Columns

Zoning. Building codes. Permitting. Taxes. Fees.

Zoning. Building codes. Permitting. Taxes. Fees.

All of the above and more are imposed by federal, state and local governments whenever someone wants to build a house. These costs add a lot to the cost of a home.

You have direct costs imposed on builders, like permit fees. Then you have indirect costs: A delay in permitting means changes to the interest rates when getting a project financed. And then there are municipal rules that are tough to estimate as a cost. 
Prohibiting types of building in an area through zoning doesn’t by itself make building more expensive, but it still makes prices higher in the real estate market.

The most comprehensive attempt to capture the cost of government regulation to the building of a home is a report from the National Association of Home Builders. The 2026 survey says government mandates add $132,000 – or about 26% – to the purchase price.

This number has received wide media coverage while also being criticized by some organizations. The Michigan Municipal League, which is a defender of local regulations, says that this cost is not state-specific and is based on a limited, self-selected survey of builders.

Those are valid critiques. But the NAHB report is still a solid analysis, probably the best way we can feasibly measure something this complicated. The report likely underestimates the cost of government regulations.

The government regulation report is a survey of land developers and home builders that determines how much of the current average price of a new home ($499,500) comes from regulations. The survey estimates, nationally, the following costs because of the following regulations:

• Recent building codes: $40,288

• Building fees: $20,154

• Design standards: $16,117

• Government land ownership: $13,593

• Compliance costs (land fees, studies): $10,755

• Land standards (like setback requirements): $10,583

• OSHA/labor rules: $9,125

• Zoning approvals: $7,007

• Other delays: $4,112

• Total: $131,734 (or 26.4% of the total cost)

This is not the total cost of government regulation to the home. Federal policies on tariffs make materials more expensive. State occupational licensing rules limit the supply of workers. And there is no way to capture the full effect of zoning rules.

The survey does ask about costs for zoning approval (typically making sure you are in compliance or getting a variance). But when most municipalities in Michigan only allow one type of housing (a single-family home) to be built in most parts of our cities, it is very difficult to capture how much that raises the cost of housing. National studies find that strict zoning laws are associated strongly with higher housing costs, in some areas increasing the cost of housing by 40%. The loosening of zoning rules is strongly associated with lower housing costs.

This myriad of rules, regulations and restrictions – some easy to measure and many others very difficult – has caused the price of building to skyrocket over time and made it harder to live and improve. Michigan needs a mindset of entrepreneurship and growth, which is what helped build the state in the first place.

—————

Jarrett Skorup is the vice president for marketing and communications at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

With more than 80% of global trade by volume being transported by sea, maritime shipping lanes are indispensable to the world economy. That fact was starkly illustrated by the war in Iran, which saw Tehran effectively close the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic and Washington respond with a blockade of Iranian ports.

(THE CONVERSATION) — With more than 80% of global trade by volume being transported by sea, maritime shipping lanes are indispensable to the world economy. That fact was starkly illustrated by the war in Iran, which saw Tehran effectively close the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic and Washington respond with a blockade of Iranian ports.

Yet such recent events are an aberration from much of the post-Cold War period, during which economic sanctions were enforced far from the sea. Governments relied on financial infrastructure – bank messaging systems, insurance markets, shipping registries and port access rules – to restrict trade without physically stopping ships.

But that system is now under strain. As the United States and its partners have relied more heavily on sanctions as a tool of geopolitical conflict, targeted countries have developed effective evasion networks. In response, the U.S. and its partners are increasingly returning to a more direct form of economic pressure: boarding ships at sea.

Since late 2024, naval forces in Europe and among NATO partners have detained or inspected numerous vessels suspected of carrying sanctioned cargo. These operations have focused on so-called shadow fleet tankers transporting Russian oil. Since the U.S. blockade of Venezuelan oil began in late 2025, interdiction has spread beyond Russian-linked tankers to Iranian and Venezuelan vessels, and now European and Indian authorities have joined in that effort. These ships often operate in legal gray zones, using opaque ownership structures, frequent flag changes and alternative insurance arrangements to avoid sanctions enforcement.

