Author: Harlan Quill

A dusty patriot with a library card, a suspicious mind, and boots worn from pacing in protest. Raised on Tom Paine and taught by Orwell, Harlan doesn’t salute power — he scrutinizes it. He believes democracy is a rowdy dinner table, not a monologue from the rich. His columns are where forgotten truths resurface, cloaked in cautionary tales and sharpened by wit.

  • Ticketmaster Got a Guilty Verdict. Now Make It Count.

    ByHarlan Quill

    I read antitrust verdicts the way I read modern civics: squinting at a glowing screen like it is a courthouse microfiche machine, trying to smell accountability through the Wi‑Fi. Somewhere, a town hall is fighting about potholes. Somewhere else, a committee room is inventing new synonyms for monopoly. And in Manhattan federal court, a jury just did the rarest democratic act: it wrote a fact down and made it stick.

    What the jury found (and what it does not do yet)

    On April 15, a federal jury in New York found Live Nation and its Ticketmaster unit liable for violating federal and state antitrust laws. The verdict concluded they illegally maintained monopoly power and used anticompetitive conduct that overcharged fans.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James, joined by a coalition of 33 other state attorneys general, pitched it as a win for fans, artists, and venues. The jury found, among other things, that New Yorkers were overcharged about $1.72 per ticket in higher fees.

    The Associated Press emphasized the part nobody wants to hear: the verdict does not instantly lower prices. It does, however, push the case into a remedy phase where penalties and structural changes are on the table.

    The Orwell check: when a monopoly calls itself an “ecosystem”

    Power loves euphemism. Monopoly becomes “ecosystem.” Lock-in becomes “integration.” Higher prices become “dynamic pricing.” Fees become “service.” If you argue long enough about the vocabulary, you never reach the conduct.

    This verdict is the opposite of vibes. It is a jury saying the conduct matters, not the branding. You do not get to own the highway, charge the toll, and then act offended when drivers notice the tollbooth.

    The remedy phase is where history either happens or gets postponed

    Reuters reported the jury found illegal monopolies in ticketing services at major venues and in the market for large amphitheaters, plus unlawful tying of amphitheater access to Live Nation promotion services. Reuters also reported states are expected to seek remedies that could include forcing a sale of Ticketmaster, alongside damages, if the verdict holds up through further proceedings.

    And here is where my centrist, civil-liberties brain starts pacing: the same government that can break concentrated private power can also cut a quiet deal and call it victory. AP reported the company suggested the final outcome after remedies and appeals might not differ much from what the federal government got in a mid-trial settlement. Reuters described that settlement as opening ticketing to other vendors at certain amphitheaters and prohibiting retaliation against venues that do not use Ticketmaster. The states kept litigating because they believed the deal did not go far enough.

    Guardrails that actually bite

    • No retaliation.
    • No tying and no forced bundling disguised as “standard practice.”
    • Transparent fee structures people can understand without a litigator.
    • Real freedom for venues to choose ticketing providers without fear.

    The jury spoke. Now the remedy decides whether this was the beginning of competition, or just the nicest scolding money can buy. In the remedy phase, what should be nonnegotiable: refunds, structural separation, or enforceable freedom for venues to choose their ticketing without fear?

  • Spring Homebuying Season, Meet the Toll Booth

    ByHarlan Quill

    I keep a folder of old town hall agendas the way some folks keep baseball cards. Different decades, same polite font, same folding chairs, same promise that the next meeting will finally solve the thing. Housing keeps showing up like a recurring footnote: permit delays, “neighborhood character,” traffic studies, a consultant with a slideshow, and then a vote to do nothing until the next generation gets a turn to be priced out.

    So when March home sales slid again, right as the spring homebuying season is supposed to rev up, I did what any library-card patriot does: I checked the numbers, then I checked who benefits from the system that produces those numbers.

    What the March data says

    • Sales: Existing-home sales fell 3.6% in March from February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.98 million. Sales were also down 1% from March a year earlier, and the pace came in below economists’ expectations.
    • Prices: The national median existing-home price rose 1.4% from a year earlier to $408,800, a record for March in data going back to 1999. Prices have now risen year over year for 33 straight months.
    • Inventory: There were about 1.36 million unsold homes at the end of March, up 3% from February and up 2.3% from a year earlier. That equals roughly a 4.1-month supply, still short of what’s usually called a balanced market.

