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The White House press briefing room.

Research

Briefs.

Short, sourced explanations of policy questions in front of US legislators. Curated long-form pieces and weekly news briefs on top political headlines.

— briefs

Issue area

Brief · Reproductive rights

Abortion on the 2026 ballot

Three abortion measures are certified for the November 2026 ballot — and for the first time since Dobbs, voters are being asked to roll back an abortion-rights amendment they already passed.

Brief · Foreign policy & war powers

AUMF repeal — a partial victory, and the 2001 fight that remains

Congress repealed the 1991 and 2002 Iraq war authorizations in December 2025 — the first such clawback since 1971. The broader 2001 AUMF is still in force.

Brief · Veterans & service members

Camp Lejeune, four years on

The 2022 law gave Camp Lejeune water-contamination victims a path to compensation. Four years later, roughly $421 million has been paid — and less than 1% of more than 400,000 claims has been resolved.

Brief · Reproductive rights

Abortion shield laws on trial

State shield laws protecting telehealth abortion providers are facing their first courtroom tests. What the New York and Delaware cases turn on, and why the question is headed for the Supreme Court.

Brief · Healthcare

The ACA subsidy cliff, explained

The enhanced premium tax credits expired on January 1, 2026. Marketplace premium payments are projected to more than double. The House voted to extend them; the Senate has not.

Brief · Disability justice

The disability accessibility deadlines are slipping

In April and May 2026, both DOJ and HHS pushed back their digital-accessibility compliance deadlines by about a year — and DOJ signaled it may reconsider the underlying rules entirely.

Brief · Civil rights & immigration

The DOJ Civil Rights Division, explained

The federal office built to enforce civil-rights law has lost roughly three-quarters of its attorneys since January 2025. A staffing collapse this large is not an administrative footnote — it is itself a policy decision.

Brief · Tech, AI & data rights

Federal privacy law — the cause, after the bill lapsed

The American Privacy Rights Act expired without reintroduction. What the comprehensive-privacy cause still needs, what the preemption fight is actually about, and how to read the new proposals in the 119th Congress.

Brief · Tech, AI & data rights

After the Google search ruling — what the remedies actually did

The DOJ won at trial, then lost most of the remedies fight. Behavioral limits, no Chrome breakup, and an appeal now headed to the D.C. Circuit.

Brief · Disability justice

Why hundreds of thousands of disabled Americans wait years for services they have a federal right to

The Home and Community-Based Services waiting list crisis, the policy choices that created it, and what reform would do.

Brief · Housing

HUD walks away from Housing First

What Housing First is, the evidence behind it, what HUD is changing about homelessness funding, and the multi-state lawsuit over redirected Continuum of Care money.

Brief · Housing

The fight over the FY2026 HUD budget and Section 8

The President's budget proposed eliminating Section 8 and public housing for a state block grant. What the voucher system does, what a block-grant conversion would change, and how the appropriations fight ended.

Brief · Labor & wages

DOL moves to rescind the 2024 independent-contractor rule

The Department of Labor has proposed undoing the 2024 worker-classification rule and reverting toward the narrower 2021 test. What the classification test does, and what the change would mean for wage-and-hour protections.

Brief · Housing

Institutional ownership of single-family rentals

How a market that didn't exist before 2010 became a meaningful share of US single-family rentals — and what regulation could look like.

Brief · Labor & wages

The $25 minimum wage: the Living Wage for All Act

House progressives have proposed a $25 federal minimum wage pegged to two-thirds of the national median wage. What that would change, and how it reframes a debate that has been stuck since 2009.

Brief · Climate & energy

The methane fee that never took effect

The IRA created what would have been the first US federal price on a greenhouse gas. Congress dismantled it in two steps in 2025 — before a dollar was ever collected.

Brief · Indigenous sovereignty

Native voting rights after Callais: the Turtle Mountain remand

The Supreme Court vacated a ruling that would have barred Native voters from enforcing the Voting Rights Act themselves — and tied the case's fate to a decision that has nothing obvious to do with it.

Brief · Climate & energy

What the One Big Beautiful Bill did to the IRA's clean-energy credits

The 2025 reconciliation law accelerated the repeal of most Inflation Reduction Act clean-energy tax credits. What the credits did, what changed, and why the July 4, 2026 construction deadline matters.

