Advocacy

A bipartisan House panel examined whether private equity ownership is driving up costs and reducing access to youth sports while exploring ways to keep athletics affordable for families.

Keeping Youth Sports Affordable

Recreation and Sports

Bipartisan Support on US House Panel for Examining Private Equity in Youth Sports

In a legal win for California, a federal judge rejected President Trump’s efforts to funnel money away from permanent homeless housing.

Protecting federal funding for permanent homeless housing

Human Services

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By <a href="https://calmatters.org/author/marisa-kendall/" class="author url fn" rel="author">Marisa Kendall</a> | <a href="https://calmatters.org">CalMatters</a> July 2, 2026
			
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California scored another win against the Trump administration in their battle over how to address the <a href="https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2026/04/hud-homeless-lawsuit/">homelessness crisis</a> here and nationwide.&nbsp;

A federal judge this week <a href="https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/99-SJ-Decision.pdf">shot down</a> the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2025 attempt to divert money away from permanent housing and instead fund temporary shelters and programs that require sobriety. But the judge stopped short of banning the Trump administration from making such changes in the future.

“The federal court’s decision to reject the Trump-Vance Administration’s attempt to disrupt essential housing services for people experiencing homelessness, including families, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, is both appropriate and just,” Renee Willis, chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, wrote in a news release.&nbsp;

In November, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said jurisdictions applying for about $4 billion in federal Continuum of Care funding can’t spend more than 30% of it on permanent housing – a move that would result in a significant cut to the type of long-term housing that for years has been a cornerstone of the fight against homelessness.

Last year, California communities spent about 90% their share of that money on permanent housing.&nbsp;

A group of states, including California quickly sued. San Francisco, Santa Clara County and a group of national homelessness nonprofits filed a separate lawsuit. In December, a federal judge in Rhode Island temporarily blocked the changes. In February, Congress ordered HUD to renew grants from 2025 under the old rules.&nbsp;

This week, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy partially granted the plaintiffs’ request for summary judgement in both cases. She ruled that the federal agency did not try to foresee the harm its “breakneck” transition away from the country’s longstanding “housing first” model – which prioritizes getting people into housing without first forcing them to seek treatment – would have on the country’s homeless individuals.

“Overall, the actions undertaken by HUD in attempting to hastily eliminate its housing first approach serve as the hallmark of unreasoned decision making,” McElroy wrote.&nbsp;

“HUD fully stands by our objective to reform and restore America’s failed homelessness system, which has relied almost exclusively on permanently warehousing the homeless at exorbitant taxpayer cost while ignoring root causes," HUD wrote in a statement. "The data is clear: Housing First has failed. HUD is making the paradigm shift to ensure recovery and self-sufficiency."

The ruling wraps up both cases, unless the Trump administration decides to appeal.&nbsp;

But the fight isn’t over. The Trump administration <a href="https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2026/06/homeless-funding-hud-change/">tried again last month</a>, moving to shift 2026 federal funding away from permanent housing and the housing first framework. Housing advocates tried to challenge that latest shift in the prior lawsuit. The judge rejected that attempt, but welcomed the plaintiffs to file a new lawsuit.&nbsp;

The housing advocates said they are weighing their next steps.

This article has been updated to add a comment from HUD.
This article was <a href="https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2026/07/trump-homeless-funding-judge/">originally published on CalMatters</a> and was republished under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives</a> license.

Judge Shoots Down Trump’s Homeless Funding Shift:  ‘The Hallmark of Unreasoned Decision Making’

The founders' vision of liberty depended not only on constitutional safeguards but also on a civic culture that respects the rule of law and tolerates political disagreement.

Protect the Constitutional Freedoms that Safeguard our Democracy

The Constitutional Freedoms that Safeguard our Democracy

Government, Politics and Policy

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 <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/robert-a-ballingall-2696282">Robert A. Ballingall</a> |<a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-maine-2120">University of Maine</a> July 4, 2026

 As the 250th anniversary of American independence approaches, many people in the U.S. are deeply concerned about the country’s future. 