As a longtime observer of international security and geopolitical risk, I believe this trend suggests not a coordinated global policy but a broader shift in practice: Sanctions enforcement is moving from financial systems back into physical space.

—————

Why financial sanctions are losing leverage

Modern sanctions have long relied on control over key nodes in global commerce. U.S. and European sanctions on Iran and Russia show how restrictions on dollar clearing, the SWIFT banking network and maritime insurance can severely disrupt trade without physically intercepting cargo. If banks cannot process payments, ships cannot be insured and ports cannot legally receive cargo, then trade can be effectively halted without direct enforcement.

But that leverage depends on visibility and compliance. Over time, sanctioned states have become more effective at bypassing these channels.

Russia’s shadow fleet is the clearest example. Hundreds of tankers now operate outside Western insurance and registry systems, moving oil through complex ownership chains that obscure responsibility and destination.

Iran provides a parallel case. Under sustained U.S. and European sanctions – targeting dollar clearing, SWIFT and maritime services – Tehran has developed evasive shipping networks using ship-to-ship transfers, flag-hopping and opaque intermediaries to sustain oil exports, largely to Asia and especially China.

At nearly 1,000 tankers, the global shadow fleet amounts to roughly between 17% and 18.5% of global tanker capacity, according to a 2025 S&P Global estimate.

As financial enforcement becomes less reliable, states face a familiar problem: how to enforce sanctions when financial systems no longer provide full visibility or control.

—————

The return of maritime interdiction

Increasingly, many countries feel the answer to declining sanctions leverage is physical interdiction at sea.

While boarding ships is not new, how often it is now used as a tool of sanctions enforcement is. A number of cases since late 2024 have illustrated this broader pattern of European and U.S. interdictions targeting shadow fleet vessels across the Baltic and Mediterranean. They include Finland’s boarding of the Eagle S, Germany’s seizure of the Eventin, and Estonia’s detention of the stateless Kiwala.

Most recently, the EU expanded a naval operation launched in 2020 meant to enforce a United Nations embargo against Libya. By June 2026, the so-named Operation IRINI was conducting shadow fleet inspections and had boarded the Oneiroi, the Nelsa and the Sandhya – all EU-sanctioned tankers operating in international waters.

Other countries are using similar methods for different political purposes. In June 2025, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps captured the Talara in the Gulf of Oman, citing national security concerns.

The legal language differs, but the operational logic is similar in that it involves using naval power to interrupt commercial shipping for strategic effect.

—————

A legal system built for another era

This global expansion of maritime interdiction is colliding with an international legal framework that was not designed for it.

Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, ships on the high seas fall under the jurisdiction of their flag state. This principle was intended to ensure predictability and limit interference with global shipping.

There are narrow exceptions. Warships may board vessels suspected of piracy, slave trading, statelessness or false flagging. Outside these cases, boarding is generally prohibited.

Modern sanctions enforcement is increasingly being fitted into these exceptions. Shadow fleet vessels often exploit legal ambiguity through frequent flag changes or unclear ownership structures. This allows nations to argue that a ship is effectively stateless or fraudulently flagged.

But sanctions evasion itself is not a legal basis for boarding. As a result, enforcement depends heavily on interpretation, especially around what counts as a valid flag or legitimate registration. The result is a growing gap between a legal system built on clear categories and a maritime economy built to blur them.

—————

A fragmented enforcement environment

A striking feature of the current system is its lack of consistency.

Some vessels are detained and released. Others are fined, seized or redirected. Outcomes vary depending on domestic law, political context and enforcement priorities. Even among countries aligned on sanctions, there is no shared answer to what “successful enforcement” looks like.

This is very different from earlier periods of coordinated maritime enforcement. During U.N. sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s, naval operations were carried out under a single Security Council mandate, with standardized procedures and shared rules.

No equivalent framework exists today for shadow fleet enforcement. Nations are acting in parallel rather than through a unified system, producing uneven and sometimes contradictory outcomes.

Although current activity is concentrated in Europe and surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, the implications extend further. Once maritime interdiction becomes a normal tool of economic statecraft, it is unlikely to remain confined to one region or one political context.

