Campbell Institute News

"The longer the Democrats stay on this [Julian Assange's extradition], the more it’s helping the president [Donald Trump]," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.

"With the technology we have today, returning to the moon is within reach in five years. As we keep rediscovering, exploration really is a journey. It only gets longer when we take a break," writes Sean O'Keefe, Howard G. and S. Louise Phanstiel Chair in Strategic Management and Leadership.

"I’d argue that much of the dysfunction we see in online interactions is just a symptom of much larger and older social problems, including but not limited to racism and misogyny," says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science.

On presidential candidate John Delaney's suggestion that if elected, he would debate Congress four times a year, Professor Grant Reeher opines: "I can see that this is an effort to change the political culture by requiring direct engagement, but the participants have to agree to take the exercise at face value, in front of TV cameras, and the political disincentives against doing that right now are strong."

“The UPA program in Washington is a great two-way learning experience,” said Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. “I easily learn as much from the participants as they glean from me.”

According to Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science, negative misinformation about a politician of an opposing party is hard to shake, even after people learn that the original story was false.

 "When you put out things that people can get behind, you also put out things that people can criticize," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, about Senator Warren's campaign strategy to release detailed policy positions early on in the primary cycle.

"The size of the court is not specified in the constitution and it's changed multiple times…in the first 100 years it was a regular occurrence for Congress to change the size of the Supreme Court," says Thomas Keck, professor of political science and Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics.

 According to Tina Nabatchi, Joseph A. Strasser Endowed Professor in Public Administration, the ratio between workforce and number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests appears difficult to manage.

"It’s a discussion between some of the Democrats who may have a better sense of strategic thinking about the election and the ones who think there are good reasons to be going forward with impeachment, [for whom] it’s the principle of the thing," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.

"It [undocumented immigration] was invented by legislators who wanted to close the border. And the vast, costly deportation apparatus that has been built as a result has created new problems, too,"  writes Elizabeth Cohen, associate professor of political science.

Democratic tax proposals are simply a "stealth attack" on the preferential rate for capital gains, says Christopher Faricy, associate professor of political science.

"If Democrats want universal adult voter registration, nonpartisan electoral districting and mandatory disclosure of election-related spending, they would probably have to embed those requirements in the Constitution as well," writes Thomas Keck, Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics.

"Now a majority of people opt to start claiming at 62," says John Palmer, university professor and dean emeritus, about social security benefits, in an article for the U.S. News & World Report.

Chris Faricy, associate professor of political science, says  "You can tell people you gave them a tax cut, but if they don’t believe it and their refunds are smaller, it’s a hard sell politically," in an article for Bloomberg.