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Adam N. Michel

While the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) cut taxes for most individuals and businesses (as the name implies), the legislation also made significant structural changes to the tax code. True tax reform comes with trade-offs and the TCJA was no exception; it involved raising and lowering taxes for different groups depending on their circumstances. Pairing the reforms with an overall tax cut allowed the TCJA to leave about 9 in 10 taxpayers better off than they were in 2017.

One of the areas of significant reform included consolidating and simplifying tax subsidies for children and other dependents. There is a common misconception that the TCJA dramatically increased the tax code’s support for children. However, despite increasing the size of the tax credit, the total subsidy to children and other dependents in the tax code was left largely unchanged due to other offsetting reforms. Short of repealing the CTC, thoughtful consolidation—not expansion—should be a model for future reform. 

Bigger Credit, Same Subsidy

The TCJA increased the child tax credit (CTC) from $1,000 to $2,000 per child. This expansion was paired with the elimination of personal exemptions, which included a $4,050 (for 2017) deduction for each member of the household, including children and other dependents. The larger CTC for personal exemption swap changed the size of the child subsidy for individual taxpayers but did not meaningfully increase the total fiscal cost of the program. 

The $1,000 increase in the CTC almost fully compensated for the loss of the child exemption for taxpayers at or below the 25 percent income tax bracket (about $150,000 for married filers) for whom the pre-TCJA exemption was worth $1,013.

Trading the larger tax credit for the deduction provided a relatively bigger tax break for lower-income taxpayers because the value of a deduction is smaller for taxpayers in lower tax brackets, while a tax credit’s value does not change with income. For example, the $4,050 exemption is worth $486 to a taxpayer in the 12 percent tax bracket and $1,296 for someone in the 32 percent tax bracket. 

In addition to increasing the size of the CTC, the law expanded lower-income family’s access to the credit. It did this by lowering the earned income threshold necessary for claiming the credit from $3,000 to $2,500. After a taxpayer earns more than $2,500, the CTC phases in at a 15 percent rate until the full credit value is claimable. The refundable portion of the credit that is paid to taxpayers with no tax liability was also increased and indexed to inflation.

For higher-income families, the income threshold for where the CTC begins to phase out was raised from $110,000 to $400,000 for married taxpayers. The higher CTC phaseout compensated for the pre-TCJA availability of the personal exemptions to higher-income taxpayers.[1] The non-child dependent exemption was replaced with a new $500 tax credit.

Taken together, these changes had the effect of cutting taxes for lower-income families and raising taxes on some higher-income families (holding constant the effect of tax rate changes, which benefited both groups). By consolidating two different child subsidies into one larger credit the TCJA simplified taxpaying and on-net did not significantly expand the total tax subsidy for children and dependents.[2]

The tax law also nearly doubled the standard deduction, compensating for the repeal of the non-dependent personal exemption and lowering many family’s tax bills without explicitly providing a tax break based on family size. In another example of simplification and consolidation, the larger standard deduction was paired with new limits on the value of certain itemized deductions, such as the state and local tax (SALT) deduction and the mortgage interest deduction (MID). 

These changes simplified taxpaying for almost 30 million taxpayers who no longer itemize their tax deductions. However, the larger standard deduction and bigger CTC contributed to the estimated 4 million new taxpayers with zero or negative income tax liability (increasing from 43.4 percent to 45.8 percent).

More Work to Be Done 

True tax reform goes beyond mere tax rate reductions. It involves trade-offs that aim to simplify the tax system, reduce economic distortions, and increase horizontal equity so that people of similar circumstances pay similar tax bills.

As Congress prepares for the expiration of most of the TCJA at the end of 2025, it should build on the TCJA’s success and fix its problems. The Cato Tax Plan outlines one path for continued reform that cuts trillions of dollars of tax preferences, including the CTC, and lowers tax rates to near 100-year lows.

More moderate reform could still build on the 2017 changes by further consolidating existing tax programs into a more streamlined benefit. Following the model of the TCJA, this should be done without increasing the fiscal cost of child subsidies in the tax code. For example, child tax subsidy reform should consolidate other child-related tax provisions, such as the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit and the larger standard deduction for Heads of Household. 

Congress should also reduce the credit’s availability to high-income earners by reducing the income phaseout, and further limiting the tax benefit for immigrants, by requiring US citizenship for eligibility or expanding the existing social security number requirement to all household members.

Congress should repeal the CTC entirely. Short of repeal, intermediate reforms could simplify and consolidate existing benefits without adding new or larger subsidies to the existing system. 

David J. Bier

Donald Trump has portrayed his immigration policies as good for public safety. He said this month that he had the “safest” immigration policy in history. However, data obtained by the Cato Institute through the Freedom of Information Act challenges this narrative. The newly uncovered information shows that while the Trump administration (2017–2020) was prioritizing prosecutions of migrant parents, separating families, and banning asylum, it also released criminals, including those who went on to commit crimes. 

Candidate Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda will make the country less safe in two significant ways. First, it would remove a population that is less likely to commit crimes, ultimately making America’s neighborhoods less safe. For instance, Cato’s research has shown that both legal and illegal immigrants are nearly half as likely to commit crimes for which they are incarcerated in the United States. With unique data from Texas, we have found that immigrants—both legal and illegal—are less likely to commit homicides. Numerous studies have also found that immigration is linked to lower crime rates, homicide rates, and drug-related deaths.

The second problem with mass deportation is just as significant: it would shift focus away from the removal of immigrants who do commit crimes. Noncitizens who commit serious crimes should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and deported. Whatever amount the government spends on immigration enforcement, it should spend on detaining and removing this small minority of individuals. Donald Trump claims that he did that, but the facts tell a different story regarding his record on migrant criminals:

On his fourth day in office, Trump signed an executive order rescinding Obama-era policies that prioritized the detention and removal of serious public safety threats;
Within a few months, his administration was secretly separating families, using prosecutorial resources to jail migrant parents and focusing resources on visa overstays, not serious criminals;
During the height of family separation, Trump deprioritized prosecuting migrants with criminal histories to instead spend resources on separating families;
While Trump poured resources into detaining asylum seekers, he also released nearly 58,184 noncitizens with criminal records, including 8,620 violent criminals and 306 murderers;
ICE ended up (re)arresting nearly 11,000 noncitizens who entered under Trump and were convicted of non-immigration crimes, including rape and murder; and
Trump’s policies incentivized migrant criminals to enter, triggering a threefold increase in the number of convicted criminals attempting to cross the border illegally.