In the South China Sea, China has expanded maritime law enforcement under broad domestic categories, such as fisheries protection and anti-smuggling operations. These rely on a similar logic as other interdictions: using legal classification to justify coercive presence at sea. In the Gulf, Iran has already shown how tanker seizures can be framed as responses to sanctions or national security threats.

Amid the rise in interdictions, there is no universally accepted system for sanctions enforcement at sea. There is no shared tribunal, no inspection authority and no agreed mechanism for resolving disputes over vessel status or cargo legitimacy.

This matters because enforcement is expanding faster than governance. Naval forces are operating in a legal environment that is increasingly unclear, without the institutional structures that once constrained or standardized action.

—————

The lack of institutional clarity

Maritime interdiction does not replace financial sanctions. Banks and insurers remain central to economic pressure, but they are no longer sufficient on their own. As a result, countries are increasingly layering physical enforcement onto financial restrictions, boarding ships not because financial tools have disappeared but because they no longer fully close enforcement gaps.

The risk is that this hybrid system develops without clear rules or consistent standards, increasing the potential for miscalculation and conflict at sea. If boarding practices become routine under broad legal interpretations, other countries are likely to adopt similar methods in different contexts. The key risk lies not in policy convergence but in setting precedents that blur the boundaries between law enforcement, coercion and commerce.

When the Pentagon cut roughly 180 faiths from its religious affiliation codes, shrinking the list from more than 200 categories to 31 in May 2026, it folded “Native American religion” into the broader category of “other religion” – one of many faiths the change pushes out of the military’s view.

(THE CONVERSATION) — When the Pentagon cut roughly 180 faiths from its religious affiliation codes, shrinking the list from more than 200 categories to 31 in May 2026, it folded “Native American religion” into the broader category of “other religion” – one of many faiths the change pushes out of the military’s view.

As a scholar of Native American and Indigenous Studies, I recognize this kind of change as part of a long-running pattern. Native traditions have repeatedly been acknowledged in principle – named, counted, formally recognized – but weakly protected in practice.

—————

What the codes convey

Religious affiliation codes are short entries in a service member’s record in the Pentagon’s central demographics database. They are separate from dog tags, the metal identification tags worn around the neck, on which service members can still list any religion they choose.

A Pentagon spokesperson said the change was meant to fix a bloated system, noting that 82% of religious service members used only a handful of the codes.

The codes serve a real purpose. They let the military estimate how many service members practice a given faith, assign chaplains trained in that tradition, and plan for religious holidays, dietary restrictions and burial rites. Most service members fall into a few large categories, the various Christian denominations, along with Judaism and Islam, that are numerous enough to have their own trained chaplains.

The service members outside those categories are the least likely to have a chaplain who knows their tradition. For them, a distinct code is often the only thing that makes their needs visible to the institution at all.

Removing the small codes does not consolidate a scattered population. It makes that population harder to see and therefore harder to staff for, plan around and justify spending on.

The Army’s roughly 1,300 active-duty chaplains represent five faith groups — Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist. For a service member whose faith falls outside those categories, distinct code is often the only thing that tells the military they are there at all, and without that count, there is no trigger to train a chaplain or plan for their ceremonies. None serve Native traditions.

—————

A history of restriction

For much of U.S. history, federal policy did not merely misunderstand Native religious life, but suppressed it. The Religious Crimes Code of 1883 restricted ceremonies such as the Sun Dance, a dayslong ritual of prayer, fasting and sacrifice central to communal renewal among tribal nations including the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho. The code criminalized traditional healers, who could be jailed for offering spiritual guidance. That ban held for over 50 years.

Boarding schools pursued the same goal. From the late 19th century, the government sent Native children to schools built to replace Indigenous languages and belief systems with English and Christianity.

The explicit goal, as officials described it, was to dissolve Native nations’ distinct religious identities into a single American, and largely Protestant Christian, mold.

—————

Why U.S. law struggles to see Native religion

That project shaped which traditions U.S. institutions recognize as religion. American law absorbed a Protestant assumption about what religion looks like: individual belief, voluntary worship, clergy, congregations and sacred texts. That framework eventually extended to accommodate other traditions built on similar terms, including Catholicism, Judaism and Islam.

