McCain-Feingold vs. free speech

In the congressional politics class I teach, we've just covered the campaign finance unit. Conflicts over the meaning of free speech when you can regulate campaign finance --- especially when it affects the advocacy behavior of citizens --- are inevitable. Here's a story in the New York Times about the SC taking a case that will determine whether a movie with a strong political message ("Hillary is dangerous!!!!") has to "stand by its ad."

Welcome to the Analyzing Congress blog

Well, I've broken down, and now I'm going to do it.

After years of wrestling with whether I want to start offering up my thoughts to the world via a blog, I've decided to take the plunge. In this case, I'm focusing on the world of Congress --- even more precisely, on the world of research about Congress and how recent developments relate to the social science of legislatures.

If I may be forgiven a shameless plug, the name of the blog comes from my congressional politics textbook, Analyzing Congress (W.W. Norton, 2001). That book is an effort to show undergraduates and beginning graduate students how professionals try to understand legislative politics. My intention is for my remarks here to complement the framework offered there.

I also offer comments about voting and election reform on the Election Update site. I will try to keep cross-postings to a minimum, but sometimes the temptation will be too great to resist.