Trump Deprioritized Serious Criminals to Target Asylum Seekers

On January 24, 2017, just days after becoming president, Trump signed an executive order that rescinded an Obama-era Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memorandum that explicitly prioritized the arrest and removal of recent border crossers and serious criminals, focusing first on felons and then on serious misdemeanors that were not immigration-related. Trump wrote in the order that it would be wrong to “exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement” and that, “I hereby direct agencies to employ all lawful means to ensure the faithful execution of the immigration laws of the United States against all removable aliens.”

The Trump administration’s subsequent DHS memo was even more explicit in eliminating any requirement for agents to focus on criminals. Although it purports to maintain some “priorities,” DHS cannot target everyone while still “prioritizing” criminals. The Obama-era DHS recognized this fact, but President Trump did not care. He wanted mass deportation, rather than targeted deportation. The Atlantic reported: “Hundreds of agents have been temporarily reassigned to low-level enforcement tasks, such as checking businesses for undocumented workers or locating foreigners who overstayed their visas.”

When it comes to border enforcement, Trump was most infuriated by asylum seekers rather than criminals. Within weeks of taking office, his administration started planning to separate families and spend enforcement resources on jailing migrant parents. According to FOIA data, the share of prosecuted individuals with prior convictions fell 63 percent from March 2018 to May 2018 as family separations increased. According to the DOJ Inspector General, “sex offenders were released” back into Mexico to make room for the prosecution of migrant parents.

The Justice Department said: 

There have been recent “anecdotal” accounts from the field, that [the Border Patrol] is missing actual worthy felony defendants, including sex offenders. These “missed” defendants typically get [returned] to Mexico and then try again. Issue will be if one gets across, lives in the US and commits a crime; all because of this initiative and [the Border Patrol] not being able to properly process and identify serious/​dangerous criminal aliens.

Trump’s Policies Caused a Surge of Illegal Entries by Criminals

Trump’s policies, which deprioritized efforts to address criminal activity and focused on banning asylum, ultimately led to far more attempted illegal crossings by individuals with criminal convictions. In late 2020, the number of criminals attempting to illegally enter the United States exploded to record highs. The all-time record day for arrests of individuals with criminal convictions occurred on December 7, 2020.

Unfortunately, we can’t provide a detailed breakdown of who all these individuals were because, under Title 42, the Border Patrol under Trump stopped recording detailed information about their criminal histories. To this day, Customs and Border Protection still does not report the arrests of criminals who were expelled under Title 42. We only know the aggregate numbers under Title 42 obtained through Cato FOIA requests.

Trump’s actions not only led to a threefold increase in criminal crossings from his first month to his last month in office, but they also reversed a decade of near-continuous progress in deterring criminals from attempting to enter the United States illegally.

To be clear, Figure 1 and Figure 2 illustrate the number of criminals apprehended by Border Patrol. However, more criminals were crossing during the Trump administration because they felt that they would face few consequences when they were caught and so would eventually get in. As a result, Trump oversaw a doubling in the number of known gotaways—successful evasions—at the border from December 2016 to December 2020. After Trump left office, “gotaways” continued to rise during the period when the Biden administration maintained the Title 42 asylum ban. Gotaways have fallen 80 percent, starting immediately after Trump’s Title 42 policy was rescinded.

Title 42 removed consequences for convicted criminals who crossed the border illegally, enabling them to try again and again. GOP states used the courts to force the Biden administration to maintain Title 42, while simultaneously blaming him for the rise in gotaways.

Trump Released Serious Criminals to Detain and Deport Asylum Seekers

Not only were more criminals entering the country, but Trump was releasing many of them into the United States while filling detention facilities with asylum seekers. In 2019, Trump’s ICE released more than twice the number of individuals convicted of crimes compared to any year during Biden’s presidency. Since Biden prioritized the removal of criminals, his administration has released a lower percentage of criminals than Trump did. Figure 4 shows annual releases, and Figure 5 shows monthly releases. From December 2020 to June 2024, ICE reduced releases of convicted criminals by 54 percent.

The data for Figures 4 and 5 are publicly available, as I have previously reported. However, Table 1 uses nonpublic FOIA data, providing more clarity about exactly who Trump was releasing, categorized by type of crime. The overall numbers in Table 1 are slightly different from those in Figure 4 because the FOIA data do not account for the final disposition of those still detained at the end of the year. Nonetheless, the information is revealing. From January 21, 2017, through February 2020, Trump released at least 58,184 individuals who had been convicted of crimes, including 8,620 violent convicted criminals.

Trump Released Noncitizen Criminals Who Committed Crimes

The FOIA records also indicate many cases where individuals originally entered the United States during the Trump administration, were convicted of crimes, and subsequently arrested or re-arrested by ICE. Obviously, these data would exclude many people who are still serving their sentences for crimes committed during the Trump years. Overall, ICE records reveal that 10,738 noncitizens who entered after Trump took office were arrested and then convicted of crimes (excluding immigration-related offenses and smuggling).

We cannot determine whether all of these convictions were from people previously released from ICE custody or if they evaded detection at the border. Even if they evaded detection at the border, it is clear that Trump’s policies are at least partly responsible, as explained above. We know that at least some individuals released by Trump did go on to commit crimes, while others evaded detection at the border before committing crimes.

ICE may release convicted criminals for many different reasons, including lack of detention space, inability to deport them (because the person lacks identification, their country lacks diplomatic relations with the United States, or it refuses to accept deportations). They may also be released when the crime was not serious and the person proved their eligibility for legal status. During the pandemic, the ICE officers’ union prioritized the safety of officers from COVID-19 above all else, ultimately releasing many criminals into the United States to avoid having to come into direct contact with them.

However, a big pre-pandemic reason for the releases under the Trump administration was that it was determined to detain as many asylum seekers as possible, prioritizing their detention and removal over that of convicted criminals. For instance, in 2019 ICE was using 68 percent of its detention space for individuals without any criminal convictions. 

