Experts in the News | Miller Center

Betsy DeVos publicly absent as critical decisions are made on public school reopenings

Given the pandemic and its potential mental and physical health effects on schoolchildren, the education secretary could have, for example, convened an emergency interagency task force to ensure coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services, states and school districts to provide detailed guidance, said Chris Lu, who was President Barack Obama's Cabinet secretary. "You have a secretary who has expressed, philosophically, little interest in public schools and in terms of her travel has visited very few public schools," Lu said. "So the idea of her actually convening an interagency task force on public schools is so antithetical to everything she's done or believes."

Chris Lu

China already has your data. Trump’s TikTok and WeChat bans can’t stop that.

When the Trump administration issued executive orders Aug. 6 blocking transactions with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and with the messaging platform WeChat, it threw the tech industry into chaos. On a basic technical level, it’s unclear how the executive orders, due to take effect Sept. 20, could even work. How, for example, will these bans be enforced? When users deploy proxy servers to access their favorite platforms — TikTok was downloaded by a record-breaking 67 million new users in the first quarter of 2020, and WeChat, China’s largest messaging app, has an estimated 19 million users in the United States — will the U.S. government start punishing preteens dancing with their grandparents while stuck at home because of the coronavirus?

Aynne Kokas

Why Biden Chose Kamala Harris as his Running Mate

Joe Biden finally revealed his choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate in the November election. Analysts say the choice of Harris wasn't just about her prosecutorial skills as former California Attorney General, but also about finding someone who can relate to people and creates a ticket that represents what America actually looks like. Harris is expected to be a formidable opponent in upcoming debates with Vice President Mike Pence. Soon after the announcement, President Trump went on the attack describing her in previous interactions as "nasty."

Jennifer Lawless

VERIFY: No, Trump can't stop Congress from taking a recess, but he can call them back on 'extraordinary occasions'

“He can summon them back into session by citing this constitutional authority," Prakash said. "Now whether individual members of Congress comply or not is another question, but that’s never to my knowledge been tested. I don’t think the president’s ever tried to forcibly round up members of Congress.”

Saikrishna Prakash

The X Factor: How Joe Biden's Running Mate Will Face Sexist Double-Standards

“Joe Biden was not perfect, Paul Ryan was not perfect, Tim Kaine was not perfect,” says Jennifer Lawless, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia. “But perfect is not the bar for men. What we’re seeing this time is anything short of a flawless candidate is a problem.”

Jennifer Lawless

Trump’s familiar routine after failing to cut deals with Congress: Signing legally dubious executive actions

In the end, Trump’s legacy may include the further erosion of the system of checks and balances envisioned under the Constitution, said Barbara A. Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “The Founders must be spinning on their marble pedestals — and not from protesters attempting to topple them,” she said in an email. “The trend toward unilateral executive orders, to avoid a polarized and stymied Congress, preceded President Trump, but he has accelerated it to the point of obliterating our bedrock constitutional principle of checking autocratic power.”

Barbara Perry