Kevin Kosar of AEI and James Wallner of RSI have an interesting article out on potentially fixing the Senate. A big topic!

They describe the situation sadly accurately: "Bills are crafted behind closed doors under the purview of party leaders. The majority leader – often in consultation with the minority leader – brings those bills directly to the Senate floor, bypassing committee consideration. Floor debate is truncated, tightly controlled, and amendments are usually prohibited."

What's the solution?

As they note, the rules haven't changed since the days when the Senate was known as "the world's greatest deliberative body" in part because all senators could have a voice and influence on the legislative process.

What they note is that senators defer to the leadership much more often, which has created this self-sustaining situation. While "Any senator could simply stop deferring to their party leaders to manage the institution however they like," however, "doing so would be a major change and there aren’t many experienced senators left who are familiar with navigating a decentralized and freewheeling Senate successfully."

We are reminded of Yuval Levin's point that many members of institutions today (and this very much includes the Senate) see their institution more as a stage for performance than as a place for them to do the work that that institution is set up to do.

Instead, they suggest, senators should use the upcoming leadership elections to drive change. Specifically, they should condition their votes on promises to allow more debate and more votes on amendments.

What we like about this proposal is that it's more realistic than procedural change. As they note, the Senate has historically run more on customs than formal rules, so there's no need for some big formal rule change to change the culture of the place.

Policy News You Need To Know

#Immigration — At the Manhattan Institute, Daniel Di Martino has a new report out on the lifetime fiscal impact of immigrants. So, what is it? In short, it's complicated. In less short: low-skilled immigrants are bad for the budget, and high-skilled immigrants are good for the budget.

#Immigration — Speaking of, interesting piece from Duncan Braid at American Compass, pointing out that traditional establishment Republican talking points on immigration have now become the left's talking points. Braid points to the fiasco of the Lankford bill, arguing that by granting too many premises of the Democrats, all the bill did was provide talking points to the open borders left. Fair point.

#Trade — Very interesting: at the WSJ, Rahm Emanuel (yes, that Rahm Emanuel) has an op-ed calling for the U.S. and allies to form a new trade-defense coalition to confront China.

#AI #BigTech — After he appeared in President Trump's rally in Butler, PA, Elon Musk had a freewheeling interview with Tucker Carlson. They covered a lot of topics, but an important and interesting moment was that Elon says he will advise President Trump, if elected, to create a regulatory body to oversee labs working on artificial general intelligence and potentially raise the alarm if the AI gets too smart. (Via Samuel Hammond)

#Media #FreeSpeech — You may have already seen this: 60 Minutes aired a preview of its interview with Kamala Harris. During that preview, Harris gave an answer to a question on Benjamin Netanyahu that was widely ridiculed. So when 60 Minutes aired the segment, they cut out that portion. What else did they leave on the cutting room floor? The reason we mention this is not because it's a political story, which you know we do not like. We mention this because free speech is in the ballot this election. The Harris-Walz ticket has endorsed an unprecedented and un-American understanding of the First Amendment. Combined with the groupthink and servility of the American corporate media, and the kind of power that unchecked government would wield on Big Tech platforms, this sort of Stalin-tear erasure of what makes Great Leader look bad is a preview of the kind of speech environment Americans could expect under a Harris-Walz Administration. We wish we could say that is hyperbole, but sadly we believe it is not.

#ReligiousLiberty — Speaking of the First Amendment, an unabashed piece of good news. After 12 years (!!!) the legal harassment of cake artist and Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips has ended. Whatever your views on LGBT issues, we don't see any justification for legal harassment on a massive scale and trying to destroy the life and business of a man simply for refusing to bake a cake.

#HigherEd — According to a new report by the Washington Free Beacon's blockbuster reporter Aaron Sibarium, the Dean of Michigan State's top-ranked School of Education is a serial plagiarist. Of course.

#HigherEd — A new idea to help graduates pay back their student loans is income-based repayment. The idea is simple: instead of a fixed interest rate, students pay a percentage of their income. This gives them more flexibility on how they can pay back the loan. Milton Friedman floated a similar idea decades ago, and it's the main form of student loan in places like the UK. The most prominent form of this kind of program is called SAVE. Brookings has an interesting primer on this program.