Trump emphasized that he did not prioritize the removal of criminals above other immigrants from the United States. The share of individuals with criminal convictions who were removed from the interior of the United States fell from 92 percent in 2015 and 2016 to 75–77 percent from 2018 to 2020. Although the absolute number of removals also declined, this number is influenced by several factors, including congressional appropriations, migration to the border, and state and local cooperation, the number of crimes committed by noncitizens, among others.

Conclusion

Donald Trump is not responsible for crimes committed by immigrants any more than President Biden is. Only the criminal is responsible for his actions and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, Trump is mistaken in claiming that his policies were good for public safety. Immigration enforcement should prioritize serious threats to Americans, rather than indiscriminate mass deportation. Peaceful immigrants are good for American communities, reducing crime rates and making the country safer and wealthier. Mass deportation and closing the borders to new legal immigration would ultimately make Americans less safe.

This post is not about the Biden administration’s legacy on immigration but rather about Trump’s misrepresentation of his record. Nonetheless, it is true that the Biden administration is releasing fewer criminals, including serious offenders, than the Trump administration did. Currently, ICE is arresting more convicted criminals than it was when President Biden came into office. In 2024, it has averaged 5,571 removals per month of convicted criminals versus 4,080 in December 2020. It has brought into custody, on average, 5,719 convicted criminals per month, compared to 4,850 in December 2020.

Trump should be asked whether he is serious about deprioritizing criminal removals and shifting back toward a mass deportation stance. This doesn’t mean that the Biden administration has solved all immigration problems; it has also allocated too much time and resources towards deterring peaceful immigration rather than channeling it into lawful, orderly, and vetted channels. The best thing policymakers can do for border security is to expand legal immigration, allowing Border Patrol and ICE to focus almost exclusively on serious criminals. 

Clark Neily

My friend and former boss at the Institute for Justice, Chip Mellor, passed away earlier this month, and I’m still trying to process the loss. Chip was a towering figure in libertarian circles. Besides founding one of the nation’s premier public interest law firms together with now-Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, Chip mentored a generation of libertarian constitutional lawyers and activists whom he inspired with his unflagging optimism, uncompromising standards, and clarity of vision. As a tribute to his memory, I’d like to share a few personal anecdotes that are special to me and will hopefully provide some sense of Chip’s enormous contribution to the cause of freedom.

1. Be willing to lose. When Chip offered me a job at IJ in the spring of 2000, I was a young litigator coming off of a judicial clerkship in Washington, DC, and four years at a large law firm in my home state of Texas. Having realized that a career in BigLaw was not for me—and having spent a year watching lawyers from DOJ and the DC Attorney General’s office advocate for maximum government power with minimum accountability—I yearned to join IJ’s “merry band” of bureaucrat-suing litigators. 

Following several rounds of interviews, Chip took me out for dinner to make the offer. As our dishes were being cleared away, he fixed me with his trademark fatherly football-coach gaze and told me something I’ll never forget: “If you take this job, you’ll have to make peace with something you won’t like.” “What’s that?” I asked. “Losing,” he said. 

Of course, Chip was not warning me that IJ had low standards or that its lawyers are more complacent than others—on the contrary. Instead, what Chip sought to convey was that he, Clint, and other trailblazing IJers like communications guru John Kramer had chosen a set of institutional goals that were the professional equivalent of summiting Mt. Everest in a raging blizzard without supplemental oxygen—on a unicycle. Thus, no matter how hard we worked, no matter how persuasive our arguments, and no matter how just our cause, we were going to lose cases—including ones we deserved to win on the law, the facts, and the quality of our advocacy. And boy, was he right. 

One reason for that is because, like Cato, IJ seeks to overturn longstanding Supreme Court precedent that arbitrarily divides constitutional rights into two distinct categories consisting of purportedly “fundamental” rights like free speech and religion that are entitled to meaningful judicial protection, and nonfundamental “liberty interests” such as occupational freedom and property rights that receive no meaningful judicial protection. Utterly arbitrary and textually baseless as that dichotomy is, most modern judges—including even self-professed originalists—remain deeply committed to it and unwilling to seriously engage contrary arguments.

Bottom line, Chip understood that if you’re a libertarian litigator trying to overturn decades of unabashedly government-empowering constitutional malpractice and you aren’t losing, then you simply aren’t bringing the right cases. Amen to that.

2. The “privilege” of earning an honest living. When Chip and Clint created the Institute for Justice in 1991, their most ambitious goal was to resurrect the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause as the primary source of protection for individual rights against state and local governments—including particularly the right of occupational freedom. Understanding what an ambitious goal that was (and remains!) requires a bit of history.

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 in response to Southern states’ oppression of newly freed blacks and their white supporters following the Civil War. It prohibits states from infringing the privileges or immunities of United States citizens and from denying any person due process of law or equal protection of the laws. Those terms are necessarily broad and imprecise because the nature of the evil they were meant to combat—again, the attempt to keep a whole class of people in a state of constructive servitude—was itself all-encompassing and constantly evolving. 

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court largely eviscerated the Privileges or Immunities Clause in the aptly named Slaughter-House Cases (1873), which involved a challenge to a Louisiana law that required butchers to do their work within a designated area while paying fees to politically connected private interests for the privilege of using their facilities. A sharply divided 5–4 Court rejected the butchers’ argument that occupational freedom is among the privileges or immunities of American citizenship and held instead that the term referred only to a narrow and idiosyncratic set of “national” rights such as the ability to call for the protection of the federal government when on the high seas. 

Virtually everyone now agrees that Slaughter-House was wrongly decided, and IJ, Cato, and others have waged a decades-long campaign to persuade the Court to overturn it. But the justices have repeatedly rebuffed those efforts and continue to hold that occupational freedom is a nonfundamental right “protected” only by the almost infinitely permissive rational basis test under the controversial theory of substantive due process.

In 2010, however, an unexpected opportunity arose to reconsider the Privileges or Immunities Clause in a setting not foreclosed by Slaughter-House: gun rights. That opportunity was created by the court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) (litigated by me, Cato chairman emeritus Bob Levy, and Alan Gura), which held that the Second Amendment prohibits the federal government from infringing the right to keep and bear arms. But because the Bill of Rights does not apply directly against the states, Heller left open the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment likewise protects gun ownership from infringement by state and local governments. The answer to that question is plainly yes, and it is equally clear from the relevant history that the right of armed self-defense is among the privileges or immunities of American citizens. 

