How You Can Become Parliamentarian
I was reading Gregory Wawro, Sarah Binder, Steven Smith and Gregory Koger’s Senate testimony earlier today when I came across the comments of Robert Dove, a former Senate parliamentarian (Wikipedia entry here). Read More
“Cognitive Madisonians” and Congressional Approval
Declining approval of Congress is a popular topic these days (note: low Congressional approval is always popular, just more so recently). The importance of this issue was aptly described in 1974… Read More
A Shameless Plug: Shirking the Initiative?
Maybe shameless is a bit strong; disseminating your research is important in academia after all. But Josh and I (along with our colleague at Florida, Dan Smith), have a paper that was… Read More
Obama’s Birth Certificate: Diminishing Marginal Utility and Finite Agenda Space
I posted this on Seth Masket’s facebook page a moment ago (see his blog here). Seth asked why Obama released his birth certificate now when there is presumably an electoral incentive to… Read More
“Washington is broken.” Good point. Why is nobody trying to repair it?
Since bipartisan “hope” in Obama’s first campaign has worn off, we are back to accepting the Washington’s “broken” politics. Of course, by “Washington” people mean “Congress.” However, when it comes… Read More
Shutdown Roundtable: Lessons from 1994?
Here at Rule22, we decided to try something new: we’re each going to weigh in on the looming government shutdown. Josh’s excellent post, if you haven’t read it, suggests… Read More
Shutdown Roundtable: Bargaining Strategies
One thing is certain: Republicans’ bargaining strategy is a winner. Over the past couple years Republicans won major legislative concessions while still winning the message battle. It’s an impressive feat… Read More
Belatedly Breaking Silence on Filibuster Reform
Before I move on to the point of this post, let’s raise our glasses to the lack of filibuster reform. Without the McConnell and Reed deal, we might have changed… Read More
John Boehner: Legislative Innovator
Late Friday, a 19-page resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives that would fund the federal government for two weeks beyond the current shutdown deadline (see a Politico article… Read More
The Amendments are Coming!
After several weeks of relatively little legislative activity, we got a great look at the voting procedure for the US House this week. In just five days, members of the… Read More