<a href="https://www.elon.edu/u/news/2026/06/02/elon-poll-a-proud-but-deeply-uneasy-public-as-america-celebrates-250th/">A recent poll</a> by Elon University found that 69% of respondents “believe the signers of the Declaration of Independence would feel more disappointment than pride about modern American democracy.” Confidence in public institutions is <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx">historically low</a>, and the most recent <a href="https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/52nd-edition-spring-2026">Harvard Youth Poll</a> indicates that just a quarter of 18- to 29-year-olds “feel hopeful about the future of America.”

Many are also afraid. For the 10th consecutive year, Americans reported corrupt government officials to be their single greatest fear, according to the <a href="https://news.chapman.edu/2025/10/21/what-americans-fear-most-in-2025-chapman-universitys-annual-survey-reveals-top-fears-and-the-psychology-behind-them/">Chapman University Survey of American Fears</a>, ranking above financial collapse or a loved one becoming seriously ill. 

“Americans have come to see threats as not just the possibility of attack by a foreign adversary. The potential for political violence at home is part of it, along with polarization, corruption and a sense of cultural dysfunction,” pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson wrote <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/opinion/threats-domestic-polls.html">in The New York Times</a>. “Americans increasingly view the survival of the country as being at stake.”

How are people in the U.S. to make sense of these trends? As Americans celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary, how faithful is the U.S. today to its founding principles? <a href="https://umaine.edu/directory/ums_directory/robert-a-ballingall/">I’m a political philosophy scholar</a> who studies constitutional government. In my view, an especially helpful approach to answering such questions is to revisit the towering but neglected influence of the French philosopher Montesquieu on the founding of this country. 

<h2>Montesquieu and the American founding</h2>

Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, was an 18th-century philosopher and aristocrat whose book “<a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/montesquieu-complete-works-vol-1-the-spirit-of-laws">The Spirit of the Laws</a>” caused a sensation when published in 1748. His ideas shaped the American founders. At <a href="https://lawliberty.org/book-review/how-the-founders-read-montesquieu/">the Constitutional Convention</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1961257">only the Bible was quoted more often</a>. 

On the separation of powers, Montesquieu was, in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed47.asp">James Madison’s words</a>, “the oracle who is always consulted and cited.” Of all authors cited in political writings published by Americans between 1760 and 1805, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1961257">none was more frequently mentioned</a>. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Novus_Ordo_Seclorum/JQmtEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=0">He loomed so large</a> that “American republican ideologues could recite the central points of Montesquieu’s doctrine as if it had been a catechism,” according to historian Forrest McDonald. 

Montesquieu was especially celebrated for his account of how and why political power needs to be separated into branches. But behind this now familiar idea was another that is less remembered: Montesquieu’s theory of liberty inspired the founders’ own understandings of this core concept of American politics.

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 <figcaption>The philosopher Montesquieu, depicted here by Émile Bayard (1837–1891), believed that liberty depends on more than well-designed laws. Image: Album du centenaire: Grands hommes et grands faits de la Révolution française (1789-1804) </figcaption> 
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<h2>A theory of liberty</h2>

In “The Spirit of the Laws,” <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/montesquieu-complete-works-vol-1-the-spirit-of-laws#lf0171-01_label_797">Montesquieu describes</a> political liberty as a “tranquility of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety.” To be free is to believe that one is secure. But to believe as much, “it is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.”

Liberty cannot be a matter of “doing what one wants,” <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/montesquieu-complete-works-vol-1-the-spirit-of-laws#lf0171-01_label_792">Montesquieu warns</a>. What if what one person wants threatens others? Then one person’s freedom to act limits everyone else’s. No one can feel secure unless everyone lives under laws that regulate what each may do. Montesquieu understood liberty in terms of this confidence or “tranquility” because it amounts to being free from the arbitrary will of others.

When Montesquieu stresses freedom from fear of other citizens, he doesn’t just mean private individuals. He especially means those acting in a public capacity, like “magistrates” or “rulers.” If public officials’ behavior doesn’t conform to predictable norms set by law, if agents of the government can summarily arrest people, seize their property or revoke their citizenship – say, by <a href="https://theconversation.com/justice-departments-effort-to-strip-citizenship-from-naturalized-americans-could-face-widespread-judicial-pushback-281413">denaturalizing and deporting</a> them without due process – it becomes impossible to feel secure.