    Rates, timing, and the headwinds

    Mortgage rates were easing earlier in the year, but March brought a messier picture. The AP noted many March purchases would have been negotiated in January and February, when the average 30-year fixed rate ran roughly from 5.98% to 6.16%. Rates later moved higher, with Freddie Mac showing 30-year rates around 6.37% last week.

    NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun pointed to softer job growth and lower consumer confidence as additional headwinds, and he cut his 2026 existing-home sales forecast to 4% growth from a prior 14% call.

    If you are trying to buy your first home, that is not a spring market. That is a waiting room with a price ticker on the wall.

    The Orwell check: when we call rationing a “season”

    “Spring homebuying season” sounds like nature. But housing in America is not weather. It is rules, chokepoints, and local veto power dressed up as inevitability. We call it a market, too, but markets are supposed to let supply and demand meet. When supply is routinely handcuffed, the surprise wears thin.

    The liberty ledger: who gets mobility, who gets stuck

    Housing is liberty in plain clothes: the freedom to move for work, to leave a bad landlord, to start a family without turning every month into a spreadsheet drill. On the plus side, current owners in constrained areas keep their paper wealth. On the minus side, first-time buyers get squeezed by high prices and still-elevated borrowing costs, without home equity as a cushion. The AP story notes fewer first-time buyers purchased in March than in February.

    The Paine test: does our housing politics expand liberty or concentrate it?

    The Paine test asks whether policy spreads freedom broadly or concentrates it. On housing, we have spent years concentrating power in the hands of whoever can block new supply, then we act shocked by scarcity. If we want guardrails, they have to be real: time limits on permit reviews, zoning rules legible to ordinary people, fewer endless procedural do-overs, and a hard look at how subsidies and tax preferences interact with constrained supply.

    Question for the comment section: if spring is when homebuying is supposed to bloom, why are we still defending the policies that keep the ground frozen?

  • Wholesale Inflation Jumped. So Did Washington’s Appetite for Excuses

    ByHarlan Quill

    I read the Producer Price Index the way I read a court docket: not for comfort, for clues. When prices jump, Washington rarely reaches for a ruler and a calendar. It reaches for a lever, then asks for forgiveness later.

    What the report says (and why it matters)

    The government reported that wholesale inflation (the Producer Price Index for final demand) rose 0.5% in March and was up 4.0% over the past 12 months, the biggest year-over-year increase since early 2023. The AP tied the surge to the war in Iran pushing energy prices higher, and the breakdown explains how that shock shows up in domestic costs.

    • Final demand goods: up 1.6%
    • Final demand services: unchanged
    • Final demand energy: up 8.5%
    • Gasoline: up 15.7%

    That is not a rounding error. That is the kind of jolt that echoes through shipping bays, store shelves, and every family minivan.

    The quieter line: core is calmer

    Strip out food and energy and you get a slower beat. AP reported “core” producer prices up 0.1% from February and 3.8% from a year earlier. A closely related BLS measure (final demand less foods, energy, and trade services) rose 0.2% in March and 3.6% over the year. Different filters, same message: underlying inflation is not benign, but the March punch came from energy.

    What happened, and what did not

    What happened: energy inputs jumped fast enough to yank the whole index upward. In the details, gasoline was nearly half the increase in final demand goods. Transportation and warehousing services also rose, which is what happens when fuel sets the tempo.

    What did not happen (in this report): a broad blowout in wholesale services pricing. Final demand services were flat in March. That does not end the debate, but it narrows where the fire was burning this month.

    The tradeoff: relief without a rights mortgage

    The tradeoff: a scary inflation print becomes an all-purpose permission slip. Higher rates can cool parts of the economy that have little to do with a war-driven energy spike. But rushed subsidies and waivers can become corporate welfare with a patriotic label.

