Cass Sunstein

An op-ed by Edward Glaeser and Cass Sunstein: A lot of attention has been devoted in recent years to overregulation at the national level. For many people, though, the regulations that hit hardest come from states and localities. The story of Uber's fight with overzealous local regulators is only a well-publicized tip of the iceberg. A 2012 study conducted by the Institute for Justice finds that 102 trades and occupations now face licensing requirements in states or cities. The people who suffer most from them are those without a lot of money or advanced education.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein: In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama tried to attract support for one of his highest priorities when he said, “Independent economists say immigration reform will grow our economy and shrink our deficits.” He’s right. Economists disagree about a lot of things, but on behalf of immigration reform, there is a professional consensus that cuts across the usual political divisions. Why, then, has reform stalled in Congress?

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. “The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.” So said the poet William Blake, referring to the way, in John Milton’s "Paradise Lost," Satan steals the show. Ron Perlstein, author of "The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan," is not a poet, but he is an excellent nonfiction writer. And while he knows that Ronald Reagan is nothing like the devil, he is not exactly in Reagan’s political camp. Yet when discussing Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Perlstein writes in fetters. As soon as Reagan appears, the author is at liberty, and his prose soars.

The Supreme Court issued a remarkable number of unanimous decisions last term, and in their public remarks the justices seemed unanimous in saying that unanimity was a good thing. But is it? A new study from Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at Harvard, concluded that all of the usual reasons for seeking common ground were open to question. “The arguments in favor of higher levels of consensus,” he wrote, “rest on fragile empirical foundations.”

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. When Richard Nixon announced his resignation, 40 years ago today, it was for one reason: Members of Congress had informed him the night before that he would be impeached by the House of Representatives, convicted by the Senate and removed from office. In retrospect, one of the most striking features of the Watergate controversy is the continuity between a pivotal decision of the founding generation and the judgment of congressional leaders more than 180 years later. In 1974, the nation’s representatives focused on precisely the kinds of wrongdoing that prompted the founders to authorize impeachment in the first place.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. While we endure endless speculation about who will run for president in 2016, an important question is being left unaddressed: How will the ultimate winner be able to take any useful action?

An op-ed by Cass. R. Sunstein. While Representative Paul Ryan’s new anti-poverty plan has provoked significant discussion, little attention has been given to his ideas for regulatory reform. Those ideas deserve separate analysis and also considerable credit. They point in helpful directions, and they suggest the possibility of bipartisan cooperation on some important questions.

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. At CVS, a 100-tablet package of store-brand aspirin costs you $1.99. Bayer aspirin is three times that much. Nonetheless, millions of people end up buying Bayer. When it comes to headache remedies, salt, sugar and hundreds of other important products, many people choose national brands even when a cheaper store brand is at hand. Why? For the first time, we have solid answers, thanks to a study by Dutch economist Bart Bronnenberg of Tilburg University and three colleagues from the University of Chicago. They found a simple correlation: The more informed you are, the more likely you are to choose store brands.

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. One of the most appealing features of modern conservative thought is its insistence on fidelity to the Constitution. Whether or not we endorse “strict construction,” or the claim that the Constitution means what it originally meant, it is certainly honorable to emphasize that public officials are bound by our founding document. How odd, then, that prominent conservatives have been embracing Speaker John Boehner’s proposed lawsuit by the House of Representatives against President Barack Obama -- an idea that reflects a stunningly cavalier approach to the Constitution.

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. Senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont and John Cornyn of Texas, leaders of the Judiciary Committee, have long shown an admirable commitment to open government, and their recent bill to amend the Freedom of Information Act is winning a ton of praise. Some of its reforms make sense, but, unfortunately, its key provision is a horrible idea. By reducing the protection now given to deliberations within the executive branch, it would have a chilling effect on those discussions.

Cass Sunstein: The most important Supreme Court decision of the 2013 term may well be EPA v. Homer City, which upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s cross-state air pollution rule…Laurence Tribe: In a year in which the high court weighed in on presidential appointment power, public unions, abortion and religious freedom, many observers will say that the court is reshaping our politics and culture with sweeping pronouncements that inject it squarely into the most salient, controversial issues of the day…Martha Minow: Free speech and religious expression win; equality does less well; growing reliance on communications technologies and on government to address environmental harms informs the law; corporations and employers gain power relative to employees; tensions between branches continue, amid bold assertions of humility…Mark Tushnet: ...The court is constructing what in fancy terms we can call an ideology or philosophy of constitutional law. And, the current court’s philosophy is, broadly speaking, conservative, skeptical of expansive exercises of government power in the domestic arena, tending in a mildly libertarian direction.