Brief · Healthcare

The OBBBA Medicaid cuts, explained

The 2025 reconciliation law cuts roughly $900 billion to $1 trillion from federal Medicaid, adds work-reporting requirements, and creates a temporary $50 billion rural health fund. What the pieces do, and whether the fund offsets the damage.

Brief · Education

Public Service Loan Forgiveness — fixed, then contested

How a program that didn't work for a decade started working in 2021 — and why a 2026 rule has put it back in dispute.

Brief · Housing

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, explained

A bipartisan housing bill cleared both chambers of Congress in 2026, carrying a cap on institutional buyers of single-family homes alongside permitting and supply provisions. What it does, what the House changed, and where it stands.

Brief · Education

The SAVE plan is gone — and the repayment menu shrank with it

How the most generous income-driven repayment plan was eliminated, what the OBBBA student-loan overhaul replaces it with, and why a smaller menu of options matters for borrowers.

Brief · Civil rights & immigration

What Skrmetti settled — and what it didn't

The Supreme Court's June 2025 decision on state bans of gender-affirming care for minors, the equal-protection mechanism behind it, and the litigation that survives it.

Brief · Tech, AI & data rights

State AI laws and the federal preemption fight

Why preemption is the central lever in AI policy, how the December 2025 executive order and DOJ task force changed the terrain, and what Colorado's repeal of its own AI Act signals.

Brief · Economy & tax fairness

The states pick up the wealth-tax fight

Washington has enacted a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million and California is heading to the ballot with a one-time 5% tax on billionaires' net worth. What the two mechanisms do, the legal questions they face, and why the action has moved to the states.

Brief · Indigenous sovereignty

Stroble and the narrowing of McGirt

Why the Supreme Court's refusal to hear an Oklahoma tax case matters: it leaves standing a state ruling that lets Oklahoma tax tribal citizens on their own reservations.

Brief · Education

The student-loan default wave of 2025-26

After a five-year pandemic pause, federal student-loan default is showing up on credit reports again — about 3.6 million borrowers in two quarters — and the Fed warns a second wave is coming.

Brief · Disability justice

Phasing out the disability subminimum wage

Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act still allows below-minimum-wage payment to disabled workers — and after a 2025 federal reversal, the action has moved to the states and to Congress.

Brief · Tech, AI & data rights

The TAKE IT DOWN Act, now that platforms must comply

A federal law against non-consensual intimate imagery, including AI deepfakes, took its second and larger step on May 19, 2026, when the platform takedown mandate went live. What the law does, how the 48-hour removal process works, and the over-removal concerns critics have raised.

Brief · Civil rights & immigration

TPS at the Supreme Court: Haiti, Syria, Venezuela

What Temporary Protected Status is, how a termination works, and what is at stake as the Supreme Court weighs whether the Haiti and Syria terminations were lawful.

Brief · Foreign policy & war powers

The dissolution of USAID — and the FY2026 fight over the power of the purse

An agency Congress created in 1961 was folded into the State Department in 2025. Congress then appropriated roughly $50B for FY2026 diplomacy and assistance — far above the administration's request — and in May 2026 the administration moved to divert about $2B in global-health money to pay closure costs.

Brief · Indigenous sovereignty

The boarding-school Truth and Healing Commission, finally moving

A bill to investigate the federal Indian boarding school system has stalled for five years. In the 119th Congress it has reached the Senate calendar and gained a bipartisan House companion — its furthest advance yet.

Brief · Veterans & service members

The VA workforce contraction

The VA shed roughly 40,000 employees in 2025 — most of them in healthcare — and plans to cut 26,000 more by attrition. What that does to veterans' access to care.

Brief · Foreign policy & war powers

The War Powers Resolution in 2026: eight votes, one breakthrough, no constraint

Across two conflicts in early 2026, Congress voted roughly eight times on war powers resolutions without stopping a single operation — until a Senate resolution on Iran advanced 50-47 on May 19. How the 1973 statute is supposed to work, and why it has not.

Brief · Economy & tax fairness

The economy, December 2025 to May 2026

The IEEPA tariffs struck down. The 10% surcharge struck down. OBBBA implementation begins. Reconciliation 2.0 unlocks. The Fed holds rates. Five months of substantial federal-economic-policy contestation.

Brief · Labor & wages

Labor, December 2025 to May 2026

The largest Starbucks strike in company history. The NLRB regaining quorum after a year. The Minneapolis general strike. May Day Strong. Five months of organized labor at unusual visibility.

