One tax bill quietly funds three unrelated things: county safety nets, road repairs, and public schools—none of which have anything to do with your income or ability to pay. It's an accident of history that's become policy, and it's breaking public trust one assessment notice at a time.

This post unpacks how property tax turned homeowners into community piggy banks, why some states fund schools without the "zip-code lottery," and what a fairer system could look like.

Public office belongs to the public. This essay examines the constitutional and democratic costs of officials who remain in power despite prolonged incapacity, absence, or declining ability to serve—and why knowing when to step aside is an essential part of public service.

(cover page image via Midjourney)

What would it feel like to be invited back into the constitutional room? This essay imagines an American process of constitutional renewal built on the Constitution we already have. Not a new founding, but a civic recommitment. Inspired by Italy’s constituent assembly, it asks whether Americans still have the imagination, seriousness, and courage to help shape the republic together.

We often judge our institutions by whether they reach the outcome we wanted. But that's the wrong question. A flawed system can occasionally produce the right result, just as a well-designed system can sometimes produce outcomes we dislike. Instead, we should ask a different question: If we were designing this institution from scratch today, would we build it this way? Using two recent and seemingly unrelated stories—a Child Protective Services investigation involving Pete Buttigieg and a Supreme Court decision—this essay explores why institutional design matters just as much as institutional outcomes.

This post examines U.S. v. Hemani, the Supreme Court’s latest Second Amendment decision, and the increasingly surreal “history and tradition” test that now governs gun rights. From drunk Founders to 19th‑century drunkard laws, Hemani shows how modern liberties are being measured against a selective, archaic past, and what that means for democratic governance, public safety, and the future of constitutional interpretation.

The U.S. Constitution inspired constitutional movements around the world, but other nations adapted those ideas to their own histories and priorities. Drawing on recent travels in Norway and years spent living in Italy, I explore how the constitutions of the United States, Italy, and Norway reflect different visions of liberty, community, equality, and the role of government.

Politics shouldn’t take over your life. But a self-governing people can’t afford to ignore it, either. Between doomscrolling and disengagement is the middle lane: informed, steady, everyday citizenship.

The Fourteenth Amendment promised more than formal citizenship. Written in the aftermath of slavery and the Black Codes, it was meant to protect fundamental rights against abusive state governments.

But only five years after ratification, the Supreme Court dramatically narrowed the Privileges or Immunities Clause in the Slaughter-House Cases — reducing what many during Reconstruction understood as broad protections of civil rights into a much smaller category of federal-status rights.

Even opponents of the amendment appeared to describe the clause more broadly than the Court ultimately interpreted it.

My latest piece explores the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Reconstruction, and how constitutional rights can remain in the text while shrinking through interpretation.

The Fourteenth Amendment contains an explicit constitutional penalty for voter suppression: Deny or abridge the right to vote, and you lose congressional representation.

The framers of Reconstruction anticipated exactly what would happen after the Civil War: states preserving political power while suppressing Black voting.

And yet despite decades of Jim Crow disenfranchisement, no state ever lost a single seat under Section 2. Not one. Today, the fights are different — redistricting, vote dilution, majority-Black districts — but the underlying constitutional question remains:

What does the right to vote actually mean if political systems can weaken the power of votes without formally denying them?

Why does a modest elevator cost four times more in the U.S. than in Europe, a basic car feel like a debt sentence, and a gas bill come from a company you never chose? These aren’t acts of God; they’re the predictable outcome of a system designed to protect business models, not mobility. This essay traces how we got here and argues that if policy built this maze, policy can rebuild it.

We like to think American democracy is under threat. The reality is harder: it has been unraveling for decades. This piece follows that story. And why “going back to normal” isn’t an option.

What does “equal protection under the law” really mean? From school segregation to marriage equality, the 14th Amendment has shaped civil rights in America—but not all government discrimination is unconstitutional. Why does race trigger strict scrutiny while age often gets a pass? Let’s break down how the courts decide what's fair—and what's not.

The Founders designed Congress to be the heart of American democracy — the branch closest to the people and strongest under the Constitution. But over time, Congress has surrendered its own powers to the president, the courts, and federal agencies. This “great abdication” has left our government unbalanced, polarized, and dangerously vulnerable to autocracy.

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson picked up a pen and committed treason. At just 33 years old, he wrote the Declaration of Independence — accusing King George III of tyranny, laying out the case for self-government, and risking death with every stroke of his quill. Imperfect though it was, the Declaration remains one of the boldest acts of rebellion in history.

The Founding Fathers were deeply flawed — they compromised on slavery, excluded women, and left contradictions we still struggle with today. But they were also the first in history to build a nation on the radical idea that people could govern themselves. Rebels with a cause, they gambled everything on an experiment in self-government — and changed the world.

Think you vote for the president? Not exactly.
The Electoral College decides—and it doesn't treat all votes equally. In this post, we break down how the system works, why it was created, and why it’s under fire today. From unequal voting power to swing state dominance, find out why many Americans are questioning whether the Electoral College still fits a modern democracy.