Matt Glassman

Notes on the political constraints on presidential warmaking My view, as discussed last week, is that presidential warmaking is an almost wholly political issue, rather than a legal one. No court is going to stop a war...

When we say the president is *politically* rather than legally constrained in warmaking, what exactly does that mean? Don't overthink it.

blog.mattglassman.net/notes-on-the...

Question for those knowledgeable about such things (I'm totally ignorant about this stuff): was the closing of Hormuz an expected Iranian maneuver in this spot, or was the conventional assessment that threats to do so were bluffs?

Once upon a time, today was important My go-to piece of evidence for the fallibility of the Founders

Once upon a time, today was important. On the old congressional calendar, lame ducks, and the fallibility of the Founders.

open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...

Thanks for the comments, always appreciate it!

More Talking Filibuster: Enter the 1964 Civil Rights Act I recommend reading my previous piece on the talking filibuster, or watching my video about it, prior to reading this. As previously discussed, there are mu...

More on the talking filibuster: let's talk about its role in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and analogizing the CRA to the current debate over the SAVE Act.

blog.mattglassman.net/more-on-the-...

Honestly, I've tried public reply on social media and it doesn't work for me; debating strangers yields a very low signal to noise ratio.

My initial thoughts on Iran, with lots of links to people more knowledgeable than me.

blog.mattglassman.net/iran/

Using all of my strength to resist my CRS instinct to reply *War Powers RESOLUTION* to like 60,000 posts.

Thanks!

SCOTUS, tariffs, IEEPA, and the legislative veto: we're all trying to find the guy who did this I'm going to write this up thoroughly on Friday on my Substack, here I'm just working out the outline of the argument. The only real question in the tariff ...

really liked this @mattglassman312.bsky.social on the tariff case and the legislative veto (also shoutout to @joshchafetz.bsky.social) blog.mattglassman.net/the-court-th...

And a big shout-out to @joshchafetz.bsky.social, whose excellent forthcoming law review piece on the subject, "The Chadha Presidency," was enormously helpful in shaping my thoughts, as were discussions we had about it.

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

The Court, IEEPA, and the Legislative Veto We're all trying to find the guy who did this

My take on Learning Resources v. Trump: the elephant in the room in Chadha and the legislative veto.

fivepoints.mattglassman.net/p/the-court-...

You should invite people over to your home regularly Everyone—everyone!—is worried about the loss of interpersonal connections in society right now. Kids aren’t going out. Adults aren’t hanging out. The digital...

Everyone—everyone!—is worried that no one is hanging out anymore. There’s a simple solution: get over yourself and start inviting people over to your home. It’s so easy you’ll feel stupid after you start.

blog.mattglassman.net/you-should-i...

I am going to write this up in excruciating detail on my Substack on Friday, but here's my working outline of the argument for now.

SCOTUS, tariffs, IEEPA, and the legislative veto: we're all looking for the guy who did this...

blog.mattglassman.net/the-court-th...

I have now finished reading the SCOTUS decision in the tariff case, and all I can say is that this entire 170 page mess of opinions is silently screaming for the return of the legislative veto, which conveniently was taken away by---you guessed it---the Court.

Why This Year's SOTU Is Different It never changes public opinion. It's usually important anyway. Not now.

Here's the full post:

goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/why-this-y...

I was going to write something about the State of the Union address today, but Jonathan Bernstein did a way better job of nailing it:

I'm sure I'll have a lot to say bout the tariff decision, but my rule of thumb is that the quality of what you say about a SCOTUS decision is strongly correlated with actually having read the decision, so I'm going to start there.

A Day in the Life of the House, Part II Completing a procedural walk through two normal days in the House

Part II of my guided tour through two normal procedural days in the House.

open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...

I would add: when you come across something new, unusual or perplexing, get your shovel and dig, dig, dig until you can make sense of it. Googling your question with ‘CRS’ at the end is a good place to start. This kind of process helps to answer questions you would never even think to ask.

A Days in the Life of the House Floor, Part I A procedural walk through a normal day in Congress

And here's the link:

fivepoints.mattglassman.net/p/a-days-in-...

If you want to learn how the House floor works, the best thing to do is walk through the congressional record a few times. Here's part I of my guided tour:

Washington's Birthday is fine. Presidents' Day is not. Today is a federal holiday, Washington's Birthday). Many states and localities---and plenty of citizens---now call it "Presidents' Day" and that's just about...

My usual rant about Presidents' Day, plus some quick notes on Washington and his world.

blog.mattglassman.net/washingtons-...

Minority Rights without Minority Veto Debates about the filibuster are almost always framed as a choice between two parliamentary models: the modern majoritarian House and the modern 60-vote Sena...

Debates about the filibuster are mostly anchored by two models of parliamentary procedure---the modern majoritarian House and the modern 60-vote Senate. But there's a third model worth considering, and it's used all over the country: Robert's Rules.

blog.mattglassman.net/roberts-rule...

I am once again calling for a constitutional amendment to require the scoreboards in the House to be shown on C-SPAN.

It would (a) save the leadership time; and (b) not even reach the usual messy question of amendment germaneness after the PQ has been defeated. Cleanest possible time to do it. And still they don’t.

If they’re going to take the rule down, this seemed like an *obvious* spot to defeat the PQ—amending out the tariff vote blocker and letting the rest of the rule go seems *less* rebellious than bringing down the rule—but the norm against defeating PQ remains solid if irrational.

Straightening you out on "privilege" in the House Today, the House is expected to consider a privileged resolution from the Rules Committee with a special order of business, part of which would block the abi...

A privileged resolution from the rules committee that would block the ability to bring other privileged legislation to the floor is scheduled to be considered in the House today.

It's a good time to get straightened out on "privilege" in the House!

blog.mattglassman.net/straightenin...

Anatomy of a letter Last Wednesday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries sent a letter to their Republican counterparts, outlining ...

Notes on how to read public political negotiating letters.

blog.mattglassman.net/anatomy-of-l...

Talking Filibuster Explainer Probably more than you wanted to know

I tried my hand at a video explainer of the talking filibuster.

open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...