Saturday, January 10, 2026

On the Role of the European Parliament: The Mercosur Treaty

With the European Council, which represents the E.U. states, having passed the Mercosur free-trade treaty by qualified-majority voting, the legislation went on to the European Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens, to vote on final passage before being sent to E.U. President Von der Leyen for her signature. From the standpoint of this standard legislative procedure, it is significant that immediately following the vote in the Council, which is roughly equivalent to the U.S. Senate, efforts were being made to essentially side-step the Parliament, which is equivalent to the U.S. House of Representatives. Von der Leyen’s plan to sign the treaty once it passed in the Council reflects both the disproportionate power of the state governments at the federal level in the E.U. and the fact that the U.S. House is excluded from voting on treaties, whereas the U.S. Senate votes to give its consent to them before the U.S. president ratifies them (or not).  

On 9 January, 2026, the European Council voted by a super majority representing 65% of the E.U.’s population and 55% of its states to approve the Mercosur free-trade treaty with four countries in South America. President Von der Leyen had completed the negotiations on the treaty two years earlier so E.U. companies could “gain access to a market of 280 million consumers . . . where some 30,000 E.U. firms” were already operating.[1] A massive free-trade area with a combined population of 700 million inhabitants would dwarf NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement). It is no wonder that on the heels of the Council’s vote, President Von der Leyen wrote in an official statement, “I greatly look forward to signing this landmark deal . . .”[2] Not so fast. The approval procedure “also requires the consent of the European Parliament.”[3] In the Parliament, a contingent of the Renew party saw an opportunity to scuttle the proposed treaty because of the fears of European farmers, mostly in the state of France, that free trade in agriculture could harm the E.U.’s farmers financially if enough European consumers buy agricultural products from the Mercosur countries rather than domestically.

Admittedly, getting the consent of the Council by even just by qualified-majority voting had been viewed as the challenge. A contingent of the Renew party could presumably be easily outvoted in the Parliament. Nevertheless, the focus on the Council is in line with the inordinate power wielded by the states at the federal level in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Put another way, being slighted doubtlessly came as no surprise to the representatives in the Parliament. The chamber of the people had typically played second fiddle to the chamber of the states.

Even in the U.S., where the two federal legislative chambers have been viewed as equals since their founding, the U.S. House of Representatives is excluded from the procedure in which treaties proposed by the federal president are sent to the U.S. Senate for advice and to be confirmed (or rejected). If confirmed, the president can either ratify or refuse to do so. Such ratification is required for a treaty to go into effect. The U.S. House of Representatives is excluded.

Resonating with the exclusion of the U.S. House, the E.U. state chairing the Council at the time “used a legal procedure” just after the vote “to enable the provisional implementation of the agreement without a parliamentary vote.”[4] Although the Parliament’s upcoming vote could derail the treaty, the provisional implementation would make it more difficult for representatives to vote against the treaty because it would already be underway. Even if President Von der Leyen would sign the treaty before the Parliament’s vote, the treaty would be rendered invalid, but in setting up a fait accompli, the Commission and the Council were making use of momentum such that voting against the treaty would be more difficult. Furthermore, that the U.S. House is excluded from the legislative consent and ratification of U.S. treaties implicitly implies that maybe the European Parliament, which also represents citizens rather than states, should not be involved in the passage of E.U. treaties with other countries. In federal unions in which governmental sovereignty is divided, regardless of the proportions, the legislative chamber in which the semi-sovereign states are represented can be argued to be more important in international treaties precisely because of the sovereignty still reserved by the states in their political union should have a say, even if by qualified majority voting (in the E.U. Council) or a two-thirds majority (in the U.S. Senate).  Put another way, both of these bars, being higher than a simple majority, reflect the fact that the states in the E.U. and U.S. are semi-sovereign.

In tension with the argument that the E.U. Parliament and the U.S. House should also be included so the respective federal citizens could also have a say, the states might object that a defeat in either of those chambers would nullify what the semi-sovereign state governments have agreed to, and that such sovereignty, together with the limited sovereignty of the respective unions, should not be denied domestically with respect to relations with other countries. The tension here reveals a judgment call, which is of such a magnitude and indeterminacy to be properly determined by popular sovereignty—that which is reserved to the people themselves as an electorate. Moreover, this comparison of the E.U. and U.S. works so well that the equivalency of the two unions, even with the very different proportions of governmental sovereignty delegated by basic law to the federal level, can be easily grasped even by Euroskeptics and anti-federalists.


