By Shutting Down the Senate — There is only one way to fix the Senate and democracy: stop consenting to dysfunctional rules and obstruct in the name of stopping obstruction. American democracy is at a crossroads, and the rules of the Senate are the decision point. The majority of the public voted against Trump and the…

The Path Toward Majority Rule in the U.S. Congress — The U.S. Senate majority can end routine obstruction — as the U.S. House majority did 130 years ago. Representative Thomas Reed, Speaker of the House, had a problem a few weeks into the regular session of Congress in early 1890. His Republican Party was in control of the House, Senate…

The Supreme Court fails to address the real problems in the way the American President is elected — In July 2020 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that states can take measures to prevent presidential electors from “reversing the vote of millions’’ of citizens, because in the United States “We the People rule.” The months since this confident statement have shown, on the contrary, that the rule of…

I took a deep dive into 10 years of bicyclist crash data from Oregon. Bicyclists and would-be bicyclists are concerned with the risk of injury. Many assume that the main danger is being hit from behind by a motor vehicle, but the Oregon data show dramatically that the main danger…

Bicyclists and would-be bicyclists are often concerned with the risk of injury. Yet what do we know about bicycling crashes and injuries? In this article I examine 30,000 bicycle crashes to understand the types of crashes that occur (e.g. rear-end vs. angle) and I use a logistic model to understand…

In search of family recreation, a substitute for closed gyms, or a way of getting around when public transportation is unsafe, Americans are rediscovering the bicycle (again). The New York Times, NPR, CNN, and the Guardian have all taken note of the new bike boom, which is also occurring in…

How to Unlock Democracy in the United States — The most glaring deficiency of the U.S. Constitution is its failure to follow democratic norms. This has become apparent this century with two Presidents elected despite more votes going to another candidate. We are also still fighting for the right of citizens to vote as the Supreme Court has thwarted…

Electoral reform has become part of the American political dialogue, and ranked choice voting is the favorite fix. In Breaking the Two Party Doom Loop, Lee Drutman argues that RCV will lead to the development of a multiparty system, and is therefore an essential step in overcoming today’s “toxic” politics. …