Reforming Rules On The Survival Of Lawsuits

One fairly technical issue in the law is under what circumstances a legal case based upon something that arises during someone's life (or as a consequence of their death) can be brought after death, and under what circumstances a pending legal case can continue after someone's death.

Most of the rules are fine and work well, but a few should be reformed.

The majority rules on these issue in U.S. law are as follows:

1. Criminal cases. Pending criminal cases against a criminal defendant are dismissed upon the death of a criminal defendant. A criminal case is pending until all direct appeals of the conviction are exhausted. Notably, even restitution awards made in a trial court for the benefit of crime victims are vacated if the criminal defendant dies while a direct appeal of the criminal case is pending. 

While this is harsh for crime victims entitled to restitution, often restitution beneficiaries can commence a new civil action for money damages from the crime against the criminal defendant's estate using evidence presented originally in a criminal restitution hearing, however. The simplicity of the rule is also desirable.

2. Most civil actions survive. Most rights to bring a civil lawsuit and most pending civil lawsuits, survive the death of the person bringing them, often with a short extension of a statute of limitations which would have expired shortly after the death of the person. In these cases, the probate estate of the person with a right to bring the lawsuit or who is the party bringing the lawsuit is substituted for the person who died.

3. Personal civil actions lapse. The right to bring a civil lawsuit and pending civil lawsuits for personal injuries and defamation and certain other "personal actions" terminates at the death of the person bringing them. But, if a money judgment is obtained in such a lawsuit, that money judgment survives the death of the person bringing the claim and belongs to their probate estate. The status of a "personal action" in which a judgment has been entered but is subject to appeal is not necessarily consistent from state to state.

This is a bad rule and a better rule would be to allow all civil claims of a deceased person for money damages to survive their death. People who physically injure you or harm your non-economic interests in reputation or dignity or civil rights should not get a windfall when the person whom they wronged dies.

4. Divorces and legal separation. A divorce or legal separation action is dismissed if a final trial court property division/financial decree has not yet been entered in the case, but survives if a final trial court property division/financial decree has been entered. 

Whether this rule really makes sense or not is a close call. Allowing divorces and legal separations which had been filed already to continue after death and to be handled by the deceased spouse's probate estate, would not necessarily be worse, and there is good reason to say that it would be better (and it would be closer to the universal general rule). In reality, most divorce cases that are commenced after not abandoned due to a reconciliation mid-case, although it does happen. This rule was devised in the days of fault based divorce when filing for a divorce did not guarantee that it would be granted, something that is no longer the case in the no-fault divorce era. The economic incentive the current rule creates for a divorcing spouse to kill their soon to be ex-spouse if they think that they won't be caught is not a good one. But, this incentive is weaker in community property states where the property division upon death and the property division upon divorce are very similar.

Paternity can be established after either the child, or the parent, has died, if legally necessary for some purpose. Child support obligations generally survive death, although this can sometimes be adjusted prospectively. Alimony payments arising after the death of either the alimony beneficiary or the alimony payor die, although there are exceptions. 

Court orders awarding parenting time and parental responsibilities to a person who die are mostly moot after that person dies, although sometimes their right to appoint a guardian by a will or other document may be honored after their death.

5. Wrongful death plaintiffs. In most states, the right to bring a civil lawsuit for wrongful death belongs to statutorily designated next of kin of the person who was killed, rather than to the estate of the person who was killed.

This is an unduly complicated rule that can lead to problems. A better rule would be to give the right to sue for wrongful death to the probate estate, even though this means that the wrongful death lawsuit proceeds would then be available to the dead person's creditors.

6. Guardianships and conservatorships. When someone subject to a guardianship or conservatorship dies, there is a short post-death period in which the guardianship or conservatorship is finally settled and then converted to a probate case.

7. Deceased defendants. In almost every case, any civil liability for money damages that someone who died had under any legal theory survives their death, with their probate estate substituted for the person who died, sometimes with minor adjustments to the statute of limitations for suing. 

If the lawsuit was commenced before the person died, usually, their probate estate is substituted as a defendant in the case. 

If the lawsuit was not commenced before the person died, usually, a claim must be filed in the probate estate of the person who died (which can be opened by a creditor if the next of kin fail to do so), if the probate estate is solvent, by both the deadline of a statute of limitations and the deadline for filing probate claims.

If the lawsuit was not commenced before the person died, and there is no probate estate or the probate estate is insolvent, but that person was covered by liability insurance, a "direct action" can be filed against the insurance company, bypassing the probate estate, by the statute of limitations. 

