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Avoiding a Constitutional conflict

Avoiding a Constitutional conflict

While you were preparing for your big New Year’s Eve party, the President’s Executive Clerk was deftly avoiding a Constitutional conflict. The effect isn’t earth-shattering, but I think it’s a fascinating example of how our Constitution works in practice. Consider this a lesson in your graduate course of How a Bill Really Becomes a Law (or doesn’t, in this case).

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Working in the West Wing: Doing a TV news interview on the North Lawn

This is the second in a series of occasional posts about the nitty gritty of working in the West Wing of the White House.  I am describing things as they were in the Bush Administration.  YMMV in the Obama Administration.  Again, it seems a bit silly to write about such trivial details, but given the [...]

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Working in the West Wing: Senior Staff

I promised I would write about what it’s like to work in the West Wing of the White House. After more than six years of working there, the process details seem less than fascinating to me, but conversations with friends suggest that even routine process explanations might be interesting to some readers.
I should qualify [...]

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Tactical consequences of the Specter switch

I spent more than seven years working in the Senate, including 5 and a half working for Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), in his time both as Majority Leader and as Minority Leader resulting from Sen. Jeffords’ party switch.
There is a lot of hype about how Sen. Specter’s switch from Republican to Democrat will give Senate [...]

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