    The Paine test: does the response expand liberty or concentrate power? Energy shocks are famous for concentrating power fast, then “forgetting” to give it back.

    The Orwell check: listen for euphemisms. “Stabilization” can mean subsidy. “Strategic partnership” can mean no-bid contracting. “Enhanced monitoring” can mean more surveillance aimed at ordinary people, not boardrooms.

    The liberty ledger: households with no cushion, small businesses without hedges, and workers whose pay lags necessities take the hit first. If policymakers want relief tied to energy costs, it should be targeted, time-limited, and auditable, with public reporting people can actually read. If someone proposes an emergency measure, ask two questions: who oversees it, and when does it end?

  • A Clean Extension, a Dirty Habit: Section 702 at the April 20 Cliff

    ByHarlan Quill

    I spent enough time in libraries to learn the country runs on footnotes. Not always noble ones. The kind written at 11:58 p.m., when the committee room smells like cold coffee and the word “temporary” is doing most of the lying.

    This week, Washington is back on its favorite civic treadmill: racing toward a surveillance deadline it scheduled itself, then insisting the only responsible move is to keep running.

    Section 702: the April 20 deadline, again

    Congress is scrambling to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act before it expires on April 20. The basic pitch is simple: it lets U.S. intelligence agencies collect communications of non-U.S. persons located abroad without a traditional warrant.

    The fine print is where Americans keep showing up. The program can sweep up Americans’ communications when they talk to someone overseas. Critics also argue the government can later search those collected communications in ways that look and feel like an end-run around the Fourth Amendment.

    “Clean extension” is a euphemism, not a disinfectant

    According to the Associated Press, President Trump is urging an extension, and the White House has pushed for a so-called clean extension: renew first, argue later. “Later” is Washington’s favorite time of day, right after “never.”

    Meanwhile the House has struggled to line up votes, and the pressure campaign has reached the White House, where Trump hosted holdouts as leadership tried to move a clean reauthorization forward.

    The Orwell check: when politicians say “clean,” check your pockets

    In this context, “clean” means unamended. No new warrant requirement for searching Americans’ communications caught up in 702 collection. No hard stop on using internet data brokers as a workaround for constitutional limits. If you cannot kick in the front door, you buy the keys from a guy in a parking lot.

    The Paine test and the liberty ledger

    Section 702 has real national security value. Foreign intelligence collection is part of the job. The problem is the American habit of treating any surveillance capability as sacred once it exists: the tool starts overseas, the data ends up here, and the mission acquires legs.

    The liberty ledger is pretty plain:

    • Government gets speed, scale, and a database that keeps on giving.
    • Politicians get a “kept you safe” talking point.
    • The public pays in privacy, due process, and trust.

    The tradeoff: security without guardrails is permission

    Even supporters concede the politics are messy. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has backed a clean 18-month extension and warned against allowing the authority to lapse, pointing to a Department of Justice commitment to revise how Congress can attend and oversee proceedings in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and its review court. Oversight access matters, but notice the pattern: oversight is treated like a consolation prize after the main power is renewed.

    If Section 702 is as indispensable as its champions say, why does the case for it always get loudest right before the deadline and quietest when it’s time to accept real limits?

  • A “Clean” Surveillance Extension Is Still a Dirty Deal

    ByHarlan Quill

    I have read enough court dockets to recognize the scent of a “temporary” power trying to become a permanent fixture: a midnight committee room, stale coffee, manufactured urgency, and the assumption the public will not read the fine print until it has fossilized into precedent.

    Welcome back to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the authority that is always sold as aimed “over there,” and somehow keeps ricocheting back home.

    What is happening now

    Section 702 is set to expire on April 20, and the White House is pushing Congress to pass a clean extension, reportedly for 18 months. President Trump has publicly urged renewal, arguing it is crucial to national security. House leadership tried to move it this week, then hit turbulence: a planned vote was delayed amid internal opposition, with lawmakers pressing for changes like a warrant requirement when the government goes looking for Americans’ communications inside the 702 system.

    Foreign intelligence collection is not small potatoes. Section 702 authorizes surveillance of foreigners located overseas, often by directing U.S. communications providers to produce communications connected to foreign targets. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court signs off on general procedures, not individual warrants for each target. Powerful tool, dangerous world. No argument there.