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. The U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision on recess appointments has been treated as a big loss for the Barack Obama administration. That's narrow thinking, in terms of the arc of constitutional law and the system of separation of powers. A look at the actual opinions shows that the most important questions in the case produced a sharp split between Justice Antonin Scalia's approach to constitutional interpretation and that of Justice Stephen Breyer -- long Scalia's principal intellectual adversary. The outcome was an unambiguous victory for Breyer.

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. Consider this hypothesis about modern presidential elections: Whenever American voters elect a new president, they choose someone who is, along a critical dimension, the antithesis of the incumbent. The Incumbent Antithesis hypothesis, as I’ll call it, fits recent history, and it may be correct. If so, it suggests a real challenge for the next Democratic nominee, even if it is Hillary Clinton -- perhaps especially if it is.

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. Yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases was generally a big victory for the Barack Obama administration. But the court’s opinion contains a poison pill, one that lawyers will undoubtedly invoke in future cases involving the Affordable Care Act. While the decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, largely upheld the EPA’s authority, it invalidated the agency’s decision to exempt small emitters and thus “tailor” its greenhouse-gas regulations to allow greater flexibility. The text of the Clean Air Act seems to prohibit the EPA from creating such exemptions, but there are millions of small emitters, and the EPA invoked the idea of “administrative necessity” to exempt them.

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. Consider this hypothesis about modern presidential elections: Whenever American voters elect a new president, they choose someone who is, along a critical dimension, the antithesis of the incumbent. The Incumbent Antithesis hypothesis, as I’ll call it, fits recent history, and it may be correct. If so, it suggests a real challenge for the next Democratic nominee, even if it is Hillary Clinton -- perhaps especially if it is.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. In many of its most important cases, the modern U.S. Supreme Court has divided 5-4. By a single vote, the court guaranteed the presidency to George W. Bush, upheld the Affordable Care Act and affirmative action in university admissions, and ruled that government cannot prevent corporations from spending money in political campaigns. As the court prepares to issue this year’s most significant decisions, it’s a good bet that several of them will show 5-4 divisions as well. Is this a problem?

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. Everyone knows that under Chief Justice John Roberts, the U.S. Supreme Court often divides 5-4 -- an even split between liberals and conservatives, with Justice Anthony Kennedy providing the swing vote. But here’s a puzzle. Over recent decades, and under many different chief justices, the share of 5-4 splits in the Court’s docket has been fairly constant -- on average, in the vicinity of 20 percent. Is the Court always split between liberals and conservatives, or is there some other explanation?

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. There are all sorts of things people want the federal government to do -- for example, reduce poverty, make highways safer, protect against workplace risks, safeguard privacy online, regulate their least favorite companies or, for that matter, engage in deregulation. Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, federal officials often answer: “Not now.” In turn, public-interest groups, individuals and businesses have asked federal courts to require public officials to act. And for decades, courts came back with unclear and confusing responses -- until 2007, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency had acted unlawfully in refusing to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. That decision led to last week’s proposals for new limits on emissions from existing power plants. And it raised the real possibility that courts would start to oversee federal agencies' authority to set priorities -- and constrain the president’s authority as well.

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. We are in the midst of a shift in political thinking about constitutional amendments. Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, is among many progressive thinkers now promoting constitutional change -- in her case, to allow Congress to restrict corporate spending on political campaigns. Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in a new book, calls for no fewer than six constitutional amendments, involving not only campaign finance but also gun control, capital punishment, political gerrymandering, sovereign immunity and federalism. Yet, for decades, constitutional change was something championed more by conservatives than by liberals. What's going on?

After Cass Sunstein co-wrote bestseller Nudge on behavioral economics with Richard Thaler, he went on to run the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from 2009-2012, acting as the President's top regulator. But some of his more curious — and controversial — research is on conspiracy theories: how they work, and why they're often rational for people to believe. His new book, Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas, details this research. He spoke with Ezra Klein on his theory, and how it helps explain the disagreements between our current political parties.