And that’s precisely how Alan Gura—who had successfully argued Heller two years before—presented the issue to the Supreme Court in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), which challenged a municipal ban on handguns. Rejecting the conventional wisdom that he should lead with substantive due process—a legal doctrine long denigrated by conservatives in particular—Alan chose instead to put his faith in text, history, and confidence that the justices would be committed not just to reaching the right result, but to doing so according to the best reading of the Constitution. 

Whoops.

At oral argument, it became clear immediately that eight of the justices had zero interest in revisiting Slaughter-House or taking a fresh look at the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Indeed, Justice Scalia even mocked Alan for his presumption in asking the court to reverse its own manifestly erroneous precedent: 

Well, I mean, what you argue is the darling of the professoriate, for sure, but it’s also contrary to 140 years of our jurisprudence. Why do you want to undertake that burden instead of just arguing substantive due process? Which, as much as I think it’s wrong, I have—even I have acquiesced in it.” 

In the end, only Justice Thomas—in a magnificent but solo concurrence—would choose the correct path of protecting the fundamental right to own a gun via the Privileges or Immunities Clause rather than substantive due process.

Walking out of the Supreme Court after the McDonald argument was the only time I ever saw Chip Mellor look truly deflated. The justices’ collective indifference to the relevant text and history, together with their staunch refusal to revisit the court’s momentous error in Slaughter-House, strongly suggested that Chip’s lifelong goal of restoring the Privileges or Immunities Clause to its rightful place as the Fourteenth Amendment’s principle font of individual rights would not be achieved any time soon—or perhaps ever. 

As a result, countless unenumerated rights, including but not limited to occupational freedom, would continue to be denied, disparaged, and/​or marginalized by a Court that often seems more interested in securing the prerogatives of government than the blessings of liberty. Chip was right to be dismayed that day.

3. Judicial engagement. Finally, Chip was among the first to recognize that judges were not merely applying different levels of scrutiny in constitutional cases, as they proclaimed, but were instead genuinely grappling with the facts and law in some cases while fully abdicating the judicial role in others. The term Chip coined to describe the former was “judicial engagement,” and he tapped me to flesh out the concept by creating IJ’s Center for Judicial Engagement and ultimately writing a book about it. 

In that book, Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government, I sought to explain the difference between real and fake judging—engagement versus abdication—and show that there truly was a categorical difference (and not merely one of degree) between the way judges decide cases involving fundamental rights and those involving purportedly nonfundamental rights, like occupational freedom. Along the way, I realized a profound truth about constitutional adjudication, namely, that it is impossible in most cases to assess the constitutionality of the government’s actions if you don’t ask why the government is doing whatever it’s doing—i.e., what end(s) is the government pursuing with the freedom-restricting policy at issue? 

It turns out the exact same exercise of power can be constitutional or unconstitutional, depending on why it was undertaken. And if you don’t bother to ask that question—as the Supreme Court has held that judges should not in most cases—then you simply can’t determine the constitutionality of a given law or policy. Consider the following illustration, which does not appear in the book because it occurred to me later.

Imagine police are going around a given neighborhood ordering people to stay inside until further notice. They do not purport to be enforcing any law or judicial decree—instead, they’re simply insisting that people not leave their homes indefinitely, or face arrest if they do. Query: Are the police acting constitutionally or unconstitutionally?

Having presented this hypothetical to dozens of people, the most common response is that the unilateral order to stay indoors violates the Constitution. But a healthy minority of people pause, think about it, and say, “Wait, I need to know more.” And that’s exactly right—they do need to know more. 

Let’s say there’s been a terrorist bombing at a sporting event in Boston, and police have tracked the perpetrators to the neighborhood in question and are telling people to stay indoors for their safety and to make it easier to apprehend the suspects. That seems constitutional, given the combination of exigent circumstances and compelling government interest. 

But now imagine it’s forty or fifty years earlier, and the neighborhood is located somewhere in the South instead of New England. Also, there’s an election tomorrow, and the neighborhood where police are ordering people to stay indoors until further notice has a certain racial demographic. That looks more like the use of force to subvert an election, which is plainly unconstitutional. 

Again, it’s the same exercise of government power but with opposite constitutional implications depending on why it was undertaken. When judges make a genuine effort to figure out what ends the government is pursuing, that’s judicial engagement; and when they do not, that’s judicial abdication. And because the default standard of review in constitutional cases is the rational basis test—which explicitly calls for judges to base their rulings on “conceivable” justifications, including palpably insincere ones for which there is no supporting evidence—judicial engagement turns out to be the exception and not the rule in constitutional litigation.

This conception of engagement versus abdication is a powerful insight whose simple but compelling logic has garnered a growing following among scholars, activists, and even judges. And it has the potential to help tear down nearly a century of power-aggrandizing and freedom-restricting legal doctrine catalyzed by the so-called New Deal Revolution of the mid-1930s. 

Sadly, Chip will not be able to participate in the celebration should that come to pass. But if I’m still around when it does, I’m sure I won’t be the only one to tip a glass to him in a silent and grateful toast. 

Andy Craig

At his rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Donald Trump offered an aside to Speaker Mike Johnson about a “little secret” concerning the election and the House of Representatives. “[W]e can take the Senate pretty easily. And I think with our little secret, we’re going to do really well with the House, right?” Trump said to Johnson. “Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a secret. We’ll tell you what it is when the race is over.”

Many took this as a nod to possible efforts to obstruct the joint session where electoral votes are counted on January 6. It’s not entirely clear what Trump might have meant, and Johnson has been evasive about whether he would seek to lead, as he did among House members four years ago, with ill-founded objections to a possible Democratic victory. 

But because the topic is attracting concern, it’s worth putting to rest the idea that the Speaker has any procedural tools to change the outcome of the presidential election. 

The Speaker’s role during the electoral count is, in fact, nearly non-existent. There are no lawful mechanisms for the Speaker to derail the joint session of Congress without the backing of concurrent majorities in both the House and the Senate. The job of the Speaker is much more constrained here than their usual authority over the House. 

To start, the statutory rules in the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 (ECRA) are in place as the default unless both chambers concur in any deviation by means of a concurrent resolution. Normally, both chambers also adopt a concurrent resolution simply reiterating the statutory rules. But the statute, which directs that both chambers convene in joint session in the House chamber at 1 p.m. on January 6, and lays out detailed rules for what then follows, is valid and binding of its own force.

