What's on the syllabus for undergrad Intro to Congress and Intro to American Gov courses? We did a little survey. One thing we learned is that Mayhew's still popular. For more results, follow me here or at substack.com/@kevinrkosar

#MPSA #MPSA2026

"About two-thirds of the text that becomes law is injected into bills after they are introduced, according to the most recent analysis by political scientists Andreu Casas (Royal Holloway University of London) and John D. Wilkerson (University of Washington)."

Congress is not the same, retiring lawmakers say. Can the institution still do its job? Legislators say fundraising and attention-getting are eroding norms of policymaking and consensus as the institution cedes its constitutional role.

Still, Dr. Kosar says a new class of members could make things better, by refusing to treat having a majority as a “winner-takes-all” situation. www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics...

Where I point folks to some of the good things in life. beveragesbooksandmore.substack.com

This Nublume kit make growing mushrooms easy. beveragesbooksandmore.substack.com/p/grow-your-...

TGIF: The Luddite Party Tom Steyer goes hard in the paint, the father of SantaCon and the missing SantaBucks, World Liberty Financial gets accused of being an ATM, and Allbirds is now an AI company.

LoL. "Just pick someone. They’re men! No offense, but they’re not that different from each other. Men are like couches; sure, some are prettier than others, and some offer more support, but at the end of the day it’s just a thing that you live with. Don’t overthink it." www.thefp.com/p/tgif-the-l...

House delivers immigration rebuke to Trump Republicans stumble in House on foreign surveillance bill

"The three Republicans from the Miami area all voted for the Haiti bill. It’s not hard to figure out why - the Trump immigration policies are unpopular with immigrant communities there." jamiedupree.substack.com/p/house-deli...

We Mismeasure Congress's Productivity By Counting Laws

kevinrkosar.substack.com/p/we-mismeas...

Research Brief: Primary Voters Elect Most of Congress. They're Not Like Most Americans. - UnderstandingCongress.org Unite, Research Brief: Primary Voters Elect Most of Congress. They’re Not Like Most Americans, January 2026. More than a century ago states began to implement primaries to choose senators and members ...

This brief on primary elections is interesting. One big finding: while 47% of Americans identify as moderate, only 11% of decisive primary voters did.
www.understandingcongress.org/research-bri...

NW DC. 2 bedrooms, top/8th floor and a 10 minute bus ride to DuPont Circle! PRICE CUT: $475k. Open house on Saturday. The monthly fee covers taxes/utilities/etc. Details: www.zillow.com/homedetails/...

Is the Postal Service doomed? GAO delivered some hard truths to Capitol Hill recently. USPS may be out of cash in less than a year, and its unfunded benefit liabilities and debt were $166 billion at the end of fiscal year 2025(!)

kevinrkosar.substack.com/p/is-the-pos...

ICYMI: Are factions in Congress a bad thing? Nope say James Wallner & Soren Dayton. In fact they are a net positive and deserve support. Here is my summary of their intriguing report: www.understandingcongress.org/rebuilding-c...

Conservative activist convicted in voter-fraud case In Wisconsin, Harry Wait said he set out to expose the potential for voter fraud. He ordered mail ballots in the names of others — and got charged with felonies.

No, this report was not published by The Onion. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Join it!
www.aei.org/policy-areas...

Three Brews and One Wine Worth Your Dollars

Plus a few of my favorite books on musicians.

beveragesbooksandmore.substack.com

How can Congress get its groove back? With special guest Kevin R. Kosar of AEI

Short answer: Revamp its capacity, improve the incentives set by our elections, and ....

How can Congress get its groove back?
open.substack.com/pub/highwayt...

Partisan contempt of Congress citations intensify public contempt for Congress Congress and the current president have become more punitively partisan, resulting in an increase in partisan investigations and prosecutions, which is a worrisome trend that is seen as a weaponiza…

"What they fail to recognize is that the public sees right through it all as a childish game of tit-for-tat that turns the Constitution’s oversight role on its head and sends Congress’s public approval rating spiraling downward to single digits." thehill.com/opinion/cong...

Several Thoughts on Trump's Executive Order on the Postal Service and a National Voter Registry List Also: AEI launches the First Branch Society!

“This EO would create a DHS registry of where every American citizen lives & compel Americans to notify the government to update their data every time they move—lest they lose the right to vote by mail. I wonder how many Americans are comfortable with that.”- @kevinrkosar.bsky.social

I am …NOT.

Several Thoughts on Trump's Executive Order on the Postal Service and a National Voter Registry List

Also: AEI launches the First Branch Society!
kevinrkosar.substack.com/p/several-th...

a man in a suit and tie is making a funny face in front of a sign that says lhe ALT: a man in a suit and tie is making a funny face in front of a sign that says lhe

4. Seeing as government agencies often have errant data and seeing as the USPS regularly delivers mail to my home addressed to someone else....

3. If there's a goof in the process, well, an individual can be disallowed from voting by mail and perhaps their ballot will be seized by the Post Office.

Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Help America Vote Act of 2002

2. And that these data can be squared with states' own data on who lives there and are eligible to vote and to cast absentee ballots. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

1. The Trump executive order on voting by mail is something. The whole plan rests on the assumption that two federal agencies can match their data on which US citizens live where, and then have the Post Office police the mail based upon those data.

Tomorrow, the War is a new novel by Max Watman. It explores race, gender, power, and freedom. My review of it for the Washington Free Beacon is at freebeacon.com/culture/brot...

The latest issue of Beverages, Books, and More is posted. Enjoy! beveragesbooksandmore.substack.com

When it rains, it pours. I was on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning discussing the financial troubles of the US Postal Service.

www.c-span.org/program/wash...

The plight of the US Postal Service in 2026 The postmaster general is warning that the agency could run out of money by October.

The Postal Service may run out of cash in early 2026. That's a big problem, which I discussed on WAMU/NPR yesterday. the1a.org/segments/the...

The US Postal Service Is Going Broke Policymakers on Capitol Hill should promptly start a conversation about the Post Office that centers on two questions: What, if anything, do Americans want from the USPS in the 21st century, and how w...

I will be on @npr.org at 10 (ET) today discussing the Postal Service's plight. It may run out of money and cease operations early in 2027. :-(

theamericanenterprise.com/the-us-posta...

"Reed cut an impressive figure. Measuring over six feet tall and weighing over 300 pounds.... He had a biting wit and a fierce integrity; the latter trait cut against the grain of American politics in 1876." www.understandingcongress.org/icons-of-con...

Here ya go:

What Is a Conference Committee and Why Are They So Rare Today? (with Josh Ryan) - UnderstandingCongress.org share.google/RPy2FN7ysXZG...