Even if such actions aren’t directed against me or those like me, such lawlessness is still threatening because it’s unpredictable. I might support the government’s moves against other groups in the moment, but what’s to stop the government from suddenly turning on me when the political winds change? 

To prevent public officials from simply doing what they want, Montesquieu famously called for the <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/montesquieu-complete-works-vol-1-the-spirit-of-laws#lf0171-01_label_797">separation of political power</a> into branches headed by different citizens.

But, he explains, it is not enough that people live under free institutions. They must also believe those institutions to be in the service of their freedom. Liberty, then, is as much a matter of opinion as of fact. 

<h2>The tyranny of opinion</h2>

Montesquieu shows in “The Spirit of the Laws” how the fundamental laws of a country can permit a free way of life even as the country’s cultural norms prevent it. A country might have a free constitution while its citizens believe they hold moral obligations inconsistent with it. 

For example, today, Americans might believe that the demands of racial equity or of evangelical Christianity are so pressing that <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-ruling-in-trump-v-slaughter-turbocharges-presidential-power-286467">executive power would be justified</a> in ignoring the legislature or the judiciary to serve them.

“In these instances,” <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/montesquieu-complete-works-vol-1-the-spirit-of-laws#lf0171-01_label_887">Montesquieu writes</a>, “the Constitution will be free by right and not in fact.” The people – or some of them – will experience the law as a hindrance to what they believe they ought or ought not to do. 

In such cases, there arises <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/montesquieu-complete-works-vol-1-the-spirit-of-laws#lf0171-01_label_1325">what Montesquieu calls</a> a tyranny “of opinion.” The laws that would otherwise free people from fear of one another and of the government instead inspire a fear all their own. The laws might prevent what some people believe is morally right, or command – in the name of protecting others’ rights or the common good – what others regard as unjust or unholy. 

That misalignment between constitutional law and cultural norms makes people feel insecure. It makes the Constitution seem opposed to their will and sense of duty. It can then seem appealing for a leader to promise, in the name of freedom, to ignore the law. 

<h2>A bracing reminder</h2>

In recent years, figures across the political spectrum have called for radical constitutional change – or for ignoring the Constitution outright. There are calls not only <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/opinion/kavanaugh-trump-packing-court.html">to pack the Supreme Court</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMq1ZEcyztY">to ignore its decisions</a>, but also <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704686/the-right-of-the-people-by-osita-nwanevu/">to abolish the Senate and the Electoral College</a>.

From Montesquieu’s perspective, polarization worsens this appetite for disregarding constitutional norms. Each party champions a cultural agenda from which <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S000712341700059X">supporters of the other party recoil</a>. Whenever either party is in office, even when it respects constitutional law, its rule can feel to the other side much like the tyranny of opinion Montesquieu describes. The other side’s policies can seem to violate deeply held values, whether it’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/keeping-men-out-of-womens-sports/">banning transgender girls</a> from competing in girls sports or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/us/politics/biden-immigration-trump.html">declining to deport</a> immigrants residing in the U.S. illegally.

According to Montesquieu, liberty depends on the kind of civic culture the U.S. seems at risk of losing. No institutions, however well designed, can preserve liberty if citizens believe their preferred cultural norms are so obligatory that political power is needed to enforce them, opposition be damned. 

A culture more tolerant of moral disagreements and less quick to reach for political power to force others to accept what they find morally wrong would help ease the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/collapsing-levels-trust-are-devastating-america/616581/">distrust many Americans feel</a> toward the government and one another. Until then, Americans will continue drifting away from the liberty that the U.S. was founded to secure.<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/284066/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade">

 <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/robert-a-ballingall-2696282">Robert A. Ballingall</a>, Associate Professor of Political Science, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-maine-2120">University of Maine</a>

 This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-us-turns-250-a-forgotten-founding-influence-helps-explain-its-current-unease-284066">original article</a>.
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As the US Turns 250, a Forgotten Founding Influence Helps Explain Its Current Unease

The decision upholds more than 100 years of legal history by preserving the guarantee that most children born in the U.S. would automatically be citizens.

