AI and Reporting

Artificial intelligence is an increasingly important topic in politics, policy, and law.

Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson at NYT:

Ryan Sabalow, a reporter for the newsroom CalMatters, noticed something peculiar when he began covering California lawmakers in 2023. Politicians would often give impassioned speeches against a bill, then refrain from voting entirely.

He began to wonder how often legislators were ducking tough votes — and how that influenced California’s laws....

He and his team turned to an A.I. tool, Digital Democracy, which tracks every word uttered in California legislative sessions, every donation and every vote taken. It led to an article, and an Emmy-winning segment on CBS, that revealed that Democratic lawmakers had killed a popular fentanyl bill by not voting at all.

...

Artificial intelligence is sweeping through newsrooms, transforming the way journalists around the world gather and disseminate information. Traditional news organizations increasingly use tools from companies like OpenAI and Google to streamline work that used to take hours: sifting through reams of information, tracking down sources and suggesting headlines.

... 

The Associated Press used A.I. tools this year to quickly sort through tens of thousands of pages of documents relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The tools made the documents searchable and summarized them, while also allowing journalists to see which parts of the files had been unredacted for the first time.

Nondelegation

Many posts have dealt with tariffs and trade. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act gave Trump the power to impose tariffs.

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  You're saying there's inherent authority in foreign affairs, all foreign affairs, so regulate commerce, duties and --and --and --and tariffs and war. It's inherent authority all the way down, you say.  Fine. Congress decides tomorrow, well, we're tired of this legislating business.  We're just going to hand it all off to the President. What would stop Congress from doing that? 

GENERAL SAUER:  That would be different than a situation where there are metes and bounds, so to speak. It would be a wholesale abdication.

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  You say we --we -- we are not here to judge metes and bounds when the foreign affairs.  That's what I'm struggling with. You'd have to have some test. And if it isn't the intelligible principle test or something more --with more bite than that, you're saying it's something less.  Well, what is that less? 

GENERAL SAUER:  I think what the Court has said in its opinions is just that it applies with much less force, more limited application in this context. So perhaps the right way to approach it is a very, very deferential application of the intelligible --intelligible principle test, that --that sort of wholesale abdication of --don't like to -- 

JUSTICE GORSUCH:  All right.  So now you're admitting that there is some nondelegation principle at play here and, therefore, major questions as well, is that right?

 GENERAL SAUER:  If so, very limited, you know, very, very deferential -- 

JUSTICE GORSUCH:  Okay. 

GENERAL SAUER:  --and limited is what --and, again, the phrase that Justice Jackson used is it just does not apply, at least --

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  I know, but that's where you started off, and now you've retreated from that as I understand it. 

GENERAL SAUER:  Well, I think we would as our frontline position assert a stronger position, but if the Court doesn't accept it, then, if there is a highly deferential version --

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  Can you give me a reason to accept it, though? That's what I'm struggling and waiting for.  What's the reason to accept the notion that Congress can hand off the power to declare war to the President? 

GENERAL SAUER:  Well, we don't contend that. Again, that would be --

JUSTICE GORSUCH:  Well, you do.  You say it's unreviewable, that there's no manageable standard, nothing to be done.  And now you're --I think you --tell me if I'm wrong. You've backed off that position. 

GENERAL SAUER:  Maybe that's fair to say.

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  Okay. All right. Thank you. (Laughter.)

Thermostatic Activism

A number of posts have discussed the politics of protest

Bruce Mehlman:

Out-party voters are energized, active and loud. In-power voters are often frustrated that their teams’ promises prove harder to accomplish, take too long or require compromises they don’t like.

 

Influencers

Many posts have discussed social media. 

Pew:

About one-in-five U.S. adults (21%) say they regularly get news from news influencers on social media, identical to when we first asked this in 2024.

The term news influencers was defined in the survey as “individuals who have a large following on social media and often post about news or political or social issues.”

Younger adults are especially likely to get news from news influencers, with 38% of those ages 18 to 29 saying they regularly do this – more than four times the share of those 65 and older (8%). There is virtually no difference between Republicans and Democrats in the share who say they regularly get news from news influencers (21% and 22%, respectively, including those who lean to each party).

