By Michael Ettlinger and Jordan Hensley It is no secret that the American version of democracy does not guarantee a national government reflecting the preferences expressed by the majority of voters. Over seven million more people voted for Joe Biden than Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, yet the…

Michael Ettlinger and Jordan Hensley The population of states represented by Democratic senators sums to 26% more people than the population of states represented by Republican senators — 202 million compared to 160 million. Yet only half the Senate’s seats are held by Democrats. A Black American is 16% less…

Making the Senate more democratic via the filibuster — Michael Ettlinger One of the reasons some Democrats have opposed eliminating or weakening the filibuster is that it would allow Republicans as well as Democrats to more easily pass legislation. …

Michael Ettlinger and Jordan Hensley (AN UPDATED VERSION OF THIS STORY IS AVAILABLE) As of now, the Democrats are trailing Republicans 50–48 in their attempt to gain control of the U.S. Senate in 2021 — with the two Georgia run-offs set to decide the final tally. Although the Democrats have…

Michael Ettlinger and Jordan Hensley In an earlier piece we showed the impact of the undemocratic nature of the U.S. Senate on the representation of members of different groups. Black, Hispanic and Asian residents are notably under-represented. A reader asked how adding senators from Washington DC and Puerto Rico would…

The release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics state level jobs data for April provides an opportunity to see how reliable an indicator Unemployment Insurance initial claims are of employment loss for particular states. UI data for this purpose has the virtue of being timely, but is confounded by the…

Puerto Rico, with its 1% of the population, started the stay-at-home trend on March 15. California added its 12% of the population on March 19. Since then the share of the U.S. population under stay-at-home orders, or strongly worded guidance, has risen to 96.2% (as of April 11)— with Nebraska most recently adding its 0.6% of the national population on April 9. States without stay-at-home orders are Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. Parts of Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming are under local stay-at-home orders.

The argument that the late response of other countries was the result of China under-reporting the extent of its epidemic doesn’t hold water. Even China’s reported numbers had hit almost 60,000 cases on February 14 when the United States had 13 — so there was ample notice that it was…