In practice, courts have read the First Amendment to protect what you believe and say far more robustly than where or how you practice, or rights that belong to a group.

For many Native peoples, sacred places are not interchangeable settings for worship, the way a Christian might enter any church of their denomination and find familiar liturgy. They are part of the practice itself. A mountain, river or village site may be central to a ceremony, and if destroyed, the practice tied to it can become impossible.

Congress appeared to recognize this in the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, which made it U.S. policy to protect the right of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians to exercise their traditional religions, including access to sacred sites.

Its limits became clear in the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, a case over a proposed federal road through California’s Six Rivers National Forest, an area used for religious practices by Yurok, Karuk and Tolowa people. A government study found the road would seriously damage that use.

Yet the court held it did not violate the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, which protects the right to practice one’s religion freely, reasoning that the government was not coercing anyone; it was acting on its own land. But for the peoples who worshipped there, that land was the church.

—————

What disappears when a category does

The Pentagon’s coding change is not the same kind of case as Lyng — no bulldozer threatens a sacred site. But it turns on the same question of visibility – whether an institution can identify a religious tradition, understand what its practice requires and plan for those needs well enough to protect it.

Native American and Alaska Native people serve in the military at a higher rate than any other ethnic group. About 19% have served, compared with roughly 14% of the overall population. That pattern has held since the Revolutionary War, from the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II to today’s active-duty ranks, even as Native nations endured broken treaties, dispossession and federal violence at the hands of the government.

Without a distinct code, the institution has no data on how many service members observe Native traditions.

Native religious identity isn’t a matter of one or the other – many practitioners also observe Christianity. A service member counted under a Christian code has the tribal dimension of their practice rendered invisible. The consequences are concrete.

In August 2024, the Army held what it called the first officially sanctioned Native American worship service in its history, a sage-smudging ceremony at Fort Gregg-Adams in Virginia, led not by a chaplain but by a soldier, Sgt. Jacob James, who first had to educate the post’s chaplains himself.

The Chief of Chaplains office then had to create a new accounting line just to fund it. Without a chaplain trained in the tradition, a lay leader can only do so much: No one can formally advise a commander on an accommodation or offer confidential counsel.

The result is a system that does not plan ahead; it responds only when someone is persistent enough to ask.

Restoring the category would not solve the larger problem. Native religious freedom requires more than paperwork. It requires institutions to recognize Indigenous traditions on their own terms, including those tied to land.

Two federal judges in different courts have blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deny employees of nonprofits that oppose the Trump administration’s political agenda access to a program through which they could avoid having to pay off all of their student loans. Both issued their judgments on June 30, 2026.

By Benjamin Leff
American University

(THE CONVERSATION) — Two federal judges in different courts have blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deny employees of nonprofits that oppose the Trump administration’s political agenda access to a program through which they could avoid having to pay off all of their student loans. Both issued their judgments on June 30, 2026.

As a law professor who studies the nonprofit sector, I believe that both judges made the right decision because the historical strength of the nonprofit sector in the U.S. is its independence from government control. The First Amendment requires that laws governing nonprofits be neutral, and that no administration can punish an organization merely because its actions or views are at odds with the White House.

—————

Forgiving student debt owed by public service workers

Congress approved the legislation that created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program in 2007. This program cancels the remaining balance on federal student loans after eligible borrowers consistently make payments on their student debt for 10 years.

Only borrowers with public service jobs may participate and be eligible to have some of their student loan balance canceled. That is, they need to work for the government at any level, including public schools, or at any charitable nonprofit.

One of the program’s goals was to encourage young Americans, especially those with significant student debt, to do jobs that serve the public good but pay less than what they might earn in the private sector.
The government does not cancel any student loan debt until the Education Department verifies that eligible borrowers have met all requirements, including a decade of steady payments from public school teachers, government officials and employees of nonprofits of all kinds – such as food banks and museums.

But that promise of debt relief for borrowers at some nonprofits was jeopardized prior to these two rulings.

To date, the program has canceled more than US$87 billion in student loans for nearly 1.2 million Americans. On average, borrowers have seen about $74,000 in debt erased.