    The argument is what happens next: Americans keep getting pulled into the frame, not as targets, but as collateral.

    The Orwell check: “clean extension” is a euphemism

    In Washington, “clean” often means “extend first, argue later, and do not let privacy reforms slow the train.” Supporters argue prior reforms should be enough for now, and some leaders are emphasizing transparency around oversight of the FISA Court.

    Sen. Chuck Grassley, for example, has pointed to the Justice Department revising its procedures for congressional attendance and oversight in certain FISA Court proceedings as a reason to back a clean extension. Oversight access matters, but access is not a lock. You can improve the view from the gallery and still leave the search function pointed at Americans.

    The liberty ledger: the backdoor-search problem

    The political trick is that the word “foreign” does the public-relations work. The government targets a foreigner overseas, collects communications, incidentally sweeps up Americans communicating with that person, and later analysts can search the collected data for U.S. person information. That later step is the backdoor search problem.

    According to the Brennan Center, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board reported in 2023 that the FBI conducted close to 5 million U.S. person queries from 2019 to 2022, and that the board saw little justification for the relative value of those queries. That is not a rounding error. That is a system.

    And there is another familiar dodge: critics want limits on the government’s use of data brokers, because buying Americans’ data can look like an end-run around constitutional protections. If the government cannot get it with a warrant, it should not be able to get it with a credit card and a wink.

    The tradeoff: security is real, so is mission creep

    I am not allergic to surveillance. I am allergic to surveillance without guardrails. If lawmakers want trust, the basic menu is straightforward:

    • A warrant requirement for U.S. person queries, with tightly defined emergency exceptions.
    • Clear limits on buying Americans’ data through brokers.
    • Meaningful public reporting and audits ordinary people can understand.
    • Real consequences for violations, not just stern letters and new training slides.

    Urgency is not an argument against due process. In fact, urgency is when due process matters most.

  • The DOJ’s Eraser and the Rule of Law’s Pencil Marks

    ByHarlan Quill

    Courthouses run on a simple civic promise: once a jury speaks and a judge enters judgment, the government does not get to treat the verdict like a draft email.

    Yet here we are, watching the Justice Department ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to help undo some of the most consequential January 6 convictions on the books.

    What DOJ asked for (and why it matters)

    On April 14, 2026, DOJ filed an unopposed motion in a consolidated appeal involving Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola, all convicted of crimes tied to January 6, 2021.

    DOJ is asking the court to vacate the convictions under 28 U.S.C. § 2106 and remand so prosecutors can dismiss the indictment with prejudice under Rule 48(a). Translation: not just end punishment, but erase the convictions and make sure they cannot be refiled.

    The motion leans on two claims: (1) dismissal sits in the heartland of prosecutorial discretion, and (2) in the Executive Branch’s view, continuing is not in the “interests of justice”, especially after President Trump commuted these defendants’ sentences to time served as of January 20, 2025 in a proclamation that also granted broad pardons for other January 6 defendants and directed DOJ to pursue dismissals of pending indictments tied to January 6 conduct.

    DOJ also notes it is filing similar motions in two other consolidated appeals, and reporting indicates the effort extends beyond this appeal to include Oath Keepers leaders and members whose sentences were commuted rather than fully pardoned.

    The Orwell check: when “interests of justice” turns into a euphemism

    The filing does not argue the jury instructions were wrong, the evidence was insufficient, or some newly discovered exculpatory fact makes the verdicts unsafe. The gist is simpler: we are the government, and we do not want these convictions on the books anymore.

    That should bother anyone who thinks law is supposed to outlive politics.

    The liberty ledger (and the Paine test)

    • They gain: a cleaner record and a symbolic win that reframes what January 6 prosecutions meant.
    • DOJ gains: the power to conform final outcomes to a sitting president’s narrative without litigating the merits.
    • The public loses: faith that jury verdicts are durable, not optional.

    The Paine test is blunt: does this expand liberty, or concentrate power? Wiping verdicts by executive preference concentrates power, even when the immediate result looks like mercy.