One notable exception to this general rule is that federally guaranteed student loans are generally forgiven, as a matter of contract upon death.

8. In rem claims. If someone has obtained an interest in specific property, such as a judgment lien or a mortgage or a car loan or a co-ownership interest in the property, that right in the property survives the death of the owner of that property (and the death of the owner of the right in the property), even if a deadline for filing a claim in the probate estate is missed by the claimant. But, this "in rem" claim is limited to the specific pieces of property affected by the claimant's rights in that property.

Also, notably, a death is often an event of default under contracts to which the deceased person is a party, and collection efforts of in rem creditors like mortgage lenders, can't be delayed by having a probate estate file for bankruptcy.

The inability of probate estates to obtain temporary protection from collection actions by in rem creditors of the deceased person is a bad rule. The ability to declare a default under a contract such as a mortgage that is being fully performed is also sometimes problematic.

9. Limited Liability Companies and Partnerships In most U.S. states, owners of limited liability companies and partnerships that die or otherwise transfer their rights in the company or partnership have greatly diminished rights at that point, in contrast to owners of corporations whose estates generally receive all of the rights of the deceased corporation shareholder.

This is a bad rule for both lifetime transfers of ownership interests and at death. The corporate form rule is a much better rule.

10. Bankruptcy. I honestly don't know from memory what rules apply when someone in the midst of a bankruptcy proceeding dies. I suspect that the bankruptcy lapses, but I'm not sure that this is the case and any rule raised lots of tricky subsidiary issues related to how the loose ends of the pending bankruptcy case are wound up. I may supplement this post if I have occasion to look into this issue.

Where Do Police Most Often Shoot People?

As explained in a story reporting on it, new study "looked at police shootings from 2015 to 2020 and researchers found that 45% happened in rural areas and 22% happened in the suburbs." This leaves 33% in urban areas.

About 20% of the population of the U.S. is rural, according to the census bureau. In a three-way urban-suburban-rural split, according to the Pew Research Center, the nation is 31% urban, 55% suburban, and 14% rural. So, police shoot people with an average frequency in urban areas, with a highly elevated frequency of 2.5-3 times the average in rural areas, and a far below average frequency (about 60% below average) in suburban areas.

Introduction 

Much research on shootings by police has focused on urban jurisdictions, but most U.S. law enforcement agencies are not located in cities. Prior research suggests that rates of fatal shootings by police are comparable between urban and nonurban areas. Yet, shooting characteristics across the urban–rural continuum are unknown. This study describes and compares fatal and nonfatal injurious shootings by officers in U.S. urban, suburban, and rural areas from 2015 to 2020. 

Methods 

Characteristics of fatal and nonfatal injurious shootings by police were abstracted from Gun Violence Archive. In 2023–2024, using ZIP-code and county-based rurality designations, the national distribution, incidence, and characteristics of injurious shootings by police were compared across urban, suburban, and rural areas of the U.S. 

Results 

Rates of injurious shootings in rural areas approached or exceeded those of urban rates. As rurality increased, proportionately more injurious shootings involved single responders, sheriffs, or multiple agency types. Across the urban–rural continuum, characteristics of precipitating incidents were similar. Injurious shootings were most frequently preceded by domestic violence incidents, traffic stops, or shots-fired reports; co-occurring behavioral health needs were common. After accounting for local demographic differences, Black, indigenous, and Hispanic residents were injured at higher rates than White residents in all examined areas. 

Conclusions 

Shootings by police represent an overlooked and inequitable source of injury in rural areas. Broadly similar incident characteristics suggest potential for wide-reaching reforms. To prevent injuries, crisis prevention, dispatch, and response systems must assure proportionate rural-area coverage. In addition, legislative prevention and accountability measures should include sheriffs’ offices for optimal rural-area impact. 

Ward, et al., "Characteristics of Injurious Shootings by Police Along the Urban–Rural Continuum" American Journal of Preventive Medicine (June 4, 2024) (open access).

