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Much has been made of recent polls showing the erosion of support for Democrats ahead of the midterms, tied to voters’ profound economic pessimism. As always, wading through the morass of bad takes (looking at you, Ross Douthat) can put many off the task of meaning-making about public political opinion altogether. Our line of thinking in these final weeks before the election remains much the same as it was back in January, when our Jeff Hauser and Max Moran outlined an argument for what Biden’s message should be.

Last week, a new comprehensive study of almost 32,000 populations of 5,230 species around the world estimated that wildlife on earth has decreased by almost 70 percent since 1970. The mind can’t really wrap around the scale of loss conveyed by this number.

If Congress regularly met its own deadlines, then October—the first month of the fiscal year—would also be the first month when federal agencies could implement their new and improved budgets. Unfortunately, the modern Congress regularly fails to pass an omnibus spending package for the next fiscal year, which bundles several appropriations bills for different parts of the federal government into one whole-of-government budget, by the end of the previous fiscal year. This autumn is no different.

October means a lot of things in the political world: the end of a fiscal year and the beginning of a new one; SCOTUS returning from a long recess; and, every two years, the final stretch before a general election. If the congressional appropriations process worked as designed, October would also be the month when federal agencies began implementing their new budgets for the next fiscal year. If only things could work so smoothly.

We certainly haven’t missed parsing the legal hocus pocus of this extremist SCOTUS over the past couple months of summer recess. Tragically, we’re now only days out from the beginning of the 2022-2023 term on October 3. Heedless of John Robert’s pleas to treat his overwhelmingly distrusted council of nine as a legitimate authority, we expect he’ll find as SCOTUS returns to the news cycle that the public has yet to get over the ongoing consequences of the Court’s betrayal of the public interest. Another nightmare term might just hasten Democrats building the power and will to actually reform a broken SCOTUS. 

For all the hours that people spend at work, stories about working (and working people) rarely get the spotlight. Labor makes headlines mostly when it’s no longer guaranteed. That pattern is clear in the headlines of late, with teachers in Columbus striking for air conditioning and teachers in Seattle striking for raises that barely keep up with inflation; with Minnesota private sector nurses striking to protest understaffing and safety issues that hurt both nurses and patients—all long-standing issues that have seen no national traction for years. Currently, the big labor story is that of the barely-averted freight worker strike, whose demands include such basic requests as not being disciplined for going to the doctor.

There was something of a family reunion vibe at the White House last Wednesday. A couple hundred guests gathered to witness the unveiling of the official White House portraits of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. The guests included dozens of former Obama administration staff, many returning to the White House for the first time in years.

The hyper-politicization of the Senate’s confirmation process, and the manipulation of the procedures by which it is governed, has led us to a dire moment in which Republican Senators have effectively given themselves the power to deny President Biden and the public a fully-staffed federal government. This iniquitous procedural politicking has stalled crucial agencies while denying Democrats rightful majorities at several independent agencies and the long-sought regulatory policies those majorities would bring. 

“They keep thinking like lawyers without applying commonsense notions of right and wrong or trust and accountability,” POGO’s Walter Shaub commented Friday. “This administration is strong on the law and weak on commitment to the underlying aims of an ethics program.”

We’re in a big moment, as the political landscape liquifies and reshapes beneath our feet. We at RDP expect to be spending significant time in coming months grappling with the vast impact of the 725-page Inflation Reduction Act and its tag-along coal baron wishlist (aka “permitting reform” bill), from the shifts in executive branch authority, funding, and personnel, to the bills’ diverging impacts on millions of people’s lives, and on ecosystems from Cook Inlet to the Appalachian Basin. Here’s a preview of some of the things we expect to focus on…