Protecting Birthright Citizenship

Rights and Liberties

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<a href="https://19thnews.org/author/candice-norwood">Candice Norwood</a> | <a href="https://19thnews.org/">The 19th</a> June 30, 2026 
The U.S Supreme Court upheld more than 100 years of legal precedent on Tuesday that affirmed the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship to children born to immigrants lacking permanent status.
The court voted 6-3 to reject the Trump administration’s reinterpretation of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, which reads in part: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
In oral arguments on April 1, the Trump administration questioned whether noncitizen or temporary status immigrants have an allegiance to the United States, and argued that citizenship should depend on families establishing a “permanent domicile and residence” in the country. In its challenge to the administration, Cecillia Wang, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), argued that establishing a permanent domicile was not the focus of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, joined by all four women on the court — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The majority rejected the administration’s argument, writing that there is “scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view.”
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights— to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Roberts wrote. “We keep that promise today.”
The majority also repeatedly referred to the precedent set by the landmark 1898 Supreme Court case, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, which ruled in favor of a man born in California to Chinese parents. In the 128 years since, the court has repeatedly “understood the rule of Wong Kim Ark to guarantee citizenship to all children born in the United States and subject to its power," the majority wrote.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito each authored dissenting opinions. Alito warned that the court majority has made “a serious mistake” in “one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court,” and argued that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause requires allegiance only to the United States. He also wrote that the majority’s interpretation opens the door to citizenship for "virtually everyone who happens to be born in this country, including the children of 'birth tourists,' women who come here solely for the purpose of giving birth to a child and then promptly return home." The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute has <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/birth-tourism-trump">described birth tourism</a> as a “rare practice.”
For 158 years, birthright citizenship has been granted to most children born in the country, except for those born to foreign diplomats, hostile military members and on foreign public vessels. Native American children were excluded from birthright citizenship until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 established that right.&nbsp;
Thirty years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court extended birthright citizenship to the children of immigrant parents with it's ruling in the Wong Kim Ark case.
Through the decades, birthright citizenship has been considered by many scholars, immigrant rights advocates and everyday Americans to be one of the nation’s foundational promises. But on the first day of Donald Trump’s second term, he signed an executive order challenging these protections for children born to parents without citizenship or permanent legal status. In response, the ACLU and other organizations filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of a group of parents and children who would be affected by Trump’s order.
“It's pretty hard to overstate the turmoil that it placed expecting parents in,” said Grace Choi, an attorney with the ACLU who worked on the birthright case. “Pregnancy and expecting a child is supposed to be a happy, joyous time. Instead, because of the order — and because of all of Trump's policies for folks who are immigrants, non-citizens — it was just absolute chaos.”
Choi recalled one client who was about seven months pregnant and trying to figure out if she needed to move to another state to give birth and asking her doctor if inducing labor was an option in order to meet the deadline set by Trump’s executive order. An estimated 250,000 babies are born on U.S. soil to immigrant parents without authorization each year. Narrowing the scope of birthright citizenship would have threatened to expand the number of people living in the country without authorization for generations. According to projections published by the Migration Policy Institute and Penn State, an additional 2.7 million people would be unauthorized by 2045, and 5.4 million additional people by 2075.
The Supreme Court opinion upholding birthright citizenship, Choi noted, reflected her team’s focus on precedent and the intent of the law in its argument.
“One of the clients mentioned that the news just gave her goosebumps,” Choi added.
“She said really poignantly that this Fourth of July will feel even more special as a result of this decision.”
<a href="https://19thnews.org/2026/06/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-ruling-latest/">This article</a> was originally published by <a href="https://19thnews.org">The 19th</a>. 
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The Promise of Birthright Citizenship Is Upheld by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court ruled that federal law allows states to count mail ballots arriving after Election Day if they were cast on time under state law.

Protecting States' Authority Over Mail Ballot Deadlines

Campaigns and Elections

US Supreme Court Deals Blow toTrump, Ruling States Can Accept Ballots After Election Day

Even some Trump-appointed judges have agreed that indefinite detention is unconstitutional.

Due Process in Immigration Detention

Immigration