Federal Court Reforms Worth Considering

1. Reduce The Scope Of Federal Court Jurisdiction

In terms of major top line categories, federal criminal cases break down as follows:

* Violent Crimes 2.4%

* Property Offenses 11.3%

* Drug Offenses 27.8%

* Firearms and Explosives Offenses 13.9%

* Sex Offenses 3.6%

* Justice System Offenses 0.9%

* Immigration Offenses 33.5%

* General Offenses 1.9%

* Regulatory Offenses 1.5%

* Traffic Offenses 2.2%

The single most commonly charged offense is illegal reentry by an alien which accounts for 27.5% of all federal criminal defendants. Like all immigration offenses, it has no state law equivalent, but there is no really compelling reason to make this offense a crime, rather than simply making it an administrative immigration matter that is a grounds for deportation and for denial of future immigration benefits. Improper entry by an alien accounts for just 0.6% of all federal criminal defendants but is another unnecessary federal immigration crime.

many federal crimes . . . are easily repealed and left to state and local authorities (with the estimated impact on the federal docket): Most federal homicides (0.1%), bank robbery (0.6%), kidnapping (0.2%), most racketeering offenses (0.6%), theft and embezzlement from banks and financial institutions (0.1%), many federal fraud offenses (0.7%), pornography offenses (1.7%), and all intrastate drug offenses (25.5%), for example, could be repealed.

Combined, repealing the crime of illegal re-entry by an aliens, and the other crimes suggested would reduce the federal criminal docket by 57.5% and probably a little more than that . . . This would also greatly shrink the federal prison system, although not proportionately, since the immigration offenses decriminalized typically involve short, often mere "time served" sentences.

Combined with a significant (roughly 51.9%) reduction in federal civil dockets by simply repealing 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 (general federal question jurisdiction) which accounts for about 18.4% of cases that don't have an additional specific jurisdictional basis, and 1332 (diversity jurisdiction) which accounts for 32.9% of civil cases filed in federal court), these straight forward reforms could greatly reduce the importance of the federal courts . . . , thereby decreasing the stakes in federal judicial appointments below the U.S. Supreme Court level.

From here. 

2. Increase the Size Of The U.S. Supreme Court

Add 6 new justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, bringing the total number of justices to 15, initially 3 ultraconservatives, 3 conservatives, and 9 liberals.

The U.S. Supreme Court quorum should be reduced from six of nine justices now, to eight of fifteen justices, to prevent a boycott that undermines a majority decision.

The number of justices in an expanded Supreme Court needed to grant certiorari would be six or seven as determined by the court.

The U.S. Supreme Court should elect its own Chief Justice rather than having that post designated by the President and the U.S. Senate, in furtherance of the separation of powers.

A larger court might also have a greater capacity to handle more cases per term since there would be fewer lead opinions to write per justice.

3. Transfer Indian Country felonies from U.S. District Courts to a new court.

Tribal courts handle misdemeanors committed by Native Americans on Indian Reservations and civil cases. Generally, felonies committed on Indian Reservations, by both Native Americans and non-Native Americans, are tried in U.S. District Court by federal prosecutors. 

I would favor creating a new federal trial court system and corps of federal prosecutors and investigators who would handle felonies committed by Native Americans on Indian Reservations, which make up a large share of the "blue collar crime" docket in the federal courts, with appeals from these courts going to a new federal circuit court.

4. Discouraging Judge Shopping and National Injunctions

* Require cases in a U.S. District Court to be randomly allocated to the judges in the district.

* Require cases challenging the constitutionality or validity of a federal law or regulation to be heard by a three U.S. District Court judge panel. There would be a direct appeal of right to the U.S. Supreme Court in cases where the law or regulation is invalidated, except as provided below.

* Limit facial challenges of federal laws and federal regulations to a three U.S. District Court judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (with appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit). 

* Clarify that the statute of limitations for challenges to the process by which a regulation is adopted runs from the date that the regulation was adopted (overturning a recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent). 

* Limit the authority to enter a national injunction that binds the United States vis-a-vis anyone other than the parties to the case to a three U.S. District Court judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (with appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit).

5. Splitting The 9th Circuit, And A Merger

Form a new 12th Circuit consisting of California, Nevada, and Arizona, leaving the remaining courts in the 9th Circuit in Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, the Northern Marina Islands, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.

As much as anything, this pre-empts less desirable splits. There would be no pressure based upon the number of judges or docket load to split up the rump 9th Circuit with its six states and two territories, and it would have a balanced red-blue mix. The new 12th Circuit with three states would still be very large in terms of its number of judges and docket size, and it would be even more dominated by California than the existing 9th Circuit, although it would also have a red-blue mix.

Splitting California up would lead to chaos, and moving Arizona from the 9th to 10th Circuits would also lead to complicated issues of which circuit's precedents applied to it. Circuits have also always had at least three states, which this plan would maintain. California, Nevada, and Arizona have strong economic ties and would benefit from having only a single circuit's precedents to govern them, which would not happen, for example, in a plan where California, Hawaii, Alaska, and the two territories were part of a new 12th Circuit.