It has, after all, already been adopted by both houses and in many respects it simply reiterates what is already commanded by the Constitution. While Congress could by its internal rule-making power adopt some theoretical changes, should unexpected circumstances arise, doing so for the joint session would require the House and Senate to agree. The Speaker alone has no such power, and neither does the House alone. 

Nor does the Speaker preside over the joint session, a task falling to the vice president as President of the Senate, who happens to be Kamala Harris. (She would not be the first VP to preside over certification of her own victory or defeat). The President of the Senate has no power to make decisions about the electoral count itself, about rejecting or accepting votes, but as presiding officer she will still have the “power to preserve order” as specified in 3 USC § 18. 

Though the electoral count might take place in the House chamber, the space is not, for that time and purpose, the House’s alone or the Speaker’s to control, as it would be in the course of normal business. It is under the control of Congress as a whole with the President of the Senate tasked with maintaining, if need be, literal physical control of the room, directing the sergeants at arms and however much backup is necessary to that end. 

The only scenario in which the Speaker retakes the gavel is if an objection to a state’s electoral votes is made by at least one-fifth of each chamber, or at least 87 representatives and 20 senators. In that case, the Senate will withdraw to its side of the Capitol and both chambers will separately consider and vote on the objection, with the agreement of both chambers required to sustain it. 

This period of debate and vote is limited by ECRA to no more than two hours. During that time, the Speaker (or as always, another member they designate) would preside over the House debate but not have any lawful power to postpone the reconvening of the joint session after those two hours expire. 

One of the more outlandish ideas some have suggested is that Speaker Johnson could, when the newly elected House convenes on January 3, refuse to seat some number of Democratic members-elect—even, potentially, if Democrats have regained the majority at the election. 

However, the speakership does not automatically carry over into the new Congress. Rather the position is initially vacant unless and until the members-elect choose a Speaker in the process of “organizing” the House on the first day of their terms. After the election of a Speaker, there is a procedure for objections to a member-elect’s qualifications to be seated, with the rest of the House excluding that member then voting on the question. 

But such objections made on a blatantly partisan basis could quickly escalate into a rather absurd tit-for-tat spiral. Baseless objections to seating Democratic members could be met in-kind with retaliatory objections to seating Republicans. The whole thing would spiral into a farcical deadlock, inviting almost philosophical debates about who “the House” really is on January 3. In any event, the Speaker alone does not decide, having no individual power to simply refuse to let members take their oaths. 

More substantively, such a lawless purge of Congress on spurious grounds would not be constitutional. At that point, the rump “House” would only be destroying its own constitutional legitimacy, rather than making a feasible play for control of the White House. While it would be a grave constitutional crisis, it is not one the putative Speaker, with a dubious claim to that office under the circumstances would be in a position to win. 

Any attempt by the Speaker of the House to subvert the electoral count might observe a hollow pretense of following lawful procedures, but it would not be lawful. Hopefully, we will not face such a senseless confrontation. And it’s worth emphasizing these are extreme worst-case scenarios. 

Again, who knows what Trump was really talking about, or what Johnson might have in mind in the event Trump loses the election? It is very unlikely that the needed majorities of both the House and Senate would go along with this hypothetical coup attempt, even in the event Republicans have narrow majorities. 

But if such a thing was nevertheless attempted by the Speaker acting unilaterally, the legally and constitutionally required course would be for other actors and institutions—including the members of the House, the Senate, the vice president, the courts, and the executive branch—to treat such actions as null and void. 

There is no one neat trick or magic words the Speaker can use to reverse the outcome of a presidential election, forcing everyone else to accept an illegitimate power grab. The law and the Constitution remain the law and the Constitution even in the face of a rogue officer’s attempt to violate them. 

Jeffrey Miron

To a first approximation, economic policies target one of two objectives: efficiency (growing the economic pie) or redistribution (reallocating the economic pie). Alas, most politicians favor the latter, which typically shrinks the economic pie and often reallocates in perverse ways. Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are no exceptions. Mostly, their policy positions emphasize redistribution (to groups whose votes they are trying to court) rather than maximizing economic output. We review some of the economic policies that will define the next administration and argue that both candidates must reorient the platforms toward maximizing efficiencies in order to grow the economic pie for all.

Read the rest at ProMarket, which is hosted by the Stigler Center at Chicago Booth.

This article appeared on Substack on October 28, 2024. Constantin Wells assisted in the production of this post. 

James A. Dorn

In October 1994, I was a visiting scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai. During my stay, I gave a series of lectures and received the Chinese edition of Economic Reform in China: Problems and Prospects, originally published in 1990 by the University of China Press. My co-editor, Professor Wang Xi, arranged for my visit and the translation of our book into Mandarin. After 30 years, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the visit.

Background

My first visit to Fudan University was in the summer of 1988, to lay the groundwork for a major conference in September cosponsored by Fudan University and the Cato Institute. The conference attracted a wide audience and featured speakers from the Mainland, Hong Kong, and Europe. There was widespread media coverage and a very open discussion of the problems and prospects for China’s transition to a more market-oriented system, which Deng Xiaoping helped initiate in December 1978. 

We were fortunate to have Milton Friedman join us. He had been invited to receive an honorary professorship from Fudan, and he agreed to speak at our conference. His wife Rose accompanied him, as did his former student, Steven Cheung. 

There were so many Chinese students and journalists who wanted to meet Friedman, that we arranged a press conference for him. He was treated like a rock star! 

At the conference, Friedman spoke about “the miracle of the market” and concluded, “Peace and widely shared prosperity are the ultimate prizes of the worldwide use of voluntary cooperation as the major means of organizing economic activity.” After the conference, he traveled to Beijing to meet with Premier Zhao Ziyang, who was placed under house arrest following the Tiananmen uprising in the spring of 1989. 

The crackdown on the nascent free market for ideas after Tiananmen delayed the Fudan University Press publication of Economic Reform in China. However, with Deng’s famous “Southern Tour” in 1992, economic liberalization began to emerge once again. When President Jiang Zemin invited Friedman to Beijing in 1993, there was an opportunity to publish the Chinese edition of our book, which appeared in September 1994. 