    The tradeoff

    If seditious conspiracy is too elastic, debate it in sunlight: appeals, standards, published opinions, or Congress. What we are buying here is not clarity. It is finality by executive preference. The price is precedent.

    If the Justice Department can ask courts to erase verdicts because it no longer likes the story those verdicts tell, what stops the next administration from doing the same to someone you think is guilty as sin?

  • Homebuilder Confidence Fell. The Real Shortage Is Guardrails.

    ByHarlan Quill

    I spent last night doing what every red-blooded American does when the housing market gets weird: I stared at a spreadsheet like it was a court docket and tried to find the moment the country quietly changed the locks on itself.

    We keep singing the same civic lullaby: build more homes, lower costs, help families. Then we write rules that make it harder to build, pricier to borrow, and easier to blame the wrong people. The paperwork wins. The rent does not go down.

    Homebuilder confidence drops to 34, signaling a spring stall

    The National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo’s Housing Market Index fell four points in April to 34. That is deep in pessimism territory, well below the 50 line that separates more-good-than-bad from more-bad-than-good.

    The softness is broad: current sales conditions down to 37, expected sales over the next six months down to 42, and buyer traffic down to 22. Fewer people walking in, fewer people buying, fewer builders believing the next half-year improves.

    NAHB says 36% of builders cut prices in April (average cut: 5%), and 60% are still using sales incentives. That is not swagger. That is a market trying to keep the lights on while carrying costs climb.

    What the builders just admitted, in numbers

    When builders are discounting while everyone is still complaining about not enough homes, you are looking at a choke point. Not demand vanishing, but demand getting priced out, spooked out, or slowed out by uncertainty.

    Reuters’ write-up of the same NAHB report points to the ingredients: mortgage rates and material costs pushed higher by energy prices, plus policy choices like tariffs on imported building inputs, and labor strain that builders say has been worsened by immigration enforcement reducing the worker pool.

    The tradeoff

    We want more housing supply, but we also want a politics of friction. We treat the act of building like a suspicious package that must be inspected by thirteen committees and a neighborhood meeting that starts at 9 p.m. for maximum participation by nobody with a job.

    The liberty ledger

    Who gains freedom? Existing owners who enjoy scarcity premiums. Investors who can wait out uncertainty. Local officials who get to play gatekeeper and call it community character.

    Who loses freedom? Renters who cannot move without taking a second job. Young families who cannot buy. Seniors who cannot downsize. Workers who cannot live near the jobs that supposedly need filling.

    Four points down is not the headline. The system is.

    The Paine test

    Does our response expand liberty, or concentrate it in the hands of gatekeepers? If the answer is more discretionary approvals and vague standards, that concentrates power.

    The Orwell check

    Listen to the euphemisms. “Neighborhood protection” can mean “no new neighbors.” “Regulatory relief” can mean less accountability, or less red tape. You only find out which one after the ink dries.

    If you want a supply response that does not trample rights, start with boring guardrails: transparency in permitting, equal-treatment rules that limit arbitrary denials, and objective standards that can be appealed without hiring a second attorney just to interpret a planning department’s mood.

    So here is my practical ask: if your city says it wants affordability, demand timelines, publish the permit queue, cap discretionary delays, and legalize more homes in more places with clear rules. Sunlight, deadlines, and appeal rights.

    And one question for the comments: when your town says “we support housing, just not like that,” who exactly is the “that” they are trying to keep out?

  • The FDA’s Peptide Pivot: Freedom, Fraud, and the Fine Print

    ByHarlan Quill

    Federal notices are never loud, but they do have a talent for changing the room temperature. One calendar entry, one committee meeting, and suddenly the folding chairs at the town hall start scraping.

    What the FDA scheduled, and why people care

    This week, the Food and Drug Administration set dates for its Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee to meet on July 23 and 24, 2026. The question on the table: whether certain peptides should be allowed back into the compounding pipeline.

    These are not FDA-approved drugs. They are widely promoted in the wellness world, living in the gap between “promising” and “proven,” where marketing often outruns evidence.