—————

Trump administration’s attempt to revise the program

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on March 7, 2025, directing the Department of Education to change who can be eligible for public service loan forgiveness.

In the order, he complained that some of the program’s participants may have worked for organizations that “actually harm our society and American values, sometimes through criminal means.” The order does not name any of those nonprofits, but it named some examples: aiding immigrants, treating minors’ gender dysphoria, advancing diversity, equity and inclusion goals, and helping to organize left-wing protests.

Trump said he wanted the government to refuse to forgive loan balances of borrowers who work for those employers. The order itself was not legally binding, but it guided the drafting of a new regulation the Education Department issued on Oct. 31, 2025. The regulation ordered the exclusion from the debt forgiveness program of employers that “engage in specific enumerated illegal activities such that they have a substantial illegal purpose.”

The phrase “substantial illegal purpose” comes out of nonprofit law; organizations with an illegal purpose can’t be tax-exempt charities. But the doctrine has been employed in very limited circumstances in the past, and the government has never developed rules to ensure that it is not abused.

Instead of developing those rules, the regulation identifies specific issues that the Trump administration objects to and has treated as high priorities.

Doing those activities would disqualify an employer from participation in the program under that regulation, if the Education Department determined that those organizations employed illegal means to advance their goals.

A group of 22 state attorneys general and a coalition of nonprofits, municipal governments and labor unions filed separate lawsuits on Nov. 3, 2025, to block the regulation. Those lawsuits were later combined. Another group of nonprofits filed a similar lawsuit the next day.

—————

Why the judges struck Trump’s revised rules

On the day before the new rule was set to go into effect, , in Massachusetts, and , in Washington, D.C., struck it down – preventing the Department of Education from implementing it.

More than a year after Trump’s executive order, both judges found that the statute that Congress passed was unambiguous about which employers qualified for the program: all nonprofits with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. And because the statute was so clearly written, the Education Department has no authority to change the eligibility criteria to exclude particular organizations, the judges found.

Because organizations that serve an illegal purpose already can’t have tax-exempt status, no such organization may participate in this loan forgiveness program. Both judges held that the Education Department exceeded its authority by granting itself the power to determine which nonprofits’ employees can’t be eligible.

In short, judges Joun and Ali said the Trump administration can’t change federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program rules to punish people who work for certain kinds of nonprofits that the administration doesn’t like – or to use the program to advance its agenda.

—————

What this means for borrowers and nonprofits

These rulings are good news for borrowers who work for nonprofits whose missions are at odds with the Trump administration’s agenda.

Both rulings vacated the new regulation, which means the federal government cannot implement its revised rule anywhere in the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court held in 2025 that district court judges couldn’t impose nationwide injunctions. But that ruling does not affect court rulings that strike down agency regulations.

If the administration appeals, an appellate court could restore the new regulation.

The Supreme Court could even get involved at some point. But although the court has been expanding executive power in some situations, the justices have reduced the leeway administrative agencies have to issue regulations that add additional requirements to clear statutes.

In my view, the Supreme Court would therefore be unlikely to side with the administration if it were to hear this case.

—————

Implications for everyone else

Both judges held that the revised rule exceeded the Education Department’s authority. Joun in Massachusetts went further than Ali in Washington.

Joun held that the new regulation “is facially unconstitutional because it discriminates on the basis of viewpoint.”

That’s important because he recognized that “selectively targeting” organizations because their goals are contrary to those of the administration is very different from trying to prevent the employees of criminal organizations from having their student loans forgiven.

The Trump administration has been aggressively jumbling these two things together. Because organizations’ viewpoints are protected by the U.S. Constitution, the government can’t discriminate in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program against an organization that advocates for undocumented immigrants to stay in the country, for example – or one that seeks to have them removed.

On the other hand, violent or illegal tactics are not protected by the Constitution or eligible for tax-exempt status. That means an organization that employs them can be denied benefits.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program regulation that the Trump administration has sought to implement expressly blurs these lines. I think it’s reasonable to interpret this jumbling as a tactic intended to chill protected activity by instilling fear in those who disagree with the Trump administration’s policies. And I see Joun’s opinion as a bulwark against that type of intimidation.