Dick Cheney in Congress

 Former Vice President Dick Cheney died last night.  In 2004, Bill Connelly and I reflected on our experiences with him as Congressional Fellows in his House Republican leadership office.

Some of the literature tries to reduce legislative leadership to institutional context. That is, leaders are purportedly just the creatures of procedures, colleagues, and parties in the electorate. Watching Cheney reminded us that there is more to leadership than followership. When Cheney spoke, people listened. What the press now calls his “gravitas” caused other House Republicans to heed him. He was both a creature and creator of his context. 

The Civil War historian Douglas Southall Freeman once explained a source of gravitas: “First, know your stuff. Know your stuff, just that. Know -- know your own branch, know the related arms of the service; you can't know too much if you are going to be a successful leader. And know the yesterdays” (Freeman 1979, 4). Colleagues deferred to Cheney because he knew his stuff. His executive experience gave him a profound understanding of “the related arms of the service.” He knew policy. And from his academic background and research on the speakership, he knew “the yesterdays.” Cheney’s example offers evidence that knowledge is power on Capitol Hill. 

...

Cheney was no “pander bear.” At different times, we both traveled with him to Wyoming, and heard him tell constituents what they did not want to hear. Pitney watched him explain to people in the small town of Rawlins that he opposed federal subsidies for rail service to southern Wyoming. Connelly saw him take on a bunch of angry ranchers who were losing grazing land to DOD needs. In a conversation with Connelly, Cheney manifested his familiarity with political science, explaining why he was not acting as a single-minded seeker of re-election. He said he did not want the job if it entailed pandering. 

He also noted that Wyomingites respect independence, something both of us witnessed. They respected him even when -- and perhaps because -- he did not pander to them. Clearly Congressman Cheney was a “trustee,” not merely an “agent” for constituent interests. He was more than willing to engage in blunt talk with constituents and colleagues alike. Economic theories of legislative behavior fail to capture such leadership. As James Q. Wilson noted, “whereas economics is based on the assumption that preferences are given, politics must take into account the efforts made to change preferences” (Wilson 1980, 363).

Spending Cuts: Popular in Theory, Unpopular in Practice

Americans vastly overestimate the amount of waste in the budget

Jonathan Draeger at RealClearPolling:

The most recent poll analyzing Americans’ hopes for government spending came from The Economist/YouGov, which surveyed 1,623 U.S. adults from Oct. 24-27. When asked about increasing spending across a variety of categories, the only category with more people advocating for less spending than for more was foreign aid, where 21% wanted it to increase while 46% wanted it to decrease. This category was recently highlighted during the Trump administration’s decision to provide $20 billion in financial assistance to Argentina, a move that proved overwhelmingly unpopular, with only 21% approving and 51% disapproving.

On other items, such as national defense, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, the environment, veterans, and education, many more wanted increased funding than those who wanted decreased funding. The most popular were increased spending on veterans (71%) and Social Security (69%).

While Americans want more spending in almost every category when polled, in another poll from the Cato Institute/YouGov, an overwhelming 76% said the federal government spends too much money, and only 8% said it doesn’t spend enough. Another question found that the average person thinks the federal government should cut spending by 40% across the board, and 64% said cutting spending will mostly help the economy.

These two polls are in conflict. When presented abstractly, Americans want to cut spending. When asked about specific line items, the only popular item to cut is foreign aid. However, foreign aid accounts for only $50-80 billion of the federal budget, depending on the year, or 0.8% to 1.3% of the federal budget.

"I Feared for My Life, Officer"

  Many posts have discussed crime in the United States.

 Mark Maremont  and  Paul Overberg at WSJ:

It’s easier than ever to kill someone in America and get away with it.

In 30 states, it often requires only a claim you killed while protecting yourself or others.

While Americans have long been free to use deadly force to defend themselves at home, so-called stand-your-ground laws in those 30 states extend legal protections to public places and make it difficult for prosecutors to file homicide charges against anyone who says they killed in self-defense.

The number of legally sanctioned homicides by civilians in the 30 stand-your-ground states has risen substantially in recent years, The Wall Street Journal found in an analysis of data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Justifiable homicides by civilians increased 59% from 2019 through 2024 in a large sample of cities and counties in those states, the Journal found, compared with a 16% rise in total homicides for the same locales.