control members and ideas for how the rank and file can have more info at their disposal open.substack.com/pub/firstbra...

This week's passage of the Epstein resolution isn't just surprising, it's nearly astonishing. The House Speaker lost control of the floor, which is something that *almost* never happens. One of the reasons for that is how leadership controls information.

The Crimson seems to be the only college paper that routinely gets picked up by the national press.

Senate is now added.

The Republican Appropriations Vice Chair wanted to reclaim Congress's power of the purse and included language to block pocket rescissions in his approps bill. The White House and fellow congressional Republicans *persuaded* him to take it out. www.notus.org/congress/mar... h/t @nehls.bsky.social

Good news, everyone. I've updated my publicly-available 119th Congress calendar so that it now includes House session days for 2026. Here's the link: calendar.google.com/calendar/emb... If you want it in ical format (to import): calendar.google.com/calendar/ica...

The shutdown didn’t settle the big question hanging over Washington: can Congress still defend its own power against an aggressive White House? Our latest punnily-entitled newsletter lays out what happened from a balance of powers perspective, and why we're back in the quiet shutdown.

This doesn't seem good.

@nehls.bsky.social and I chatted with the amazing Ruth Bloch Rubin on congressional factions. She's written 2 fantastic books on how members of congress collaborate & compete -- including the institutions they built to overthrow the Dixiecrats, defeat big banks, and (alas) prevent health care fixes.

The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion undermining funding for the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau was just published on OLC's website yesterday having already been used in court filing on Monday to attack the agency (www.politico.com/news/2025/11...).

Surely no senator would make use of the provision to sue the government that Sen. Thune snuck into the approps bill, right?

This is why OLC opinions must be made publicly available, per my testimony. americalabs.org/2025/06/04/t... And the DOJ should not be allowed to forebear prosecution on the basis of acting pursuant to an opinion.

It is very unusual for lawyers to march. Alexis de Tocqueville described attorneys as an aristocracy and "the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy." Things must be bad when they—when we—take to the streets to oppose dictatorship.

I don't know who needs to see this, but @nehls.bsky.social wrote a banger of an article assessing Nancy Pelosi's legacy for the House of Representatives. It's not what you'd expect, and everything you need to understand why we're stuck.