Friday, January 9, 2026

Iran’s Theocracy: An Uneasy Fusion of Religion and Political Economy

As mass protests erupted in Iran during the second week of January, 2026, Iran’s theocracy was on edge. That the protests stemmed from the dire economic conditions facing the people amid staggering inflation, including on basic food staples, rather than from foreign affairs, raises the question of whether religious clergy, including the “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are competent in making economic policy. Without the ongoing political pressure that can come from constituents in a representative democracy, or republic, it is no surprise that the protests in Iran quickly became mass riots. In other words, bad economic policy by religious clerics in power in an autocracy can easily result in popular protests abruptly erupting into rioting. The overreaching of functionaries based in the domain of religion into politics (including economic policy), such that the distinctiveness of the two domains is ignored or obfuscated, can be distinguished from the problems that go with autocracy.

On January 9, 2026, the theocracy signaled that the rioting would be dealt with severely. Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, in assuming a non-judicial political role, “vowed that punishment for protesters ‘will be decisive, maximum and without any legal leniency.”[1] Separation of powers obviously did not exist in the Islamic regime. That both the internet and international calls were being blocked by the government signals that the protests could realistically result in the fall of the Islamic revolution in Iran. In other words, the severity of the government’s measures in shutting down communication can be read as indicative of a government whose days are numbered. In an interview, U.S. President Trump said that Iran’s dictator was already “looking to go someplace” because the situation on the streets was “getting very bad.”[2]

Demonstrating that expertise in theology does not extend to politics (as well as economics), Khamenei accused the rioters of “ruining their own streets . . . in order to please the president of the United States.”[3] Nothing was said about the hyperinflation that was putting even basic foodstuffs out of reach for an increasing number of people as the reason for the protests. Nothing was said about Crown Prince Reza Pahavi having called for the protests on January 8, 2025, and that the protests “included cries in support of the shah,” which can be distinguished from chants in favor of President Trump, which did not occur.[4] Pahavi was not calling for the United States to invade Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rhetoric was therefore very poor from a political standpoint (i.e., his statement was incorrect), and he did not address the reeling economy in any constructive way in terms of advocating economic reform that actually had a chance of working. Knowledge in theology does not carry over onto the domains of politics and economics, so the overreach is problematic.

This critique can be distinguished from one premised on the American separation of “church and state,” which actually could use some work in American jurisprudence because “In God We Trust” is printed on the currency. To be against a government establishing a religion (e.g., proclaiming a religion to be the official religion) is different than being against a religion superimposing its distinctive criteria onto a civic government because an over-reaching of the political domain into the religious domain is distinct from the religious domain overreaching into the political realm, even though both instantiate the conflation of two distinct domains of human experience. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should have stuck to theology as a cleric rather than try to run a government, and his response to the economic protests—even that such protests morphed so quickly into riots—demonstrates the intractably problematic nature of overreaching from one domain onto another, qualitatively different, one as if the criteria and credentials of the former could and should supplant those of the latter in the latter.


1. Jon Gambrell, “Iran Supreme Leader Signals Upcoming Crackdown on Protesters ‘Ruining Their Own Streets’ for Trump,” APnews.com, January 9, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Friday, January 2, 2026

Bulgaria: From the Lion to the Euro

Just weeks after the government of the E.U. state of Bulgaria resigned amid protests against the rampant corruption, the state traded in its currency, the levs, which means lion, for the federal currency, the euro. In the new year, 2026, Bulgaria stood to relieve holders of the state’s debt and to tame the endemic inflation that has plagued the state’s economy. In November, 2025, for example, food prices had risen by 5% year-on-year, “more than double the eurozone average.”[1] The term “eurozone” is actually problematic, as it, like the application of the jargon, “bloc,” to the E.U. itself is meant to obfuscate readers regarding the genre of the political, federal union. To claim that Bulgaria joined a currency zone is inferior stating that the state adopted the federal currency. Stated properly, the currencies in the E.U. can be compared with those that were in the early U.S., and all of those combinations of state and federal currencies can be held to be compatible with federalism.