The D.C. Circuit could be merged into the Federal Circuit.

A mentioned above, there would also be a new U.S. Court of Appeals For Indian Country.

The split would also leave 15 U.S. Courts of Appeal (twelve numbered circuits, the newly merged Federal Circuit, the Indian Country Circuit, and the U.S. Court of Appeals For the Armed Forces), one of which could be allocated to each justice in an expanded U.S. Supreme Court, as a circuit justice for that court.

6. Circuit splits.

One way to mitigate the harm caused by circuit splits, albeit at the cost of certainty in any particular circuit, would be to downgrade the effect of a precedent, even in the circuit in which it was decided, from binding precedent to persuasive authority, on any point of law with regard to which there is a live circuit split that has not been resolved by U.S. Supreme Court ruling, statutory change in the law, or a later en banc decision in the same case that the panel decided.

This would bring more judges into the process of considering the issue decided by the initial panel on the policy and precedent merits as a case of first impression, rather than pursuant to a precedent which has been seriously questioned.

If the panel decision downgraded to persuasive authority is well argued, it will still be followed. But, if it was poorly reasoned, other judges considering the issue will decline to follow it.

This rule would also put more pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress to resolve legal issues upon which circuit splits arise. This pressure should be present because many firms and organizations and even individuals need to take an action which will ultimately be subject to legal review in more than one circuit and a circuit split cements the inability of these people to predict the legal outcome of that issue since they don't know where it will arise.

 From here.

7. Habeas corpus and prisoner's litigation

In 2004, there were about 19,000 non-capital federal habeas corpus petitions filed and there were about 210 capital federal habeas corpus petitions filed in U.S. District Court. There are about 60 habeas corpus cases filed in the U.S. Supreme Court's original jurisdiction each year. The U.S. Courts of Appeal do not have original jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions. . . . As of 2004, the percentage of federal habeas corpus petitions involving state death sentences was still about 1% of the total. . . . About 63% of issues raised in habeas corpus petitions by state court prisoners are dismissed on procedural grounds and about 35% of those issues are dismissed on the merits, while about 2% are either resolved favorable to the prisoner on the merits or remanded to a state court for further proceedings at the U.S. District Court level. . . . [A]study found that when habeas corpus petitions in death penalty cases were traced from conviction to completition of the case that there was "a 40 percent success rate in all capital cases from 1978 to 1995." . . . [Another study] puts the success rate in habeas corpus cases involving death row inmates even higher, finding that between "1976 and 1991, approximately 47% of the habeas petitions filed by death row inmates were granted." . . . about 20% of successful habeas corpus petitions involve death penalty cases. . . . As of 1991, the average number of federal habeas corpus petitions filed in the United States was 14 per 1,000 people in state prison, but this ranged greatly from state to state from a low a 4 per 1,000 in Rhode Island to a high of 37 per 1,000 in Missouri. 

The number of non-death penalty convictions reversed in federal habeas corpus proceedings is about 3 per 10,000.

From here.

These cases, and prisoner's litigation, are very numerous but often futile, in part due to harsh restrictions in the 1996 Prisoner Litigation Reform Act and the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Acts.

There were 9,690 prisoner's petitions, including habeas corpus petitions, out of 293,539 civil cases in U.S. District Court in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2023 (about half of the number filed twenty years ago in 2004), and about 3.3% of the civil docket. 

In the U.S. Courts of Appeal there are 9,089 prisoner's petitions out of 39,987 total appeals, in the same time period, and about 22.7% of all federal appeals.

Prisoner petitions constituted 69 percent of the civil pro se caseload. Civil rights actions accounted for 14 percent of the civil pro se caseload. The majority of prisoner petitions are filed pro se. . . . from 2000 to 2019, in 91 percent of prisoner petition filings, the plaintiffs were self-represented. In contrast, only 11 percent of non-prisoner civil case filings involved plaintiffs and/or defendants who were self-represented.

From here. 

A large share of filings in the U.S. Supreme Court are in forma pauperis (IFP) filings. In its 2022 annual report, the U.S. Supreme Court statistics were as follows:

The total number of cases filed in the Supreme Court decreased eight percent from 5,307 filings in the 2020 Term to 4,900 filings in the 2021 Term. 

The number of cases filed in the Court’s in forma pauperis docket decreased five percent from 3,477 filings in the 2020 Term to 3,288 filings in the 2021 Term. 

The number of cases filed in the Court’s paid docket decreased 12 percent from 1,830 filings in the 2020 Term to 1,612 filings in the 2021 Term. 

