law

How Zoning Laws Fuel Economic Segregation

Hamilton Nolan · 01/13/16 02:28PM

Zoning laws, governing how we use our land, are often thought of as mundane drudgery, or as opportunities for civic-minded people to help “Keep Our Neighborhood Beautiful.” In fact, they can also be a powerful driver of inequality.

Today They Try to Break the Public Unions

Hamilton Nolan · 01/11/16 09:09AM

Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could do more to damage public employee unions than anything the Republican party has done in decades.

Gutting the IRS Is a Remarkably Bad Idea

Hamilton Nolan · 12/03/15 10:48AM

The IRS—the department that collects all the money that funds everything the U.S. government wants to do—is being slowly gutted. What could go wrong?

The Constitution: Old Bullshit? 

Hamilton Nolan · 08/13/15 10:34AM

Americans tend to think of our Constitution as a hallowed source of wisdom that should be tampered with only in the most extreme circumstances. But what if it’s really just old—and dumb?

Choose Life for Public Unions

Hamilton Nolan · 07/01/15 11:25AM

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that challenged the ability of unions to require everyone in a workplace to pay dues. Here is what is at stake in this case: the very existence of public unions.

Local Jails Are Insatiable Monsters

Hamilton Nolan · 02/11/15 12:12PM

It has become increasingly clear to mainstream America that our nation's decades-long experiment with mass incarceration is fundamentally a bad idea. And though state prisons loom large in the public mind, it's actually local jails where most of the (bad) action happens.

Congress Wants to Bring Back This Awful Anti-Privacy Law Because of Sony

Sam Biddle · 01/09/15 01:22PM

If you use the internet, you should be opposed to the passage of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. The bill was blocked last year, because it's a draconian privacy nightmare, but it's back, and feeding on Sony hacker paranoia.