When the U.S. “bloc” began in 1776, the members were sovereign countries and therefore they had their own currencies. The federal dollar commenced in 1785. The member-states had their own currencies until 1788, so those currencies were concurrent with the federal dollar for three years. The E.U.’s model has been that state governments can choose whether to retain their own currency or adopt the euro, so no state can have both its own currency and the euro as legal tender at the same time. The E.U. and U.S. provide us with various combinations regarding currencies in a federal system, none of those combinations being at variance with federalism itself. In fact, the salient feature of dual-sovereignty that characterizes early-modern federalism—which is distinct from confederalism, wherein the states hold all rather than just some of governmental sovereignty—is arguably most consistent with two currencies being legal tender. This is not to say that the U.S. got this right for three years when both state and federal currencies were legal tender in their respective jurisdictions. The American “bloc” was a confederation until 1989, after which the federal governmental institutions and the states both had at least some portion of the governmental sovereignty in the system. When dual-sovereignty came into effect, only the federal currency was legal tender throughout the union.

Of course, like the U.S. in its first several decades, the E.U. in 2025 still suffered from being dominated by its states at the expense of collective action at the federal level. Because one of the chief benefits of a federal system of dual sovereignty is that the states can operate as a check against excessive federal encroachment and the federal institutions can operate as a check against excesses, such as corruption and anti-democratic tyranny, in state governments. The latter check has been severely hampered in the E.U. because the state governments dominate even at the federal level. The adoption of the federal currency by Bulgaria can be viewed as a step in the direction of achieving federal-state balance of power because, as Christine Legarde, president of the E.U.’s central bank, said at the time, the euro is a “powerful symbol” of “shared values and collective strength.”[2] Such strength has been the big loser as the heads of the state governments have resisted, as per their political self-interest, proposing and voting for additional transfers of governmental sovereignty to the federal governmental institutions (i.e., government) in the executive and legislative branches.

So perhaps it can be said that dual currencies fits best with dual sovereignty, at least theoretically, but that this presupposes a balance of power between the state and federal governmental institutions. In the case of a “bottom-heavy” federal system, such as the U.S. was through the nineteenth century, and as the E.U. has been through at least its first three decades, as many states as possible should replace their respective currencies with the euro. Admittedly, even if the 27 rather than just 21 E.U. states would adopt the euro, this would not in itself mean that the E.U.’s hand would be strengthened in defense and foreign policy to push Russia back from Ukraine and Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank. Given the tremendous imbalance of power, however, such that the E.U. has had trouble in asserting collective action for the benefit of the whole union rather than just a few states, a powerful symbol of collective strength could help to dispel the allure of the anti-federalist, or Euroskeptic, ideology.

That intangible benefit is irreducibly political, and as such, it can be easily dismissed by E.U. citizens who are in denial regarding the distinctively political genre of their union. For such people, the adoption of the federal currency by more states is viewed primarily as potentially strengthening weak state economies and bad monetary policies. This applies especially to the adoption by small, corrupt states—Bulgaria being roughly equivalent to Maryland in population in 2025. After being turned out of office by mass protests against the systemic governmental corruption, the state government of Bulgaria certainly could not be relied upon to resist the temptation to inflate its currency given the public debt there. Generally speaking, corrupt people lack the self-discipline necessary to govern anything. The E.U.’s central bank was much more reliable, especially with Lagarde having been at the helm for many years, than the government of the E.U. state of Bulgaria. As salient as this benefit is in the state’s adoption of the euro, the impact, although subtle and largely symbolic, on European political integration, already under way, is worthy enough not to be relegated or ignored outright. The power of symbol can be louder in the long run that a lion’s roar.


1. Aleksandar Brezar, “Bulgaria Switches to the Euro Amid Mixed Reactions from Its Citizens,” Euronews.com, 1 January, 2026.
2. Ibid.

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

A Big-State Governor Usurps the Role of the European Council's President

The governor of a large state, if speaking for the E.U., risks not only undercutting federal officials who can speak for the E.U., but also subtly orienting federal policy in the interest of that state rather than the entire union. It is important, therefore, that the president of the European Council be tasked with speaking publicly for the Council, rather than usurped.