Brief · Democracy & voting rights

Voting rights, December 2025 to May 2026

Texas's mid-decade map. The Section 2 narrowing in Callais. Virginia's redistricting amendment voided. Five months of voting-rights doctrine remade.

Brief · Economy & tax fairness

Why antitrust is back — and what it actually does

After four decades of consumer-welfare orthodoxy, antitrust enforcement is rebuilding. A short tour of what changed, what didn't, and what to watch for.

Brief · Climate & energy

The transmission bottleneck

Most US regions can build clean energy faster than they can move it. Why the grid — not generation — is the binding constraint on decarbonization.

Brief · Healthcare

Medicare drug negotiation, explained

What the Inflation Reduction Act actually authorized, what the early negotiations covered, and how to read the next round.

Brief · Healthcare

Private equity in healthcare

What happens to a hospital, nursing home, or ER staffing firm when private equity takes ownership — and what regulation could look like.

Brief · Democracy & voting rights

Independent redistricting commissions, ten years in

What the empirical record shows about commissions in California, Michigan, Arizona, and Colorado — and where the next adoption fights are.

Brief · Labor & wages

What the PRO Act would actually do

A clause-by-clause walkthrough of the most consequential pro-labor legislation seriously considered in three decades.

Brief · Economy & tax fairness

The 15% corporate minimum tax, two years in

What the IRA's book-income tax has actually collected, where it's been litigated, and what an expansion would look like.

Brief · Civil rights & immigration

Qualified immunity, explained

The judge-made doctrine that decides whether a civil rights case against police can reach a jury — and what reform would actually do.

Brief · Economy & tax fairness

Stock buybacks, the buyback tax, and what they're actually for

Why buybacks are the largest single use of S&P 500 cash flow, what the IRA's 1% excise tax did, and whether higher rates would shift behavior.

Brief · Civil rights & immigration

The immigration court backlog crosses three million

Why a system in which most cases take years to resolve is failing both due process and basic public administration — and what structural reform looks like.

Brief · Climate & energy

When private insurance retreats from climate zones

Major insurers are pulling out of California, Florida, and Louisiana. Who absorbs the risk — and what policy options remain.

Brief · Labor & wages

Misclassification and the gig economy

What the ABC test is, why platform companies fight it so hard, and where the federal and state lines are being drawn.

Brief · Democracy & voting rights

Dark money disclosure — what's possible after Citizens United

The constitutional space, the federal proposals, and what state-level disclosure laws have actually achieved.

Brief · Healthcare

Why rural hospitals close — and what stops them

More than 130 rural hospitals have shut since 2010. The pattern is consistent, and so are the policy levers that would slow it.

Brief · Housing

State zoning preemption — what's working

Oregon, California, Washington, and Massachusetts have shown that state preemption of exclusionary local zoning can produce real results.

Brief · Veterans & service members

Why for-profit colleges target veterans, and what reform is starting to do

The 90/10 loophole, the predatory marketing pattern, and the structural reforms that have begun to address them.

Brief · Democracy & voting rights

Rucho v. Common Cause and the state-court gerrymandering path

After the 2019 ruling closed federal courts to partisan gerrymandering claims, state courts and ballot measures became the operative venues.

Brief · Education

School vouchers as a fiscal mechanism, not an education policy

Why voucher and ESA expansions look more like a state-budget pattern than a school-choice movement — and what the empirical record actually shows.

Brief · Reproductive rights

Cross-state travel for abortion, and the shield laws that protect it

How the post-Dobbs landscape produced an interstate-travel response, and where the legal frontier sits.

Brief · Indigenous sovereignty

IHS funding parity — what's at stake

Why the Indian Health Service has been chronically underfunded relative to comparable federal health programs, and what mandatory funding would do.

Brief · Veterans & service members

PACT Act implementation, two years in

What the largest expansion of veterans' toxic-exposure benefits in decades has actually produced — and where the bottlenecks have been.

Brief · Foreign policy & war powers

The Pentagon has never passed an audit

What it means that the largest discretionary line item in the federal budget cannot account for what it spends — and what reform would actually look like.

Brief · Indigenous sovereignty

ICWA after Haaland v. Brackeen

What the 2023 ruling preserved, what it left open, and where the next round of legal pressure on federal Indian law is heading.

Brief · Reproductive rights

IVF, fetal personhood, and the federal response

Why the 2024 Alabama ruling exposed a fault line that abortion-restriction frameworks created — and what protective legislation actually does.