    The seven peptides under discussion

    According to the FDA’s advisory committee listing, the July meeting will cover seven substances across two days:

    • July 23: BPC-157, KPV, TB-500, MOTs-C
    • July 24: emideltide (also called DSIP), Semax, Epitalon

    The FDA listing also describes the uses it reviewed for each nomination. That is not an endorsement, but it is a procedural signal that the agency is moving from “no” to “let’s debate the terms.”

    Context: compounding, pressure, and a familiar loophole risk

    STAT reports that in 2023 the FDA removed 19 peptides from the list of substances compounding pharmacies could produce, and that this July panel will consider adding back seven of them. AP reports these peptides are popular, unapproved therapies pushed by wellness influencers and some political figures, and that the FDA’s move follows repeated pledges by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to loosen regulations on peptides.

    Compounding can be a lifeline when patients need customized formulations. It can also become a soft underbelly of oversight, where “tailored care” quietly starts functioning like unregulated manufacturing.

    The Orwell check: when “access” means fewer guardrails

    “Access” is a friendly word. In health policy, it can also mean lowering the evidentiary bar and outsourcing the risk to patients while calling it empowerment. AP’s reporting captures the tension: these products are pitched for a wide range of goals online, while safety data and evidence are thin for many uses.

    The tradeoff, the liberty ledger, and the Paine test

    We buy speed when compounding expands. We pay with clarity about safety and effectiveness, and with accountability when something goes wrong. STAT also reports another meeting is expected before the end of February 2027 to consider additional peptides, which suggests this is a direction, not a one-off.

    The liberty question is not “do we ban everything weird.” It is: who gets more freedom, and who absorbs the uncertainty about dosing, purity, contamination risk, and exaggerated claims? Paine’s simpler version: does this expand liberty for ordinary people, or concentrate power among sellers, promoters, and political appointees who can move markets with a wink?

    Guardrails that should be non-negotiable

    If access expands, guardrails should strengthen: rigorous public quality standards, clear disclosure that products are not FDA-approved, enforced adverse-event reporting, and real oversight of clinics marketing biologically active compounds like miracle apps. Otherwise “freedom” becomes a sales pitch with a flag on it, and patients become the test subjects again.

  • Vote by Mail, Executive Power, and the Post Office Caught in the Middle

    ByHarlan Quill

    Democracy, in practice, is rarely fireworks. It is envelopes, deadlines, and a public institution doing the boring part reliably. Which is why it is jarring to see the U.S. Postal Service pulled into partisan trench warfare like a folding chair at a town-hall brawl.

    What the union is doing

    The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) has launched a national television ad campaign promoting vote by mail as a practical option. The ad features everyday voters explaining why they use mail ballots and closes with a simple message: keep vote by mail, protect it, expand it. The campaign begins in Ohio and then moves to other states.

    APWU says the ad was produced before the latest escalation, but the timing still lands like a rebuttal.

    What the White House is doing

    Two weeks earlier, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at tightening federal election procedures, including mail and absentee ballot handling through USPS. Lawsuits followed, along with the usual fog of accusations and defenses.

    What happened, in plain English

    APWU is not telling you who to vote for. It is telling you a way to vote should remain available.

    The controversy is not about whether the mail moves. It is about whether the mail becomes a filter.

    The hinge: lists and “uniform standards”

    The March 31, 2026 executive order, titled Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections, directs the Postmaster General to begin a rulemaking process aimed at creating uniform standards for mail-in or absentee ballot services handled through USPS. It also contemplates states providing USPS a list of voters eligible to receive mail or absentee ballots.

    A related White House fact sheet describes the goal as having USPS transmit ballots only to people on state-specific participation lists.

    The Orwell check: when “integrity” means deputizing the mail

    Whenever Washington sells something as “integrity,” I run the Orwell check: who is being handed a new badge?

    States already maintain voter rolls and verify eligibility. The Postal Service’s civic value is that it is not an umpire. It is a conveyor belt for your birthday card, your jury summons, your prescription, and your ballot, without asking for your politics.

