Executive Power

Gubernatorial opposition is a powerful and often necessary component of meaningful state pushback against federal overreach.

Unpacking the Office of Legal Counsel opinion concluding that executive privilege may apply to presidential communications with private advisers.

States need independent agencies with jurisdiction to enforce their residents’ rights so the valuation of those rights are evenhanded and not subject to political will.

As a federal-level accountability desert forms, states are reviving "collateral accountability" — damages suits against federal officers who violate constitutional rights.

States must be vigilant stewards of their data — auditing what they hold, limiting what they share, and enforcing legal constraints against federal overreach.

Lessons from Nixon's forgotten essay in defense of his infamous remark.

States have constitutional protections against commandeering and coercion — but face a new challenge when the federal government sidelines states completely.

Tracking the use of State power requires systematically identifying linkages between individual developments and broader trends. This interactive graphic offers one method.

Our democratic institutions are under strain, but one thing must be true if any reform is to take hold: government must deliver, and that delivery must be felt by all people.

America’s civil service, built for a bygone era, urgently needs bold, comprehensive reform to build a government capable of delivering for the 21st century.

Domestic policy experts offer principles for reinvention meant to inform the work of policymakers, advocates, and governance rebuilders as they redesign federal institutions.

Together, the Trump administration’s vision of the Clean Air Act’s exemption authority and shutting courts out from review is one of completely unchecked presidential power.