These rulings should give Americans of all political stripes more confidence that their rights will be respected, no matter who is in office.

Paul Birdsong leads the Black Lion Party for International Solidarity, an armed, Black Panthers-inspired mutual aid group in Philadelphia.

(THE CONVERSATION) — Paul Birdsong leads the Black Lion Party for International Solidarity, an armed, Black Panthers-inspired mutual aid group in Philadelphia.

Until February, the 39-year-old carried a firearm during the group’s neighborhood patrols to increase neighborhood safety. Then the police revoked his carry license. Four other Black Lion members lost their licenses the same week.

The city’s revocation letters, by published accounts, explained little. They cited “good cause” and Birdsong’s “character and reputation.”

They also pointed to a tense January 2026 encounter between a group of Black Lion members carrying rifles and a group of officers. The argument at a snowy intersection at 23rd and Diamond streets in North Philadelphia ended in hard words – but no arrests, citations or violence.

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into the Philadelphia Police Department’s licensing practices.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote to Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker that her office would examine whether the Philadelphia police can use a “vague ‘good cause’ standard” to cancel permits.

The Justice Department’s press release stated the rule directly: “It is a violation of the Second Amendment for government officials to use vague, personal discretion when determining whether to issue or revoke permits to carry firearms.”

—————

Philadelphia’s unique gun laws

The prevalence of guns in Philadelphia has real public safety stakes. Gun violence in Philadelphia has fallen from its COVID-19 pandemic-era peak, when there were 562 gun homicides in 2021, but the problem remains serious.

As of late June 2026, city data shows 330 people were shot in Philadelphia so far this year, 71 of them fatally. Parker has made violence reduction central to her agenda. That context helps explain why officials may seek aggressive tools, even as the U.S. Constitution limits their discretion.

We are scholars of gun laws and the Second Amendment. One of us is a law professor at the University of Wyoming, co-author of “Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy” and an unpaid trustee of the National Rifle Association’s Civil Rights Defense Fund. The other is a law lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania who has taught firearms law across the state and country and is a board member of the National Rifle Association, and who has also represented the organization on a variety of matters prior to becoming a board member.

Philadelphia has long been the outlier in Pennsylvania when it comes to public carry. Public carry refers to legally carrying a firearm in public places, whether openly, where the gun is visible, or concealed, where the gun is hidden from public view. Pennsylvania adults may lawfully carry firearms openly without a license everywhere but in the city of Philadelphia. Statewide, a license is always required to carry concealed.

In Philadelphia, however, gun owners need a license to carry openly too. This exception is rooted in the Pennsylvania legislature’s public policy choices made decades ago.

But this Philadelphia-only firearms rule is under constitutional pressure. In 2025, in Commonwealth v. Sumpter, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania held it unconstitutional as applied. The state Supreme Court is now weighing the question.

Yet, for now, the statute remains on the books and still lets a license be revoked for “good cause” or because an official deems the holder’s “character and reputation” dangerous.

The Department of Justice says that’s a problem.

—————

Supreme Court ruling on gun licenses

To understand the Department of Justice’s case against Philadelphia, it’s helpful to look back to 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

In its 6-3 ruling along what are considered typical conservative-liberal lines, the court struck down a New York law that issued carry licenses only to applicants who showed special “proper cause.”

The court drew a clear line. A government may screen permit holders with “narrow, objective, and definite standards” – a background check, a safety course, fixed criteria an honest applicant can know and meet. What the government may not do, the justices ruled, is hinge the right on “the appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion.”

The majority added in its ruling, “We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh condemned “open-ended” and “unchanneled discretion for licensing officials.”

The dissent saw it differently. Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, argued the court should have considered “the State’s compelling interest in preventing gun violence and protecting the safety of its citizens.” In that view, dense urban risks justify more room for local judgment.

But Bruen rejected that approach and ruled that the government’s interest in preventing violence cannot justify vague or open-ended discretion over who may exercise a constitutional right.

