The To-Read Pile 4
The To-Read Pile is my regular digest of worthwhile essays and articles (with some of my light commentary added) you might’ve missed. In this fourth installment, I highlight work from The Dispatch, National Affairs, WSJ, Slow Boring, Tevi Troy, Yascha Mounk, IHE, The Atlantic, National Conference of State Legislatures, SSRN, NBCNews, The 74, City Journal, Washington Post, Governing, and many more.
The To-Read Pile, like Community Day, is typically just for paid subscribers. But I read some great stuff in the last couple weeks that I wanted to share with all of you. And I also wanted you to see what a paid-subscription of less than $5/month gets you. So this one is available to all. But please do become a paid subscriber so you get The To-Read Pile in the future.
Assorted Stuff
If you read Kevin Williamson of The Dispatch you would have expected that he’d write the best piece about the communities and people devastated by Helene. But this sharp, insightful, sympathetic dispatch from and about Asheville is even better than you might’ve imagined.
On Yascha Mounk’s Substack, he and Teresa Bejan discuss why “problematic” is so problematic. They explain using the term “insinuendo,” which says, “this is something you should dislike while relieving me of the effort of explaining why.”
Matt Yglesias wrote an interesting piece about race and voting for his “Slow Boring” newsletter. Among other things, he notes that Black and Hispanic voters are moving to the right and that this “deals a blow to many progressives’ self-image.”
Tevi Troy, author of the new The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry, put together for the WSJ a list of the five best books on CEOs.
Courts and Constitutions
There were two excellent Court-related essays in the Winter 2024 National Affairs. I’ve had misgivings about the overturn of Chevron; not because I want a muscular administrative state, but because I think executive-branch agencies have legitimate governing authority that presumptuous courts could take away. Ronald Cass expertly explains how a “regular” (not “supreme”) version of Chevron actually got right important parts of administrative deference. Two branches of my conservatism are in tension when it comes to precedent. I believe in a confident originalism because it respects self-government, but I like the slow, steady, prudent, evolutionary nature of precedent. So what happens when precedent might be wrong? John Yoo and Robert Delahunty offer three ways of thinking about the limits of precedent that I found helpful.
I recently read three older articles about the personnel (justices and clerks) of the US Supreme Court. I commend them all to you. “Some Are More Equal Than Others: U.S. Supreme Court Clerkships” by George, Yoon, and Gulati; “The Case for Returning Politicians to the Supreme Court” by Alleman and Mazzone; and “An Empirical Study of Supreme Court Justice Pre-Appointment Experience” by Barton.
I wouldn't be surprised if there is litigation about abortion and the death penalty for as long as there's an America. My view is that the federal Constitution permits states to allow or ban both (within certain boundaries), which is pretty much how SCOTUS sees matters as of now. But execution cases keep coming up.
I continue to believe that there is no more interesting domestic policy/legal issue than faith-based chartering. I'm not an impartial observer; I've written in favor many times. But things are heating up. SCOTUS is being asked to review the OK Supreme Court’s decision to ban the practice. The brief (by an expert team of attorneys including members of Notre Dame's religious-liberty clinic) explains why that decision is inconsistent with SCOTUS precedents.
Speaking of Notre Dame: Great article by Lawrence Hurley of NBC News on the influence of its law school. I'm a fan of Notre Dame generally (I married an alum after all), and I know and admire a number of their law professors. It's a fascinating look at clerkships, law-school political leanings, and more. I was worried this article might be unfair because the school has gotten a reputation for being more conservative than most law schools. But it’s fair and informative.
A new site allows you to compare similar provisions across state constitutions. I think state constitutions are enormously important and criminally under-understood. It is fascinating how these charters differ (and how the case law under each differs even more). Federalism (and therefore pluralism and true self-government) can't really work if everyone everywhere simply looks to the federal constitution and the federal courts on every issue. American governing would improve markedly if we relied more on state constitutions and therefore more on state supreme courts, state legislatures, and governors.
Education
I was born with a mostly positive disposition. I naturally see more good than bad. I’m generally slow alarm and even slower to despair. But you wouldn’t believe any of that if you saw me reading this very good Rose Horowitch piece in The Atlantic about the collapse in book-reading among secondary and college students. How did we allow this to happen?
This WSJ article by Douglas Belkin was equally maddening. It demonstrates one way secondary and post-secondary education can get so distorted: A high-priced, investor-beloved “consultant” who turns teaching and learning into nothing but a strategic plan for getting into ostensibly elite colleges.
According to a just-released IHE survey, college professors are 10 times likelier to support Harris than Trump.
Yes, this is a story about open-meetings rules. But the underlying issue is key. To what extent should university governing boards be involved in the search and selection process for key campus positions other than the president?
Education-reform group 50CAN released results from a survey of parents in all 50 states. Some interesting overall findings: students doing better in school are more active in out-of-school programs, and students want more dual-enrollment, AP, and career-tech courses. Even more interesting, however, are the differences between parents in different states.
The National Conference of State Legislatures released a good report on the value of higher-education degrees. When a group of state legislators weighs in on an important policy matter, I listen—especially when it’s higher education, a top responsibility for state governments. Obviously education is of national interest, but states provide most of the funding, and state leaders need to think about state institutions, state employers, state trends, and so on.
Great reflection by Checker Finn on his 60-year evolution away from hedgehog-ness and to fox-ness.
Kevin Mahnken from The 74 writes up some recent research on the tension between Catholic schools and charter schools.
Governing Right
Since my last To-Read Pile, I’ve written six columns for this newsletter that you might’ve missed. If so, maybe give them a look. One on the costs of having judges with no governing experience; one on how AI can hurt learning, and one on re-criminalizing some “victimless crimes.” I also wrote three about fiction: one on developing characters, one on my use of allusions from the 1980s, and one (which is now among my most-read pieces) on the value of walking.
Curious what my most read piece from this column is? “The Moral Cost of Alarmism: Why it's corrupting to give yourself permission to behave badly.”
Science
Excellent essay in City Journal by Joel Kotkin and Anthony Lemus on the compatibility of faith and science—along with some fascinating history on the subject. For millennia, leaders of faith communities have been engaged in their era's most important scientific research.
There’s a long, complicated history behind state-run, high-security psychiatric hospitals. They house some of our most violent but vulnerable fellow citizens. In The Washington Post, Katie Mettler wrote a long story about a series of incidents at a Maryland facility that touches upon the science of understanding mental illness, state policy, organizational leadership, and more.
Policy Leaders
I love state legislatures. They might be the most interesting, important, and under-appreciated governing institutions in America. I really enjoyed this interview with the new chair of NCSL, Wayne Harper, a GOP legislator from Utah. Gives you hope for the future of sensible, decent governing.
Inspiring piece from Rod Gramer in Governing looking back on three successful Northwest governors who prioritized non-partisanship and the common good. They were from different parties and yet they repeatedly endorsed one another.
Because I'm so eager for the Trump era to end, I've been increasingly curious who might vie for leadership roles in the GOP when that day comes. Iowa's Kim Reynolds has gotten some recognition and accolades, and she is popular with her party's voters (though very unpopular with Dems). She has an interesting plan for reforming the state's tax policy (via John Hendrickson).
Coming Soon!
I have a report coming out next week that I’m really excited about. Media outlets and a commentators spend an inordinate amount of time talking about elite private universities, especially “Ivy+” schools. I wanted to figure out if those institutions really do produce most of America’s public leaders. So I studied the educational backgrounds of thousands of individuals in key positions. Teaser: Egalitarians will love the findings. Set aside some time to read the report. (And send me a note if you’d like an advance copy.)