Latest Stories By Louis Jacobson

The coronavirus pandemic has already forced more than a half dozen states to delay their Democratic primaries, with more states likely to follow. This has raised an urgent question: Could the pandemic still be dangerous enough in November that the general election will have to be held mostly or entirely by mail? On the federal […]

As the coronavirus spreads across the United States, there’s increasing discussion of how to leverage an existing law to quickly scale up the manufacture of ventilators and other urgently needed medical items.  The Defense Production Act, signed by President Harry Truman, allows the federal government to take a stronger role in directing domestic manufacturing capabilities […]

With the rising likelihood of a recession caused by the coronavirus outbreak, lawmakers have begun talking about remedies that will sound familiar to anyone who lived through the Great Recession of 2008: stimulus checks, assistance to hard-hit businesses, and moves by the Federal Reserve. But economists say the upcoming recession is actually quite different from […]

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are the last two candidates standing in a months-long Democratic presidential primary race. And they have found plenty to argue about. Part of that is because they have about 77 years of legislative history and votes to mine between the two of them. Biden was first elected to the Senate […]

At times, Bernie Sanders has made a bold claim — that if he’s elected president, he can legalize marijuana nationwide by executive order, a process that sidesteps Congress and the full regulatory process. How realistic is this approach?

Bernie Sanders has staked his presidential candidacy on expanding voter turnout. "The key to this election is, can we get millions of young people who have never voted before into the political process — many working people who understand that Trump is a fraud — can we get them voting?" Sanders told the Los Angeles Times. "That is the key to this election." How hard a task would it be to expand voter turnout — for Sanders or any Democratic nominee? And how hard will it be to increase youth turnout specifically? We questioned experts and looked at the data, including results from the Super Tuesday primaries.

We rounded up 11 quotes from various points in Bernie Sanders’ career about his own party identification — starting with the left-wing Liberty Union Party — and what he thinks of the Democratic Party.

As election results roll in from Super Tuesday — the mammoth primary day when votes are cast in 14 states, one U.S. territory, and Democrats overseas — expect to hear one particular number come up again and again: 15%. Why is that such an important figure? Because it’s the threshold that determines whether a candidate takes home delegates. And delegates, rather than votes, are the building blocks for winning the Democratic nomination.

How does Bernie Sanders qualify to run in the Democratic primary when he's an independent in the Senate? The bottom line is that he's done everything the Democratic National Committee has asked him to do in order to prove his support for the party.

How does the Democrats’ delegate system work? We asked experts to explain the process and produced the following Q&A.

Heading into the South Carolina primary — a crucial contest for former Vice President Joe Biden — his campaign targeted the race’s delegate frontrunner, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. in a television ad.

What are the fastest-growing and fastest-declining jobs in the United States?