—————

The problem with ‘good cause’ standards

If someone in Philadelphia wants to carry a gun, they must obtain a license to carry through the Philadelphia Police Department’s gun permit unit. But without an objective yardstick, two police officers can review the same file and make opposite decisions about the granting of a license.

With a subjective standard, an applicant who is quiet, polished and familiar to the licensing office may pass this test, while another who is equally law-abiding but perhaps less polished or more socially awkward may fail.

One officer might treat a passionate social media post as proof of instability; another might treat it as protected speech.

A rule-bound system asks whether the applicant is legally disqualified. A discretionary one asks whether the official is comfortable with the applicant.

That is how a constitutional right impermissibly becomes a discretionary privilege.

Suppose you could vote only if a clerk judged an applicant’s “character and reputation” sound. Suppose a parade permit could be revoked whenever the marchers’ conduct “troubled” police. That would be intolerable in any other setting – not because every voter or marcher is admirable, but because constitutional rights are not based on a government employee’s benevolent opinion.

Whether someone supports the Black Lions or finds their armed patrols unsettling is beside the point. When the test for stripping a right is “good cause” – words that mean whatever the person holding the stamp wants them to mean – the test itself violates the Constitution.

Other cities, including New York City and Boston, also administer gun-licensing systems with subjective moral-character or suitability standards. However, Pennsylvania’s “character and reputation” language is among the most open-ended, particularly as it relates to the revocation of licenses.

Whatever happened at 23rd and Diamond streets, the dispute is relevant to every gun permit holder in the city: May one of the largest police forces in the country switch a constitutional right on and off according to its own read of a person’s perceived suitability or reputation?

A number of recent high-profile congressional primaries in the Democratic Party have resulted in the nomination of unexpected candidates. Many of these winning candidates have unseated entrenched incumbents, as 29-year-old Colorado attorney Melat Kiros did to U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, who has been serving in the House for three decades.

(THE CONVERSATION) — A number of recent high-profile congressional primaries in the Democratic Party have resulted in the nomination of unexpected candidates. Many of these winning candidates have unseated entrenched incumbents, as 29-year-old Colorado attorney Melat Kiros did to U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, who has been serving in the House for three decades.

Some of these candidates are explicitly running under the banner of the Democratic Socialists of America, known as the “DSA,” a far-left organization known for standard-bearers such as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. New York City’s charismatic mayor, Zohran Mamdani, won his election as a DSA member in 2025 and has since marshaled political support for fellow progressives running for other offices in the city he runs.

Mamdani loaned his star power to three New York progressives, two of them DSA members, in an ad featuring promises to “abolish ICE” and “end corporate greed.” All three went on to win their congressional primaries in June 2026.

There is no doubt that the DSA is having a moment within the Democratic Party. And since their candidates in the midterm races are all but guaranteed to win their safely Democratic districts, I believe their influence is likely to be a major factor on Capitol Hill in the next Congress.

That’s especially the case if the Democrats win the House with a narrow margin. The cooperation and votes of a handful of DSA members could be crucial to Democrats’ ability to act effectively as a majority – or not.

That’s because the DSA’s far-left positions on issues such as healthcare in the form of Medicare for All, defunding the police and taxing the ultrawealthy are likely to divide the Democrats, many of whom are more moderate and/or represent conservative districts.

But as a political scientist who studies the many methods politicians have available to represent their constituents, I’m seeing a story that’s more complex than many inside or outside the Democratic Party convey.

Affiliation with the DSA, or even just a far-left ideology, explains only some of the insurgent wins seen in the primaries. In reality, the Democrats’ reckoning is more complicated.

—————

Who is – and isn’t – a democratic socialist?

Ascertaining the influence of the DSA in the Democratic Party, or in American politics as a whole, means understanding its membership among both elites and its voters.

Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani are all well known, charismatic and proficient fundraisers on the left, as is Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, a second DSA member of the House. And come January 2027, when a new Congress is seated, at least three more – the aforementioned Kiros of Colorado, along with Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, who won primaries in two heavily Democratic seats in New York in June – will almost certainly be added to their ranks. These figures have all won their nomination contests within the Democratic Party but describe themselves as, and received official endorsements from, the DSA.

