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The White House press briefing room.

Research

Briefs.

Short, sourced explanations of policy questions in front of US legislators. Curated long-form pieces and weekly news briefs on top political headlines.

— briefs

Issue area

Brief · Economy & tax fairness

The economy, December 2025 to May 2026

The IEEPA tariffs struck down. The 10% surcharge struck down. OBBBA implementation begins. Reconciliation 2.0 unlocks. The Fed holds rates. Five months of substantial federal-economic-policy contestation.

Brief · Labor & wages

Labor, December 2025 to May 2026

The largest Starbucks strike in company history. The NLRB regaining quorum after a year. The Minneapolis general strike. May Day Strong. Five months of organized labor at unusual visibility.

Brief · Democracy & voting rights

Voting rights, December 2025 to May 2026

Texas's mid-decade map. The Section 2 narrowing in Callais. Virginia's redistricting amendment voided. Five months of voting-rights doctrine remade.

Brief · Economy & tax fairness

Why antitrust is back — and what it actually does

After four decades of consumer-welfare orthodoxy, antitrust enforcement is rebuilding. A short tour of what changed, what didn't, and what to watch for.

Brief · Climate & energy

The transmission bottleneck

Most US regions can build clean energy faster than they can move it. Why the grid — not generation — is the binding constraint on decarbonization.

Brief · Healthcare

Medicare drug negotiation, explained

What the Inflation Reduction Act actually authorized, what the early negotiations covered, and how to read the next round.

Brief · Healthcare

Private equity in healthcare

What happens to a hospital, nursing home, or ER staffing firm when private equity takes ownership — and what regulation could look like.

Brief · Democracy & voting rights

Independent redistricting commissions, ten years in

What the empirical record shows about commissions in California, Michigan, Arizona, and Colorado — and where the next adoption fights are.

Brief · Labor & wages

What the PRO Act would actually do

A clause-by-clause walkthrough of the most consequential pro-labor legislation seriously considered in three decades.

Brief · Climate & energy

The methane fee — the first US federal price on a greenhouse gas

The IRA's methane emissions fee, what it actually does, and why it matters even at modest revenue.

Brief · Economy & tax fairness

The 15% corporate minimum tax, two years in

What the IRA's book-income tax has actually collected, where it's been litigated, and what an expansion would look like.

Brief · Civil rights & immigration

Qualified immunity, explained

The judge-made doctrine that decides whether a civil rights case against police can reach a jury — and what reform would actually do.

Brief · Economy & tax fairness

Stock buybacks, the buyback tax, and what they're actually for

Why buybacks are the largest single use of S&P 500 cash flow, what the IRA's 1% excise tax did, and whether higher rates would shift behavior.

Brief · Civil rights & immigration

The immigration court backlog crosses three million

Why a system in which most cases take years to resolve is failing both due process and basic public administration — and what structural reform looks like.

Brief · Climate & energy

When private insurance retreats from climate zones

Major insurers are pulling out of California, Florida, and Louisiana. Who absorbs the risk — and what policy options remain.

Brief · Labor & wages

Misclassification and the gig economy

What the ABC test is, why platform companies fight it so hard, and where the federal and state lines are being drawn.

Brief · Democracy & voting rights

Dark money disclosure — what's possible after Citizens United

The constitutional space, the federal proposals, and what state-level disclosure laws have actually achieved.

Brief · Healthcare

Why rural hospitals close — and what stops them

More than 130 rural hospitals have shut since 2010. The pattern is consistent, and so are the policy levers that would slow it.

Brief · Housing

State zoning preemption — what's working

Oregon, California, Washington, and Massachusetts have shown that state preemption of exclusionary local zoning can produce real results.

Brief · Veterans & service members

Why for-profit colleges target veterans, and what reform is starting to do

The 90/10 loophole, the predatory marketing pattern, and the structural reforms that have begun to address them.

Brief · Foreign policy & war powers

AUMF repeal — the bipartisan reform that hasn't happened

Why the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force have outlived the conflicts they authorized — and what repeal would actually do.

Brief · Democracy & voting rights

Rucho v. Common Cause and the state-court gerrymandering path

After the 2019 ruling closed federal courts to partisan gerrymandering claims, state courts and ballot measures became the operative venues.

Brief · Education

School vouchers as a fiscal mechanism, not an education policy

Why voucher and ESA expansions look more like a state-budget pattern than a school-choice movement — and what the empirical record actually shows.

Brief · Tech, AI & data rights

Federal privacy law — closer than it has been in a decade

Why the American Privacy Rights Act has gotten further than its predecessors, what the preemption fight is actually about, and what's left to resolve.

Brief · Disability justice

Why 700,000 disabled Americans wait years for services they have a federal right to

The Home and Community-Based Services waiting list crisis, the policy choices that created it, and what reform would do.

Brief · Reproductive rights

Cross-state travel for abortion, and the shield laws that protect it

How the post-Dobbs landscape produced an interstate-travel response, and where the legal frontier sits.

Brief · Indigenous sovereignty

IHS funding parity — what's at stake

Why the Indian Health Service has been chronically underfunded relative to comparable federal health programs, and what mandatory funding would do.

Brief · Disability justice

Phasing out the disability subminimum wage

Why section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act still allows below-minimum-wage payment to disabled workers, and what reform actually does.

Brief · Education

Public Service Loan Forgiveness, fixed

How a program that didn't work for a decade started working in 2021 — and what defending it now requires.

Brief · Veterans & service members

PACT Act implementation, two years in

What the largest expansion of veterans' toxic-exposure benefits in decades has actually produced — and where the bottlenecks have been.

Brief · Foreign policy & war powers

The Pentagon has never passed an audit

What it means that the largest discretionary line item in the federal budget cannot account for what it spends — and what reform would actually look like.

Brief · Housing

Institutional ownership of single-family rentals

How a market that didn't exist before 2010 became a meaningful share of US single-family rentals — and what regulation could look like.

Brief · Indigenous sovereignty

ICWA after Haaland v. Brackeen

What the 2023 ruling preserved, what it left open, and where the next round of legal pressure on federal Indian law is heading.

Brief · Tech, AI & data rights

After the Google search ruling — what structural remedies would do

The DOJ's victory at trial was the easy part. The remedies fight will shape platform competition for the next decade.

Brief · Reproductive rights

IVF, fetal personhood, and the federal response

Why the 2024 Alabama ruling exposed a fault line that abortion-restriction frameworks created — and what protective legislation actually does.