I first saw the book in October 1994 during my visit to Fudan University. To my surprise, the front cover (below) showed the Great Wall of China juxtaposed with the Goddess of Liberty (a lasting symbol of the Tiananmen uprising).

Board Report, December 1994

The following is a lightly edited extract from my report to Cato’s Board of Directors regarding my visit to Fudan University, which took place October 11–18, 1994.

My optimism about China’s future, however, has diminished in light of Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012. He has reversed China’s liberalization progress and shut the door on a free market for ideas. In doing so, he has set up a roadblock on China’s path to a freer society. Nicholas Lardy, a leading China scholar at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, got it right in 2019 when he titled his book, The State Strikes Back. 

China’s economic demise may well lead to a return to a more open society and economic liberalization, but not until new leaders emerge that value free trade in both goods and ideas and adhere to the principle of wu wei  (nonintervention), so people are allowed to spontaneously create wealth under a just rule of law. Such a transformation will require knowledge of the institutional infrastructure of a market system.

The Institutional Infrastructure of a Market System

When I lectured at Fudan University in October 1994, it was an exciting place to be. The students were very interested to learn about the institutional framework supporting free markets, including the role of limited government, private property rights, the rule of law, free trade, and a robust market for ideas. I covered those and related topics in my three lectures. The students asked many questions and we had a lively, open discussion. 

The following outline, which I handed out to students, indicates the wide array of topics covered.

I thank Wang Xi for his extraordinary help in organizing the 1988 conference, hosting me at Fudan University in 1994, and overseeing the Chinese edition of our book.

China’s Future

In 1994, it looked like China was on its way to a more open society and that the risk of retreating from that path was low. Thirty years later, we see a return to state-led development, industrial policy, protectionism, and a widespread crackdown on the market for ideas. Whether China can once again turn to market-liberal policies and limit the power of the state over the market remains to be seen. However, looking at past successes can give people hope that China’s future can be brighter.

Marc Joffe

The Federal Transit Administration’s latest Capital Investment Grant dashboard shows that it intends to award over $1 billion for a people mover project in Inglewood, California. While the 1.6‑mile automated train line may be empty most of the time, it is expected to ferry thousands of fans to football and basketball games when the Clippers, Chargers, or Rams are playing. The impending grant undermines the narrative that federally funded transit construction is needed to halt the climate catastrophe. Instead, this grant appears to be more of a gift to wealthy owners of professional sports teams.

According to the FTA’s project profile, the Inglewood Transit Connector is expected to handle an average of just 4,300 rides daily, which is well within the capacity of buses. With a projected capital cost of $2.02 billion (50 percent of which will be federally funded), the capital cost per average daily rider works out to almost $470,000—that is several times higher than such other FTA-supported transit projects as New York’s Second Avenue Subway, and Chicago’s Red Line Extension.

Over the course of a year, the Connector will displace a relatively small number of car trips. And a large proportion of these trips would otherwise be completed by electric vehicles, which are far more popular with high-income Californians than drivers elsewhere. As a result, the greenhouse gas emissions savings from the project will be minimal, especially because they will be offset by emissions generated during the construction of 1.6 miles of overhead track.

Even local Representative Maxine Waters (D‑CA) has come out against the project, citing both costs and the threat to local small businesses. In a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Waters noted that eminent domain may be needed to displace more than forty businesses along the connector’s route.

Average daily ridership may be low, but on game days, project sponsors hope that thousands will use the connector to get from the Downtown Inglewood Metro Station to SoFi Stadium or the Intuit Dome. This may be a good option for many fans because parking during major events can cost up to $150.

The opportunity to avoid high parking costs could attract more fans to attend games (as well as concerts) and buy more concessions while at the stadium or arena. This means more revenue for the teams and the well-heeled individuals who own them. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer owns the Intuit Dome and the LA Clippers. Real estate magnate Stan Kroenke owns the Rams and built SoFi Stadium.

While there is no need to begrudge the success of these billionaires, it is not unreasonable to observe that they have the financial means to convey fans to their facilities. The Walt Disney World Monorail System in Florida is illustrative of how private players can provide public transportation when their venues are involved. That system comprises 15 miles of track and serves over 100,000 passengers daily—more than an order of magnitude greater than the forthcoming Inglewood system. If the project were to be privately built, we can be confident that the cost would be lower than the more than $2 billion currently projected.

But assuming the project moves forward, there is one silver lining. The Inglewood Transit Connector would be the first driverless public transit system in the Continental United States that does not directly serve an airport. It could thus provide a precedent for future projects that lower operating costs through automation.

Daniel Raisbeck

“In a telephone call Friday [September 20] with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Maduro warned about the ‘hiring of mercenaries to invade the country.’” So reported France 24 last month, emphasizing Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s involvement in an online campaign called Ya Casi Venezuela (“We are almost there, Venezuela”), which allegedly aims to raise funds to finance a mercenary force that would enter the country and topple Nicolás Maduro’s socialist regime.

Ya Casi Venezuela’s structure and goals are not yet transparent. Nor is it clear who is behind the campaign. But given Prince’s previous work for the US government, his links to the movement have raised speculation about potential US involvement in the alleged mercenary plan. As per France 24, Washington quickly denied these rumors, especially after the regime’s forces arrested two Americans, among other foreigners, and accused them of plotting to assassinate Maduro.

The story’s Washington angle—and the foreign angle in general—distracts from the main issue in question, which is Maduro’s illegitimacy. In 2017, Maduro nullified the power of the official, opposition-controlled parliament or National Assembly, depriving it of its legitimate power. This year, Maduro stole an election that he lost in a landslide, as recognized by several governments and even the formerly Chavista-friendly Carter Center. The election’s winner, Edmundo González, a 75-year-old former diplomat who is now exiled in Spain, is Venezuela’s legitimate president-elect.

The question, then, is whether Venezuelans would be justified in removing the Maduro regime by force. As I argued recently, other options such as peaceful protests, negotiations with the regime, a palace coup, or diplomatic pressure will most likely be ineffective, as Cuba’s own experience under socialist tyranny can attest. And when it comes to repression in Venezuela and keeping the Maduro regime in place, Cuba runs the show.