    The National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association argued USPS is not equipped or authorized to decide who is entitled to vote, and warned this kind of role risks politicizing one of the country’s most trusted public institutions.

    The Paine test and the liberty ledger

    • The Paine test: Does this expand liberty for ordinary people, or concentrate power?
    • The liberty ledger: Who gains convenience and access, and who bears the risk when lists are wrong or rules change?

    Vote by mail is a practical tool for people whose lives do not fit neatly inside one Tuesday. A system that turns USPS into an eligibility choke point concentrates power and concentrates blame. And once you tax civic trust, it is not like postage. You cannot just buy more when you run out.

    The tradeoff: security is real, so are guardrails

    If rulemaking proceeds, it should be public, slow enough to read, and subject to judicial review. Any system involving lists must include clear voter remedies for errors, in timelines that match real life.

    Final question: if we turn the nation’s delivery service into a political gatekeeper, what do we think arrives next?

  • Congress Wants a Purge. The Constitution Wants a Process.

    ByHarlan Quill

    I picture Capitol Hill the way it actually runs: fluorescent hallways, bitter coffee, and a stack of paper tall enough to qualify as a zoning dispute. Somewhere in that stack is the civics line about Congress policing itself. Somewhere else is the less poetic truth: self-policing is convenient until the pantry door starts rattling.

    Congress hits a breaking point on ethics

    Axios reports that a long drip of scandal started sounding like a burst pipe on Monday, April 13, when two House members announced plans to leave rather than risk expulsion votes. This is not just about individual misconduct. It is about an institution whose ethics machinery has moved slowly, and is now watching members reach for emergency exits.

    • Rep. Eric Swalwell: The House Ethics Committee announced on April 13 it opened an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, while stressing the obvious but essential point: an investigation is not proof of a violation. Meanwhile, the political appetite for a floor vote grows because politics loves a clean vote even when the facts are still being assembled.
    • Rep. Tony Gonzales: He said he would retire after calls to expel him following an ethics investigation tied to his admitted affair with a staff member. AP reports he said he would file his retirement when Congress returned. The rule at issue is plain: members may not have sexual relationships with employees under their supervision.
    • Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick: Her matter has moved into a formal adjudicatory phase. A committee statement dated April 10 says an adjudicatory subcommittee found many counts in a Statement of Alleged Violations proven and set a public hearing for April 21 to determine what sanction, if any, should be recommended to the full House. AP has reported the ethics panel found her responsible for numerous violations, including campaign finance violations, tied to roughly $5 million in overpayment and how money flowed into a 2022 campaign through a network of businesses and family members.
    • Rep. Cory Mills: He is under an established Ethics Committee investigative subcommittee authorized to examine a wide set of allegation categories, including disclosure issues, campaign finance, gifts and travel, and allegations of sexual misconduct or dating violence. Mills has denied wrongdoing, and again, investigations are not verdicts.

    The tradeoff: catharsis vs. due process

    The temptation is to skip the long ethics crawl and go straight to a dramatic floor vote. Expulsion is ripping off the bandage, except the bandage is attached to credibility and precedent. It also requires a two-thirds vote, designed to be rare and weighty, not casual and convenient.

    But the opposite temptation is hiding behind process forever. Axios notes frustration with the pace. When a formal process looks broken, lawmakers start improvising. Improvisation in a constitutional chamber is how you end up with rules that feel like a midnight committee-room brawl.

    My guardrails (Paine test, Orwell check, liberty ledger)

    The Paine test: Who gains power? If expulsion can be rushed on allegations alone, power tilts toward leadership and whichever coalition can stage a two-thirds spectacle. If cases can linger indefinitely, power tilts toward incumbency under a permanent cloud.

    The Orwell check: “Voluntarily leaving” and “retiring” can be tidy phrases. The public question is simpler: what rules matter, and how are they enforced, plainly and promptly?

    The liberty ledger: The public pays when Congress cannot discipline itself without either stalling or stampeding. So: investigate, move, be fair, and make the process legible. Sunlight, deadlines, and due process. Which guardrail would you add first: faster ethics timelines, clearer expulsion standards, or an enforcement mechanism outside the club?

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