Meanwhile, the number of voters who officially affiliate as dues-paying members of the DSA is also on the upswing, nearly doubling since Mamdani began his viral mayoral campaign in 2025. Like their candidates, these voters largely participate in Democratic primaries rather than hold their own third-party contests.

But the DSA’s total official membership remains at around 100,000: formidable, but a minuscule percentage of the population compared to the two major parties. And even among this year’s crop of insurgent Democratic candidates, most do not affiliate with the DSA, including a number of ideological progressives.

For example, Graham Platner, the Democrats’ embattled U.S. Senate nominee in Maine, is an economic progressive who boasts an early endorsement from Sanders. But in an interview late last year, Platner declined to be identified as a democratic socialist, saying, “It’s not my politics.”

Brad Lander, New York City’s former comptroller and city councilman who recently won the Democratic primary against incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, is also widely recognized as a progressive – and was backed by Mamdani – but does not currently affiliate with the DSA.

—————

Not all insurgent candidates are alike

Even among this cycle’s insurgent progressives, political ideology is not the only differentiating element that seems to matter to Democratic primary voters.

And the democratic socialists’ far-right 2010s counterpart, the tea party, can help shed light on these nonideological factors.

The tea party emerged during Barack Obama’s presidency as a far-right ideological movement with an ostensible focus on fiscal conservatism. And in my own research with Stella Rouse and Kristen Essel, we found that tea party-affiliated state legislators were more ideologically conservative in their voting records.

These legislators were also more likely to be white, to have served in the military and to be religiously observant. Other research has identified the tea party movement driven just as much by Obama-era racial backlash as it was by the movement’s stated fiscal concerns.

Most importantly, we found that tea party-affiliated lawmakers in state legislatures shared a number of anti-establishment tendencies and characteristics. They were less likely to have held previous elected office, to have sought party leadership positions or to have worked with the party before holding office.

Many of these same differentiating elements, such as racial and ethnic identity or a distaste for the established way of conducting politics, are clearly factors among insurgent Democrats this cycle, DSA or not.

—————

Race, age, Israel and Palestine

Many, for example, would add to the ranks of nonwhite members of Congress if elected in November; and nearly all have either questioned or explicitly dismissed the idea of retaining Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries – both New York Democrats – as the party’s congressional leaders.

Age is a related emerging factor in Democratic primaries, which are producing many young nominees.

Kiros, Chevalier and Valdez are 29, 32 and 36, respectively. In the Democratic primary, Platner, 41, beat back Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, who is 78.

And in New York’s 12th District, two comparatively young Democrats, Micah Lasher and Alex Bores, were the top two vote-getters in the race to succeed U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, 79, who finally relented to calls for his retirement due to his advanced age. Lasher won the primary and is nearly assured of a win in the heavily Democratic district.

In still other cases, insurgent candidates – DSA or not – have adopted positions on specific issues that mark them as a new generation of Democrats. Most prominent, and controversial, among these is their backlash against Israel, which has propelled an increasing number of pro-Palestine candidates to nomination, often over long-serving incumbents.

For example, the recently defeated Goldman in New York had continued to stake out pro-Israel positions, even as the Democratic Party has increasingly soured on that nation’s actions in Gaza. Goldman’s victorious opponent, Lander, made these positions a relentless focus of his campaign.

—————

What does the DSA mean for Democrats?

It is all but guaranteed that next year’s Congress will feature more democratic socialists than this one. But it is also clear that not all of this cycle’s insurgent Democrats share that label, and that they differ from longer-serving Democrats in more ways than one.

In our research, we found that the tea party was best understood as a “factional group” rather than a separate party, and that its goal was to transform the Republican Party “in ways that go beyond ideology.” Given the U.S.’s entrenched two-party system, this may be the most accurate way to understand the new roster of insurgent Democrats, whether they identify as democratic socialists or not.

Regardless of these candidates’ motivations or DSA affiliations, the Democratic Party will need to reckon with their divergent ways of representing their constituents, particularly if the party retakes one or both chambers of Congress next year. If the factionalism tearing through the current Republican majority is any indication, the Democrats should probably prepare for some new and sharper divisions in their own ranks.