Nick Bednar

We have a great discussion of the role of quorum requirements and voting rules in the context of majoritarian institutions.

The Texas House apparently has a 2/3 quorum requirement. I'd love to know history of why it's not a majority, if anyone has knows.

The Texas situation is actually why we recommend a simple majority quorum. It prevents the minority from holding the majority of a body hostage.

Woah woah woah. Is this a thing that is happening?! Do we need to abandon the emdash?

Once again, @tphillips.bsky.social and I would like to remind you about the wonderfully fascinating world of quorums.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The concern is less whether we will get data and more whether that data will be accurate. The head of BLS (for that case) is the one charged with preparing the jobs report, and the economists beneath them are subject to their direction.

Thanks! Alas, I fear very few of these - especially the early ones - have gone through the regular order (mostly) depicted in the book. Many were pre-drafted by Heritage or other Project 2025 types. And if you believe the WSJ, Stephen Miller wrote or edited every one of them in the second term.

If you want some insights into this: @rudalev.bsky.social has a really great book (By Executive Order) talking about who develops Executive Orders.

Trade Actions | Executive Order Tracker | Alston & Bird

Unfortunately, not my area of expertise. Others are tracking trade, however.

www.alston.com/en/resources...

More or less. I'd say the underlying structure is a strong embrace of unitary executive theory and an effort to ensure that what remains of the federal workforce implements policies in accordance with the president's preferences.

Hopefully soon. It's part of a much larger project on presidential control over the civil service and the statutes that govern the exercise of the president's authority.

I think a @dropout.tv show that does 10-15 minute sketches on government functions would be great. The public needs to know that USPS still has a mule train!

It's really hard to wrap your head around the insanity of federal personnel policy over the last 6 months until you sit down on a Sunday morning and start cataloging all executive orders in the first 100 days.

It's a pretty fun show that's very much aimed at a general audience. It's loosely based on the Fifth Risk.

Nevertheless, I 100% agree on educating people about the administrative state. It's completely absent from most civics education but it's the heart of government.

A comma is a short pause. An emdash is a long pause for dramatic effect. I cannot tell you when one is necessitated over the other, but I feel it in my bones.

Sometimes you try to code efficient data analyses. At other times, you get frustrated and decide to load 95 million rows of data into memory.

Civil Service The federal government employs approximately 3 million individuals, making it the largest employer in the United States. Most of these employees enjoy tenure protections under the civil service law…

By request, I updated my website with a list of all the essays and podcasts I have done on the civil service. I'll keep it updated as I write and speak.

nbednar.com/civil-servic...

My wife does geospatial analysis for a living. I hear about the impacts at USGS a lot!

There are things I would know immediately. E.g., if the government reported increased hiring in HHS this year, I would be immediately dubious. Other, more granular data, however, probably can't be restored. With HR departments gutted, it's hard to know if the records are being kept up to date.

In some cases, that's plausible, but you need something to compare. I suspect states and NGOs will produce alternative measures for a lot of economic data. In my case, I am focused on the personnel records of federal employees. It's very hard to determine whether they are erroneous.

The data is important for evaluating the efficacy of government programs and proposing reforms. That analysis cannot be provided without reliable data and, in my case, the government is the only actor capable of producing the data of interest.

As someone who relies heavily on government data for research (not BLS data per se), I am very worried that I am going to have a black box of omitted years in certain data sets. I have concerns with the quality of the data and it's going to take a lot of effort to validate it.

Note to law students: Do not be cute with judges.

Trump fires labor statistics boss hours after weak jobs report The president implied that the BLS commissioner, longtime federal employee Erika McEntarfer, manipulated the data "for political purposes."

McEntarfer is the epitome of the apolitical civil servant. She started at the Census Bureau 20 years ago as a labor economist and has worked at calculating jobs numbers ever since. She was confirmed by the Senate 86-8 in 2024, at the height of partisan polarization. www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...

Over at the Notice and Comment blog, today's Ad Law Reading Room covers two pieces: "Presidential Brokering in the Regulatory State" by @jennifernou.bsky.social and "The Chadha Presidency" by @joshchafetz.bsky.social. Check it out! www.yalejreg.com/nc/ad-law-re...

Woah woah woah. Which institution is using "munch" in an administrative law context?

a cartoon character with glasses and a mustache is saying `` coincidence ? '' . Alt: a cartoon character with glasses and a mustache is saying `` coincidence ? '' .

Since returning to Minnesota three years ago, Canadian wildfires have filled the summers with poor air quality. Last year, I was diagnosed with asthma.

I'm giving a public lecture, “Bureaucracy and Distrust: The Civil Service in the Constitution” on Thursday 16 October 2025, 6-7pm.

This is part of UCL's Current Legal Problems lecture series.

More details here: lnkd.in/e2AJMzbW

NEW: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze federal funds.

Then the harassment began.

Pizzas sent to his home in the name of Judge Esther Salas’s murdered son, Daniel.

Six credible threats to his life.

More than 400 “vile” calls to his chambers—including this voicemail:

Torts teachers: the 2025 edition of the completely FREE Witt-Tani casebook is now up on the CALI website! Thanks again to @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social for adding me as a co-author a few editions back. I love this book & love hearing from those of you who use it! www.cali.org/books/torts-...