During the 2021 Term, 70 cases were argued and 63 were disposed of in 58 signed opinions, compared to 72 cases argued and 69 disposed of in 55 signed opinions in the 2020 Term. The Court also issued seven per curiam decisions in argued cases during the 2021 Term.

From here. 

About one in 470 IFP petitions are granted each term, while about one in 26 paid petitioners are granted each term. The IFP petitions are mostly, but not entirely, prisoner's petitions. 

This system isn't very functional either at providing relief for prisoners who have legitimate cases, or at managing cases without merit well. Access to the courts without counsel, particularly in the contexts of claims of wrongful convictions and prison conditions, is virtually meaningless. There are wrongs to be righted, amidst legions of bored prisoners with no downside in trying, but the current process does a poor job of sorting them.

At a minimum, this issue should be re-examined in good faith in search of a better solution.

8. Judicial ethics.

I would suggest two judicial ethics reforms:

* A rule that federal judges must recuse themselves from cases where the President or former President who appointed that judge is a party in a non-official capacity.

* A binding ethics code for the U.S. Supreme Court with the power to order a judge to recuse or impose other sanctions similar to those for other judges. Some violations would be criminal offenses.

9. Jurisdiction Over Corporations.

The recently overturned rule that a corporation may be sued, in general jurisdiction, any state in which it has an office for the conduct of business or an employee, should be reinstated by statute.

Jewish Genetic Ancestry

From Razib Khan's substack. A brief quote from the article:

The admixture results immediately offer a simple explanation for why in the PCA of the 2010 paper the Palestinians were shifted toward the Saudis: they have African ancestry, and the Arabian cluster that is maximized in the Saudis is itself closer to the Nigerian African cluster genetically on the pairwise Fst representation. In other words, any African ancestry in Palestinians will also move them on a PCA toward Saudis even without direct Saudi ancestry per se.

Who Gained From Corporate Tax Cuts?

Trump's 2017 tax bill dramatically reduced corporate income taxes. Who gained? 

Hint. Contrary to the claims of apologist economists, wasn't workers.

The Dog That Didn't Bark

You know what they didn't have at the Republican National Convention?

Lots of senior Democratic Party officials condemning Biden or Harris.

What other things are different?

Harris does not have a criminal record for 32 counts of felony fraud, or any other criminal record, and does not have any criminal cases pending against her.

Harris has not tried to enrich herself or her family personally with federal money, the money of foreign countries trying to influence her, or campaign donors.

Harris has not been found liable for hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud damages.

Harris is not legally banned from running businesses in New York State or any other state.

Harris did not defraud charities and is not banned from operating charities.

Harris did not have to settle a fraud suit related to her promotion of a for profit educational institution.

Harris does not stay up late at night making ranting statements on social media.

Harris has not been found civilly liable for sexual assault.

Harris was not found by a court of law following an evidentiary hearing to have engaged in an insurrection against the United States (the U.S. Supreme Court says that this part of the U.S. Constitution isn't enforceable, but did nothing to cast doubt on the underlying factual finding made by a court against Trump).

Harris did not hide multiple bankers boxes of classified documents in an insecure bathroom in a resort and did not lie to federal prosecutors about it.

Harris did not try to bully Georgia election officials into faking election results in 2020.

Harris does not have dozens of close associates who have been convicted of crimes.

Harris can speak in coherent complete sentences.

Harris is under 60 years old, not 78 years old.

Harris knows that there were no air force based in the Revolutionary War.

Harris knows that vaccines work and that COVID-19 is real.

Harris does not have five children with three different partners.

Harris did not pay hush money to a porn star, nor is she married to a former porn star.

Harris was not a close associate of Jeffery Epstein, a notorious pimp of child prostitutes.

Harris did not tell people decades ago that she was joining her political party because they were chumps that were easy to con, nor did she change her political party mid-career.

Harris is not a former porn star.

Harris did not repeatedly engage in adultery.

Harris does not brag about sexually assaulting people on videotape.

Harris has not been impeached twice by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Harris has not filed for six corporate bankruptcies, indeed, neither she nor a company she is involved with has ever filed for bankruptcy.

Harris did not massively cut taxes for the rich and big corporations causing the deficit to surge.

Harris did not negotiate a deal to abandon our allies and precipitously withdraw in Afghanistan, the other guy did that with a few months left before the withdrawal date he set when he left office.

Harris does not mock disabled people.

Harris does not encourage her supporters to engage in political violence.

Harris will acknowledge defeat if she loses the election.

Harris does not mock U.S. military veterans who were killed or wounded in U.S. wars.