Since the Venezuelan citizenry is unarmed, one remaining option to restore a democratic republic is the hiring of an oustide fighting force that would act as an army of liberation. But would a war to free Venezuela be legitimate? To answer, one might turn the question on its head: other than through brute force, how can Maduro remain in power after losing an election by 67 to 30 percent, despite banning the candidacy of the leader of the opposition, María Corina Machado, and not allowing millions of anti-Maduro Venezuelans living abroad to vote?

The real issue at stake is popular sovereignty, the notion that a government is legitimate only through the consent of the governed. As per John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government:

“…whenever the legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society. What I have said here, concerning the legislative in general, holds true also concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of the society.”

In a Lockean sense, then, Maduro is doubly guilty of imposing absolute power over Venezuelans’ lives, liberty, and property. First, by usurping the legislative branch’s power in 2017; second, by exerting his “arbitrary will” as the “supreme executor” —that is, as the head of a likewise usurped executive branch—against the explicit consent of the governed.

Hence, in Locke’s terms, Maduro has long waged war on the Venezuelan people. In turn, Venezuelans are absolved of any obedience to Maduro. Power has devolved to them. They would be fully justified in providing for their own safety and security. Any effort to resume their original liberty—by means of “the common refuge against force and violence” —would be legitimate.

This is the spirit, of course, of the US Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson (et al.) asserts that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends” —that is, the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness— “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government” based upon such principles. So far, so Lockean. But Jefferson goes further, stating that it is the duty of a people—not only its right— “to throw off” a government “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism.”

Venezuelans, as despotically reduced as they are today, have as clear-cut a case to overthrow Maduro and institute a new government as did the American founders in 1776 when they declared their independence from King George III. Even more so, one could argue.

Maduro and his propagandists could try to portray Locke and Jefferson’s theories as foreign, Anglo-American pretexts to oust him from power. The problem is that the notion of popular sovereignty long predates Locke’s Second Treatise, and it has a particularly strong tradition in the early modern, Spanish-speaking world. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Jesuit scholars Juan de Mariana and Francisco Suárez held that monarchical power rested on popular consent. They even argued that when a king turned into a tyrant—for instance, through arbitrary taxation or the debasement of the currency—then tyrannicide was justified. It is little wonder that both Locke and Jefferson were familiar with Mariana’s work.

Thus, within the Hispanic tradition of liberty, ousting Maduro by force is a fully legitimate means for Venezuelans to restore popular sovereignty, even if the best means to bring it about is the hiring of mercenaries. Whether this benefits Washington, whether American policymakers should approve, whether Russia’s Wagner force will come to Maduro’s aid despite the war in Ukraine; these might be relevant geopolitical questions, but they are beside the point of legitimacy and Venezuelans’ natural, unalienable right to life, liberty, and property. If the Venezuelan leadership so chooses—and, so far, Machado has insisted on a peaceful transition of power—it has every right to hire mercenaries to topple Maduro. They even have a duty to do so, Jefferson might say.

How can they pay for such a force if Maduro controls the state’s resources? The proposal that has received the most press is among the worst available. Responding to Prince’s suggestion that raising the State Department’s bounty on Maduro from $15 million to $100 million would allow “magic” to happen in Venezuela, Florida senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio introduced legislation that, if approved, would do just that. The aim might be to pay the bounty with funds seized from Citgo, a Venezuelan state-owned energy company. But this puts Washington at the forefront of the effort to free Venezuela, whereas the proper role for Washington is to have no role at all.

Consider that Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest crude oil reserves. The country’s legitimate leadership could offer a serious mercenary company—and Blackwater (now known as Academi) is not the only choice— a generous royalty agreement on all crude production during a specified time period if it defeats and ousts Maduro. The market then truly could work its magic.

The media seems to regard the mercenary option for Venezuela as outlandish. The irony is that Venezuela only won its independence from Spain, initially as a part of Greater Colombia, thanks to the ca. 7,000 British mercenaries who formed the heart of Simón Bolívar’s infantry.

Bolívar himself said that the members of his British Legion were the “saviors of (South) America.” He called his agent Luis López Méndez, who was posted in London to recruit British infantrymen into the legion, “the true liberator” of the new Andean nations. In his acerbic biography of Bolívar, Karl Marx wrote that the Liberator’s foreign legion “was more dreaded by the Spaniards than 10 times the number of Colombians.” Marxist hyperbole aside, the arrival of British mercenaries, many of them veterans of the Napoleonic wars, was a turning point in the war of independence.

On the Spanish side, most of the 10,000 men who arrived in Venezuela and Colombia in 1815 were themselves veterans of Spain’s own war of liberation against Napoleon. It was a force to be reckoned with, which, under General Pablo Morillo, promptly carried out the “Reconquest” of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (roughly today’s Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela). Hence Bolívar’s need to build a formidable infantry force by recruiting British mercenaries. By contrast, Venezuela’s armed forces today are a mere instrument of repression, undoubtedly skilled at subduing an unarmed populace, but ill-prepared to wage combat against a competent enemy.

Plagued by mass desertions even from its officer corps, Venezuela’s military is a low-wage (even by regional standards), poorly equipped outfit whose combat capacity is a fraction of its reported size of 120,000 troops. Soldiers often take second jobs to supplement their meager pay, and the Air Force struggles to get its planes off the ground. In 2021, around 300 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a supposedly demobilized guerrilla group, defeated a much larger, better-equipped Venezuelan government task force, which even had air support and armored vehicles. According to Insight Crime:

“The (FARC’s) 10th Front had effectively exposed how the capacity of the Venezuelan military has been degraded, not only through neglect but also through the government turning it into a political tool whose primary purpose is not to defend the country but to maintain the Chavista regime, said a retired military general…

‘The armed forces are morally depressed because they have been used, ideologized, politicized,’ he said. ‘They have lost their objective, their reason for existing.’”

It is thus hardly surprising that, according to Chilean journalists expelled from Venezuela for covering the 2024 election, the military personnel themselves also voted overwhelmingly against Maduro.

None of which guarantees that a proper mercenary force, were Venezuela’s leadership to put it together, could rout Maduro’s forces and easily remove the tyrant from power. The mission’s logistics would be a challenge, and ill-planned, poorly financed efforts have failed before. Despite much bloodshed, a Syria-style stalemate could ensue, in which case a part of the country would remain under Maduro’s grasp, with the legitimate government in control of the rest (which, I would argue, would be an improvement compared to the current scenario). The risk is significant, the outcome is uncertain. But the alternative is the almost certain continuity of Maduro’s tyranny over the whole of Venezuela.

