Not Your Founders’ Senate

by | Oct 31, 2025 | Congress, Senate, Separation of Powers

Don Wolfensberger writes that there are four key things to consider in determining how much the Senate has deviated from its originally planned track. First, the Senate is not, as it might claim, the world’s greatest deliberative body. Deliberation has gone the way of...

Maggie Hassan

by | Oct 20, 2025 | Congress, Disabilities, Senate

Zachary Schermele at  USA TODAY: For New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan, it felt personal watching more than 120 jobs tied to special education disappear during the U.S. government shutdown.   President Donald Trump ordered massive layoffs across the federal...

Blue Slips

by | Aug 21, 2025 | Judiciary, Senate

Don Wolfensberger at The Hill: President Trump set two confirmation process records during the first 200 days of his second non-consecutive term. According to Chris Piper of Brookings, based on data compiled by his colleague Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, Trump submitted more...

Rule of Five, Rule of Seven

by | Aug 9, 2025 | Congress, House of Representatives, Senate

Don Wolfensberger at The Hill: For nearly three decades I labored in the congressional vineyards of rules, procedures, norms and reforms. And, in all that time, until last week, I had never heard of a law creating the Senate rule of five or the House rule of seven....

The Missing Branch

by | May 10, 2025 | Congress, House of Representatives, Senate

At The Atlantic, Yuval Levin writes that Congress was assertive in the 1980s and 1990s, but… The reasons for the subsequent decline in Congress’s stature and assertiveness are complex, but some of the very measures Gingrich took to consolidate power on Capitol...