Harris knows which state she's located in when she gives speeches.

Harris has not expressed admiration for dictators in Russia and North Korea.

Harris does not have a long history of engaging in racially discriminatory business practices.

Harris is literate enough to not require her national security briefings to be simplified down to the comic book level.

Harris can communicate at above the 5th grade literacy level.

Harris knows that wind mills are not an important threat to the environment.

Harris does not make bald faced lies about her height, her weight, or crowd sizes.

Fox News did not have to pay roughly $800 million in settlements because they made defamatory statements to support her, with more big settlements waiting around the corner.

Harris does not ignore court orders.

Harris is not the child of a father who was a member of the KKK and a Nazi.

Harris held high political offices before running for President.

Harris has not pledged to pardon more than a thousand people who tried to carry out a coup and assaulted police officers in the process.

Harris has not made videotaped speeches telling her audience that if she is elected, the audience will never have to vote again.

Harris did not pick a Vice Presidential nominee who said she was unfit to run for President just a few year later.

Harris did not pick a Vice Presidential nominee who has said that her administration will defy the courts if they don't like its rulings.

Harris did not promise a job in her cabinet to someone who a few months earlier said she was unfit to run for President.

Harris has been endorsed by all living former Presidents from her party unlike her opponent who has not be endorsed by any of the living former Presidents of his party.

Harris did not try to make an unsolicited offer to buy Greenland from Norway.

Why is this election even remotely close?

The Economic Impact Of Slavery And Jim Crow

You will no doubt be shocked, shocked I say, that slavery during the U.S. Civil War, and Jim Crow institutions after the U.S. Civil War, economically harmed the black families who were subjected to it. But it doesn't hurt to substantiate the obvious every now and then.

This paper studies the long-run effects of slavery and restrictive Jim Crow institutions on Black Americans’ economic outcomes. We track individual-level census records of each Black family from 1850 to 1940, and extend our analysis to neighborhood-level outcomes in 2000 and surname-based outcomes in 2023. We show that Black families whose ancestors were enslaved until the Civil War have considerably lower education, income, and wealth than Black families whose ancestors were free before the Civil War. The disparities between the two groups have persisted substantially because most families enslaved until the Civil War lived in states with strict Jim Crow regimes after slavery ended. In a regression discontinuity design based on ancestors’ enslavement locations, we show that Jim Crow institutions sharply reduced Black families’ economic progress in the long run.

From here.

Some Excellent Non-Fiction Books

 * Henry Hansmann, "The Ownership of Enterprise" (2000). 

This is one of the best analyses of the economic and legal logic the causes some entities to be organized as "for profit" investor owned companies, others to be organized as worker cooperatives or producer cooperatives or consumer cooperatives, others to be organized as member controlled non-profits, and other considerations regarding entity ownership, backed by historical and empirical analysis of what worked, what didn't, and how this supports a larger theoretical framework of what forms of entity ownership make the most sense for particular purposes. Twenty-four years after it was written, all of its conclusions remain sound.

* Theodore Caplow, "How To Run Any Organization" (1976) (207 pages exclusive of end notes).

This short and practical guide lucidly sums up most of the academic consensus knowledge about the most important lessons about what works when it comes to being a manager in an organization. Forty-eight years after it was written, its guidance has aged very well. 

It also provides a carefully pruned and curated list of fourteen more classics of the management literature for further reading, although other solid books on the topic have been written since then.

This isn't necessarily the only book you need to read about management, but it is the best introduction to the subject out there.

* Sue Spencer, "Write On Target" (1976) (121 pages exclusive of end notes).

There are many books on writing that are basically grammar textbooks, are in the same genre as the Associated Press style guide, or focus on style preferences in sentence structure (such as E. B. White and William Strunk Jr., "The Elements of Style" (4th ed. 1999) (105 pages)). 

Bryan A. Garner is the leading authority on modern, plain English, legal writing styles at a similar level of specificity to "The Elements of Style."

But Spencer addresses writing style and rhetoric at a level more focused on the forest than the trees. Many writers and writing instructors have the technical copy editing level mastery of Strunk and Garner, but can't teach and often have not even internalized the kind of insights Spencer provides into telling a compelling story, whether it is fiction or non-fiction. Instead, they merely vaguely suggest putting together an outline to compose something that a Large Language Model AI could have written. 

The titles of her ten chapters are suggestive: "Know the score", "Bite off what you can chew", "Get off to a flying start", "Zero in", "Keep dropping those bread crumbs", "Stick to your guns", "Call a spade a shovel", "Squeeze, please", "Goof-proofing", and "End before your ending."