America’s war of independence was no walk in the park, but few today would claim that the founders took undue risks, or that their profound sacrifices were uncalled for. As per Locke, Jefferson, Mariana, and Suárez, a chilling lesson of history is that, on occasion, freedom cannot be won without the sword. Chilling, yet true nonetheless.

Jeffrey Miron

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced the tax rate on corporate income from 35% to 21%. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris wants to raise the rate to 28%, arguing it would be “fairer” and help fund public services. In contrast, Republican candidate Donald Trump, who signed the 2017 Act, now advocates for a 15% corporate tax rate for US-based manufacturers, calling it “the centerpiece of his plan for a manufacturing renaissance.”

Both approaches are way off: the right corporate tax rate is 0%.

Beyond lowering the return to capital and thus reducing economic growth, taxing corporate income has three negatives.

First, taxing corporate income perpetuates the idea that something other than people can pay taxes. False. If you can’t shake hands with it, it doesn’t pay taxes. Corporations send checks to the IRS, but the economic burden of these payments falls on consumers (via higher prices), employees (via lower wages), and shareholders (via lower after-tax profits). Believing otherwise implies—incorrectly—that governments can fund their activities by making corporations pay their fair share, rather than by taxing people.

Second, taxing corporate income makes it harder for investors to understand corporate accounts, since corporations subject to taxation take actions that lower their taxable income even when not economically sensible.

Third, taxing corporate income leads governments to distinguish between for-profit (taxable) and non-profit (non-taxable) entities. This allows politicization of such designations and forces governments to make inherently controversial decisions about which activities and organizations are charitable, educational, religious, and so on.

The standard argument in favor of taxing corporate income—soaking the rich—is weak at best. Although existing evidence suggests that corporate taxation falls disproportionately on higher-income taxpayers, it harms lower-income taxpayers in many cases, including by lowering wages. A more targeted approach is progressive rates in the personal income tax system, possibly combined with a social safety net like universal basic income.

An ideal tax system distorts economic decisions as little as possible and avoids incentivizing evasion, avoidance, confusion, and politicization. A 0% corporate tax rate does just that.

This article appeared on Substack on October 25, 2024. Apex Poudel, a student at Motherland Secondary School in Pokhara, Nepal, assisted in the preparation of this post. 

Colleen Hroncich

“Are they waving Terrible Towels?” I wondered for a minute when I attended my first National School Choice Week event in 2018. As a lifelong Steelers fan, that’s what a bright yellow rectangular fabric waving in the air usually was. And the event was in Pittsburgh, so it made sense. But, no, these were yellow scarves—and they’ve come to symbolize school choice.

National School Choice Week, a charitable project of the National School Choice Awareness Foundation (NSCAF), is celebrated throughout the country every year in January. Yellow scarves were purposely chosen to visually unify the celebrations, says Shelby Doyle, vice president of Public Awareness at the foundation. “The classic yellow school bus was the inspiration for the color, and the scarves were seasonally appropriate for January and easy for all ages of people to wear,” she explains.

Since the first National School Choice Week celebration in 2011, the event has grown by leaps and bounds. NSCAF now serves as a year-round resource for parents, teachers, school leaders, and policymakers. One of the more recent additions to the foundation’s offerings is Navigate School Choice, found at the catchy domain myschool​choice​.com.

The expansion of school choice policies that allow families to use tax funding for a variety of educational options has created tremendous opportunities. But, as I’ve written about previously, it has also created new challenges as parents try to understand the changing landscape. Navigate School Choice is a powerful tool designed to help parents overcome those challenges.

Shelby says Navigate School Choice is essentially the top of the funnel as parents explore their options. “Because of our scale, we are often the first place people start when they’re Googling local options,” she says. “We have robust state-specific information on our site. But we don’t want to be the last place and the last person you talk to. The goal is to kind of give you the elevator pitch for your state and then hopefully connect you with a state navigator organization that can speak with much more nuance to the things that are relevant where you live and be that person on the ground with you.”

That’s where the Navigate School Choice Network comes in. State and local navigators are on the front lines, advocating for choice policies, guiding parents through state rules, and helping them find options in their areas. By joining the network, these organizations gain access to resources to help them fundraise, budget, build a website, and promote the website—all of which will help them fulfill their missions more effectively. They also have monthly Zoom calls where they share ideas and help each other with problems or questions that arise.

For new or small organizations, the website support may be the most exciting part of Navigate School Choice. The school finder tool—which lets you search for schools by zip code, grade, and school type—is particularly useful because building and maintaining a mapping feature is expensive, complicated, and time-consuming. Network members can syndicate their state version for free and embed it on their website. As an added bonus, NSCAF staff maintain the school database and can do the embedding and help with any issues that arise.

In addition to the school finder tool, network members can republish content from NSCAF on their websites. Shelby has found that when most people start a navigation site, they have a handful of blog posts in mind that deal with topics they care passionately about. Incorporating content from the NSCAF resources can beef up the website and make it seem more complete.

“It can help fill out topics that you don’t have the capacity to dive into right now but could be interesting,” Shelby explains. “There are things we have that I’m not sure folks even know we have—like how microschools are actually governed in your state from our microschool guide, or what your state’s laws are about accessing special education services if you’ve chosen to go outside the public system for your student, or what the laws are governing native and Indigenous peoples’ education in your state. So you can kind of plug-in those blocks to fill in things that maybe aren’t your expertise.”

To reach even more parents, there is also a Spanish language version of NSCAF’s school search resources, Conoce tus Opciones Escolares. This site has many of the same resources as the English language site, such as explanations of various types of schools, what school choice programs are in each state, and the school finder tool. But Conoce tus Opciones Escolares also has a directory of organizations allied with Latinos and an English learner’s guide that is specifically designed to support Spanish-speaking parents looking for the best options for their children.

Navigate School Choice was born of a strong desire to make sure the expansion of school choice is truly helping families. “Options are the first and an incredibly important step, but actually being able to navigate through them is critical,” says Shelby. “By bringing folks who are doing that direct work with parents together to talk about what they’re trying, what issues parents are consistently having, questions and points of confusion that are coming up across different programs, we can hopefully streamline things for parents and deliver better navigation services for them.”