Norm Ornstein is a correspondent for The Atlantic, a contributing editor and columnist for National Journal, and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
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Ornstein served as codirector of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project and participates in AEI's Election Watch series. He also serves as a senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission. Ornstein led a working group of scholars and practitioners that helped shape the law, known as McCain-Feingold, that reformed the campaign financing system. He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. His many books include The Permanent Campaign and Its Future; The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track, with Thomas E. Mann; and, most recently the New York Times bestseller, It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, also with Tom Mann.
From ISIS to inversions, immigration to infrastructure, a host of pressing needs face legislators. Of course, that doesn't mean they'll take any action.
It's not just Eric Cantor. Reformist conservatives have good ideas, but until they drop the idea that all government is bad, they'll never be realistic.
From the defeat of a bipartisan energy bill to an endangered judicial nominee, Republican obstruction in the Senate hasn't stopped since Harry Reid invoked the "nuclear option."
Even if the Republican is sincere in his outreach to the poor, his spending plan would hurt the neediest Americans by cutting the programs on which they rely.
PED use in baseball merited a Congressional hearing. A similar investigation should be probing into educational institutions' use of athletics and athletes for profit.