Once again, these lessons have aged well.

Another widely acclaimed book in the same vein, which I have not yet managed to read, is Blake Snyder, "Save the Cat!: The Last Book On Screenwriting That You'll Ever Need." (2005). It is also a "forest level" writing book, but is more focused on writing "formula" scripts for movies and television, rather than having a more general focus.

* W. Phillips Shively, "Power and Choice: An Introduction To Political Science" (1987).

This textbook, from an introductory political science class I took at Miami University of Ohio, decades later, taught me two main things.

First, the title rubric that breaks politics into the dimensions of "power" and "choice" has been a useful framework for thinking about politics for my entire adult life. My natural inclination is wonkish, focusing on the optimal policy choices I would make if I were king for a day. But it is important to recognize that perfect knowledge of the right choice to make is useless unless you can secure the power necessary to implement those choices, bringing majorities along with you. Other people are more focused on the "power" aspect, often in a Marxist or conspiratorial style analysis, but forget that political policy choices do matter and have consequences, which can't simply be made blindly on a value and results neutral basis.

Second, it eschewed early modern political philosophy in favor of illustrating every topic discussed with pertinent comparative politics examples from the 20th century from all across the globe, opening my eyes to a much broader perspective than high school civics did, and on topics like non-democratic government and the workings of government bureaucracies which I hadn't realized at the time were even a part of the discipline.

It is a little bit dated, because it doesn't have post-1987 developments like the fall of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, the market reforms of China, the evolution of the European Union to a more state-like entity,  

* Ronnie Eisenberg with Kate Kelly, "Organize Yourself!" (1986).

This book covers, at the nitty gritty detail level, issues like time management; organizing your personal files and financial records, and managing mail; keeping your closets, kitchen, laundry, grocery shopping, and household help organized; organizing major projects like melding households, moving, planning trips, planning for painters, planning parties and yard sales, and looking for jobs; shopping, organizing your purse and briefcase, organizing your spouse, not misplacing things, finding a doctor, and remembering dates; and the organizational challenges of pregnancy and children.

It doesn't reflect a life transformed by smart phones, personal computers, the cloud, and the Internet, so it is a bit dated. It doesn't contain any deep and profound insights. But, if your friends describe one of your parents' offices (as my friends did) as "it looks like a newspaper stand blew up in there", and you just don't have a foundation of routines and orderliness that is second nature to you, it is good for establishing a baseline foundation for a more organized personal life.

* Randall B. Ripley, "Congress: Process and Policy" (4th ed. 1988).

Some of this book, which I read as a textbook in college, is simply par for the course political science fare. Unlike the other three books mentioned above, this book is somewhat dated (there may be more recent editions, I haven't checked).

For example, it was written before the full running of political realignment between the Democratic and Republican parties, the emergence of the firm alignment between the Republican Party and Evangelical Christianity, the coalition shifts associated with the MAGA movement, innovations in election administration like ranked choice voting and various experiments with open primaries, or the nuclear option in the U.S. Senate.

But what sets this book apart, which was mind-blowing when I first read it, was its vivid description of the early U.S. Congress and how it, and the federal government more generally, was radically transformed into a very different institution, especially as a result of the U.S. Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. This historical context is vital to understanding not just the political history of the United States, but also its legal history which closely parallels the development of other federal government institutions.

Life After Affirmative Action At MIT

We now know what the end of affirmative action looks like at a major, highly selective national university. 

Mostly, black and Latino enrollments are down, while Asian American enrollments are up. The magnitude of the shift will probably be smaller at less selective colleges and universities.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s incoming class of 2028 saw a precipitous drop off in the percentage of Black, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific Islander students, the university announced on Wednesday. It is the university’s first undergraduate class to be admitted since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year banning affirmative action.

For the incoming class of 2028, about 16 percent of students are Black, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific Islander, compared to a baseline of about 25 percent of undergraduate students in recent years, the announcement said.

The comparison to the class of 2027 was even more dramatic. The percentage of Black students enrolled dropped to 5 percent from 15 percent, and the percentage of Hispanic and Latino students dropped to 11 percent from 16 percent. White students made up 37 percent of the new class, compared to 38 percent last year.

The percentage of Asian American students in the class rose to 47 percent from 40 percent.

From the New York Times.

Home Prices And Political Identity

It isn't a perfect fit, but high home prices are strongly correlated with voting blue and low home prices are strongly correlated with voting red. Note also Zillow's novel statistic.

