'Today, the law touches our lives in very different ways than it once did'

'America has too many laws'

Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze at The Atlantic

The U.S. has "always been a nation of laws, but something has changed dramatically in recent decades," say Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze. Much in this "growing mountain of law isn't exactly intuitive." Legal institutions "have become so complicated and so numerous that even federal agencies cannot agree on how many federal agencies exist." The "explosion of law has taken a very real toll on the lives of everyday Americans" whose "stories must be told."

Read more

'This should be our response to Donald Trump's comments that "you won't have to vote anymore"'

Jonathan Zimmerman at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Donald Trump "already tried to overturn one election," and "his comment about not having to vote seemed like a threat to end elections altogether," says Jonathan Zimmerman. Instead, everyone " should have to vote. The best way to bolster our sagging democracy would be to make voting compulsory." Compulsory voting "makes [other] governments more representative — and more democratic — than ours is." We "should require everyone to go to the polls, instead of telling them not to worry about it."

Read more

'Population growth isn't a progressive issue. It should be.'

Victor Kumar at The New York Times

Population decline is "widely seen as a conservative issue," so "many progressives don’t seem to worry about it. But they should," says Victor Kumar. If "left unchecked, population decline could worsen many of the problems that progressives care about, including economic inequality and the vulnerability of marginalized social groups." This "doesn't mean adopting the conservative case wholesale," but "right-wing packaging should not obscure the genuine perils to which pronatalism is a response."

Read more

'More bike lanes? Let's vote.'

Alan Wirzbicki at The Boston Globe

Holding a vote "seems like a good way to lower the temperature on bike lane battles," says Alan Wirzbicki. One of the "features of fights over bike lanes is that both sides tend to view themselves as victims." There are "situations where putting things to a popular vote wouldn’t be appropriate," but it's "perfectly reasonable in a democracy to let voters decide how to divvy up a limited public resource — in this case, street space.

Read more