Journalists in the US regularly are thought to publish climate change news that uses less negative language than the terrorism reporting they provide. Using data from eight major newspapers, we show this supposition is true. However, we also show that terrorism news’ more negative tone is an epiphenomenon of the events journalists cover. When presented with identical climate change and terrorism stories, journalists report on these threats using roughly the same language. This result, based on data from five experiments, calls the idea that journalism’s principles and practices are the source of the differential coverage people receive into question. Instead, the result is consistent with the idea that journalisms institutions homogenize the news.

Public goods like schools and recreational facilities can foster a sense of community, but their benefits are not equally shared. This paper uses survey data from the 2020 Collaborative Multi-Racial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) to understand urban and rural Americans’ satisfaction with the public goods in their communities. I theorize that people compare current public goods with their prior experiences — this retrospective analysis drives public goods satisfaction. I create an original measure of community public goods satisfaction based on the provision of five public goods: parks, schools, police, health care, and transit. I find that rural residents are less satisfied with public goods than urban residents. Additionally, this rural-urban gap varies by length of time a person has lived in the community. Those who have lived in a rural community for many years exhibit lower satisfaction, particularly in terms of health care and transit, which is consistent with characterizations of the hollowing out of rural America.

What explains the president’s executive actions on immigration? Although research has detailed how the political context motivates presidents to issue executive orders broadly, limited research has applied these expectations to a specific policy area, like immigration. Moreover, this literature has not viewed executive actions as part of the larger policy agendas system, which may also shape presidents’ executive actions on immigration. Building upon a database of all presidential executive actions related to immigration since 1953, the paper theorizes that immigration executive actions are a function of both the political and policy contexts, and that presidents take these actions not solely to adopt policy, but also to advertise their immigration policy agendas. The results reveal that these immigration actions have increased over time, primarily through proclamations where presidents publicize their immigration policy agendas, and that a combination of political and policy variables explains this increase. Overall, this paper shows how politics and policy shape the contours of executive power and offers additional evidence of how even the symbolism of unilateral powers may be central to a fuller understanding of the public presidency.

As jurisdictions continue adopting ranked choice voting (RCV), understanding the system’s impact on voter efficacy remains important. In 2021, New York City implemented RCV for the first time in its municipal party primaries, and ballot-level data revealed that voters in lower-income and lower-education assembly districts had higher rates of ballot voiding due to overvote errors. This paper revisits that analysis using data from the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary, the city’s second city-wide use of RCV. I test whether prior disparities persist or if there is evidence of voter learning and adaptation. Using cast vote records (CVRs) and updated demographic data, I examine ballot voiding rates across NYC assembly districts and assess whether education, income, and racial composition still predict overvote errors. Findings show that overall ballot voiding declined substantially between 2021 and 2025, but district-level patterns linking errors to lower education persist, albeit in an attenuated manner. These results are consistent with electorate familiarization to RCV but highlight ongoing disparities.

It is almost impossible to change the United States Constitution, yet members of Congress (MCs) continue to introduce resolutions to do so. Why do they do this? I argue that the sponsorship of constitutional amendments in modern congressional politics is a unique form of low-cost position-taking. Examining the House of Representatives across four decades of constitutional stagnation, I analyze which members engage in amendment sponsorship, and when they do so. First, I find that more ideologically marginalized members are more likely to sponsor amendments. Second, I show that MCs sponsor amendments when they are more electorally vulnerable and institutionally weak. I also find that the role of ideology is asymmetric and time-variant. Among MCs who entered Congress prior to 1997, more conservative Democrats were more likely to become amendment sponsors. Today, sponsorship is more closely related to ideological extremity among both Democrats and Republicans.

Judicial review introduces uncertainty for members of Congress about whether and to what extent bills they pass will have enduring policy consequences. We argue that the risk courts will strike down a law influences members’ of Congress strategic calculations about roll call voting, decreasing the relative importance of policy judgments and increasing the relative importance of position-taking considerations. We evaluate some empirical implications of this claim, analyzing a series of votes cast in the United States Senate on proposals to ban flag burning in 1989 following Texas v. Johnson . Comparisons of floor votes on a statutory flag burning ban—which could be overruled by the Supreme Court—and a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning—which would not have been subject to judicial review—are consistent with theoretical claims about strategic legislative behavior due to judicial review. We discuss some implications of this result for congressional politics and normative debates about the role of judicial review in American government.

The 2013 Senate rules change transformed the judicial confirmation process by lowering the effective vote threshold for success. Presidents with supportive Senate majorities may now bypass filibusters and confirm nominees without any minority party votes. The change influences how nominations proceed, the speed of confirmation, success rates, and ultimately the composition of every federal court. We must now reevaluate existing intuitions. Using data on over 2600 lower court nominations between 1981 and 2022, we test theoretical expectations for how the change influenced judicial appointments. We provide evidence of a radically altered confirmation process with key nominations moving through faster, and more successfully, but with a reliance on unified government and cloture for confirmations. These findings have broad implications for filling vacancies in all federal courts and raise concerns for the future of the appointment process generally.

The June 24, 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization represented a seismic shift in abortion policy in the United States. Since then, state courts have begun playing an integral role in expanding or restricting abortion access in their jurisdictions. What do these cases look like and how does the public respond to court decisions that are pro- or anti-abortion? We collect original data on state court abortion cases post- Dobbs and field two survey experiments pre- and post- Dobbs to investigate these questions. We find state courts have expanded their scope in abortion policy and that pro-abortion court decisions are consistently popular. Anti-abortion court decisions, however, are increasingly unpopular. Our paper suggests that state courts are a new vital venue for abortion policymaking and that the public is growing frustrated with the countermajoritarian tendencies of courts.

In this research note we examine the effect of Taylor Swift’s hypothetical endorsement of a Public policy position. We examine this in the context of the expanding literature on the effects of celebrity endorsements. Through a post-test only experimental survey design we test Swift’s hypothetical endorsement of a policy position. We begin and conclude with analysis of why Swift’s value as an endorser, as well as the value of other similarly situated endorsers may be particularly high.