Common Good

It’s insane that it can take longer to permit a transmission project than to build it, not to mention the yearslong connectivity backlog. Addressing rising energy costs doesn’t just mean more energy projects - we need a grid that can handle the future we’re trying to building.

"If blue state governors and mayors want to get serious about delivering excellent public services... They will have to push back against a core constituency within the Democratic Party that often makes government deliver less and cost more: unions representing teachers, police officers and transit workers.” That's not an argument you typically hear from left-of-center commentators, even reform-minded, abundance-pilled ones, but that's the provocative argument that @nicholas_bagley and @robertmgordon made in a recent, much discussed NYT op ed titled, "Mamdani Will Need to Change How he Governs." Both Bagley and Gordon are prominent Dems: Nicholas, now at the Univ of Michigan Law School, recently served as Chief Legal Counsel for Gov Gretchen Whitmer, while Gordon, now a Harvard fellow, served as a Deputy Assistant to the President on Biden's Domestic Policy Council. So @hyded and I invited them on Blue City Blues (link in next tweet) to dig into why they believe Democratic politicians need to reset their relationship with public sector organized labor if they hope to reverse the loss of public confidence in blue governance that fed into Trump's ascendency. "If we want blue cities to achieve their promise, and if we want to have a viable and effective alternative to what the Trump administration is giving us, this is a conversation we need to have,” Bagley told us over the course of our conversation about what really is a semi-verboten subject on the left.

This was a great discussion with @robertmgordon and the hosts for Blue City Blues about public sector unions, Democratic politics, and the future of our cities.

We've traded common sense for compliance — and now children are growing up in bubble wrap. Philip Howard explains how we got here, and what it's costing our kids. 🔗 bit.ly/4uAFXKS #LetGrow #ChildhoodIndependence #Education #NewBlog

@PhilipKHoward shared a startling statistic on American Optimist with @JTLonsdale: there are 20k times as many words in binding federal laws than in the Constitution. It’s no wonder this red tape limits so many…  I agree that we need solutions now. tinyurl.com/3hyk2tx2

Read Common Good's latest newsletter -- "Trust in a Troubled World" -- on how America is weakened by distrust, and how we can get back to believing in each other: commongood.org/articles-repor…

What if the greatest threat to freedom isn’t chaos… but too many rules? The more we try to legislate behavior, the less we cultivate judgment. At some point, people stop asking: “What’s right?” …and start asking: “What’s allowed?” That’s where freedom quietly erodes. Read more ↓ inpursuitofelevation.substack.com/p/when-rules-r… Thoughtful work on this from @DovSeidman and @PhilipKHoward

This piece is basically an advertisement for @nicholas_bagley’s new book. The availability of this kind of suit is enough to make your head explode thecity.nyc/2026/03/16/sub…

Lenore Skenazy (@FreeRangeKids) cites @PhilipKHoward in a @LetGrowOrg essay on how red tape trumped childhood independence: letgrow.org/why-kids-cant-…

.@CityJournal names @PhilipKHoward's @LawLiberty essay from this week ("The Need for Judgment") an editors’ pick: city-journal.org/article/city-j…

'The key to social trust is accountability. Trust erodes when people no longer feel others will abide by norms of fair dealing. Selfishness grows as people see it succeeding. What’s been lost is not our values of right and wrong, but confidence that other Americans will also be held to those values.' Interesting, from @PhilipKHoward in @LawLiberty. cc @nytdavidbrooks

Philip K. Howard (@PhilipKHoward) examines the cultural and institutional forces that influence social trust and considers how communities maintain shared standards of responsibility. lawliberty.org/the-need-for-j…

It's not just Republicans talking about the Democrats' public-sector union problem. Read the @chitribopinions editorial at bit.ly/40vvd2G @chicagotribune #publicsectorunions #chicago #bluecities #unions

Democrats have a public-sector union problem. It’s not a popular thing to say, but continuing to ignore it won’t serve us well. My latest, together with the excellent @robertmgordon, at @nytimes (link in thread below):