Public Opinion On Secession

If Texas, Oklahoma, and Alaska left the U.S. to become independent nations, the national politics of the United States would shift decisively to the left (and secession would likely be more popular in those states if it wasn't clearly illegal). 

The departure of those states, all of which are major U.S. petroleum producers, would also greatly weaken the power of oil and gas interests in Congress.

Fossil fuel production per capita:

Per capita GDP by state (% fossil fuel revenue):

* Wyoming $67,326 - 80.0%
* North Dakota $74,005 - 65.9%
* Alaska $72,274 - 27.4%
* New Mexico $49,879 - 30.7%
* West Virginia $45,272 - 28.6%
* Oklahoma $49,745 - 20.4%
* Louisiana $52,079 - 13.9%
* Texas $66,646 - 9.2%
* Pennsylvania $60,910 - 8.6%
* Colorado $72,826 - 7.0%
* Montana $48,722 - 6.0%
* Ohio $59,242 - 3.9%
* Arkansas $45,892 - 3.8%
* Utah $64,130 - 2.6%
* Kansas $62,012 - 2.1%
* Kentucky $49,763 - 1.5%
* Mississippi $39,103 - 1.3%
* Alabama $47,324 - 0.9%
* California $82,975 - 0.4%
* Indiana $58,505 - 0.3%
* Illinois $67,768 - 0.3%
* Virginia $67,786 - 0.3%
* Michigan $54,574 - 0.2%
* South Dakota $61,251 - 0.2%
* Nebraska $72,879 - 0.1%
* Arizona $55,747 - Less than 0.005%
* Idaho $48,309 - Less than 0.005%
* Maryland $68,120 - Less than 0.005%
* Tennessee $59,694 - Less than 0.005%
* New York $90,731 - Less than 0.005%
* Florida $56,571 - Less than 0.005%
* Nevada $60,177 - Less than 0.005%
* Missouri $55,537 - Less than 0.005%

International comparisons (from here):

Oil Revenues as Percentage of GDP (per the World Bank):

Country

Most Recent Year

Most Recent Value

Libya

2019

43.9

Congo, Rep.

2019

43.4

Kuwait

2019

42.1

Iraq

2019

39.6

Angola

2019

25.1

Oman

2019

24.9

Saudi Arabia

2019

24.2

Equatorial Guinea

2019

22.3

Azerbaijan

2019

21.9

Syrian Arab Republic

2007

21.3

Iran, Islamic Rep.

2018

20.4

Gabon

2019

18.8

Chad

2019

17.8

Qatar

2019

16.9

Timor-Leste

2019

16.3

United Arab Emirates

2019

16.2

Algeria

2019

14.4

Kazakhstan

2019

13.8

Brunei Darussalam

2019

11.6

Venezuela, RB

2014

11.4

Turkmenistan

2018

9.6

Russian Federation

2019

9.2

South Sudan

2015

8.5

Nigeria

2019

7.4

Ecuador

2019

6.7

Suriname

2019

5.6

Yemen, Rep.

2019

5.3

Norway

2019

4.8

Ghana

2019

4.7

Egypt, Arab Rep.

2019

4.0

Colombia

2019

3.7

Sudan

2019

3.6

Trinidad and Tobago

2019

3.3

In 2022, about 594,155 thousand (or 594 million) short tons of coal were produced in 21 states. Five states produced a total of about 433,894 thousand (or 434 million) short tons, equal to about 73% of total U.S. coal production. The five largest coal-producing states with production in thousand short tons, and their percentage shares of total U.S. coal production in 2022, were:

* Wyoming—244,730—41.2%

* West Virginia—83,448—14.0%

* Pennsylvania—39,701—6.7%

* Illinois—37,488—6.3%

* Kentucky—28,527—4.8%

From the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

60% of Texans surveyed opposed becoming an independent nation. However, 48% of Texas Republicans surveyed supported it.

From Wikipedia citing Post. Archived from the original on May 31, 2012. Retrieved May 25, 2010; "Daily Kos/Research 2000 Texas Poll". Daily Kos. Archived from the original on April 26, 2009. Retrieved November 16, 2012. Also from Wikipedia:

Secession is most popular in Alaska (36%), Texas (31%), and California (29%).

From here, as of February 2-5, 2024 (a partisan breakdown for Alaska isn't available due to the lack of both 100 Democrats and 100 Republicans in the sample, but given the experience in other states, secession is almost certainly more popular among Alaska Republicans than among Alaska Democrats).

For reference, here is a map of states that pay more in taxes than they receive in federal spending, and vice versa: