By Sheldon Friedman: If you need a reason for reforming the Electoral College, the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 Presidential election is Exhibit One. Our current system opened the door to baseless challenges in states where the election was close, even though the winner of the national popular vote was clear and his margin of victory was huge. Biden received…
By Sheldon Friedman: A district court judge has blocked, for now, a gut-punch delivered by the Trump administration to federal workers in the form of a trio of harsh executive orders (read them here, here and here). These executive orders curbed the appeal rights of disciplined or discharged employees, radically restricted availability of “official time” relied upon by union representatives…
By Sheldon Friedman, reviewing Democracy in Chains: Nancy MacLean’s powerful book, Democracy in Chains, focuses on the decades-long alliance between billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and radical right-wing economist James Buchanan—set largely against the backdrop of George Mason University. Fueled by the limitless donations of the Koch family and the star power of Nobel Prize-winning Buchanan, GMU by the early 1980s…