On December 19, 2025, the president of the E.U. state of France stood at the European Council podium to announce, presumably speaking for the Council, “Either a robust and lasting peace is reached, with the required (security) guarantees, or we will need in the weeks ahead to find ways for Europeans to re-engage in a fulsome dialogue with Russia, and in complete transparency.”[1] Because Macron was not the chair, or president, of the European Council, it is impossible to know whether he is expressing his own opinion or that of the Council; his decision to make the announcement rather than defer to the Council’s president thus weakened the Council. President Putin of Russia had grounds to dismiss Macron’s statement direct talks between Europe will be needed if the American peace proposal falters. Simply put, Macron did not have standing to speak for Europe in terms of talks. Alternatively, he could have stated that his E.U. state would try to have direct talks with Putin, but the downside to that is that Putin could play the E.U. state governments against each other. Hence distinctively E.U. foreign policy would be worthwhile.

At the end of December, 2025, European Commission President Von der Leyen was on firmer ground in insisting that Ukraine’s accession to the European Union as a state was “a key component” of the security guarantees that Ukraine was then seeking as part of a deal with Russia. According to Von der Leyen, who unlike Macron can speak for the E.U., accession represents “a key security guarantee in its own right.”[2] Even though accession requires unanimity in the European Council, I contend that there is value in having a federal official speak for the E.U. on Ukraine becoming a state in the Union. For one thing, it provides a vision which the leaders in the state governments can either accept or reject. For another, Putin can count on Von der Leyen’s statement as coming from the E.U. itself, rather than just from a state government, whether pro or con on Ukraine entering the Union.

In short, the difference between Macron’s opportunism and Von der Leyen’s attempt to bolster Ukraine’s chances in becoming a state is significant. That the state governments hold so much power in the E.U.’s federal system renders making space for E.U. officials especially important, lest one or two big states essentially take over the Union in pursuit of their own geo-political interests. The E.U. has been vulnerable to this because it was, even in 2025, too bottom-heavy.


Wednesday, December 24, 2025

On the E.U.’s “Pragmatic” Federalism

It is ironic that even though European political theorists, including Immanuel Kant, Johannes Althusius, and Kenneth Wheare, made substantial contributions on the topic of federalism, even political leaders in the E.U. as late as 2025 were stumbling over the basics, getting the very concept wrong. Unfortunately, that has caused journalists to trip and fall too, leaving E.U. citizens grappling over the apparent problem of being citizens both of their state and the E.U. even though, according to former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi spoke in 2025 in favor of “’pragmatic federalism’ as the political conditions for a true, federal union do not exist in the E.U. at the moment.”[1] The claims that “pragmatic federalism” is somehow not indicative of “true” federalism, and, moreover, that somehow the E.U. has states that are semi-sovereign (as the E.U. itself has exclusive competences) and yet federalism does not apply are patently absurd. Draghi was confusing the politics of the moment, in which the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic ideology was still too powerful for more governmental sovereignty to be moved to the federal level from the states, with whether the E.U. had a federal system already. In other words, “political conditions” are distinct from whether the E.U. has a federal system of public governance. Draghi’s assertion is all the more astounding not only because of his governmental experience at the federal level, but also because the dual-sovereignty (of the states and the Union) means that the E.U. fits within the category of modern federalism rather than confederalism (using Wheare’s terminology). Europeans have quite understandably been confused in trying to classify the E.U. away from the pull of the anti-federalist ideology in Europe.

That ideology has been a major impediment to the E.U. being able to govern. Although qualified-majority voting applies to some of the E.U.’s enumerated powers, or competencies, enough of the important matters of policy and law have been requiring unanimity in the European Council and the Council of Ministers that the veto-power of each of the 27 state governments has “thrown a wrench” in the governmental machinery at the federal level, especially in foreign policy and defense. Whereas the U.S. at first federalized those areas, the E.U.’s initial emphasis was on economic policy and law, so drifting over to include the more traditionally-federalized domains has been stymied by recalcitrant governors threatening to wield their respective vetoes in the Council even in the face of an overwhelming consensus.

For example, between 2011 and 2025, “Hungary vetoed E.U. proposals more than any other member state . . ., with a total of 19.”[2] A “total of 46 vetoes,” moreover, were “exercised in the E.U. by 15 member states across 38 issues.”[3] Poland ranked second with seven vetoes. “Hungary has vetoed a significant number of joint foreign policy statements, but it has also blocked proposals to lend concrete support to Ukraine and start formal E.U. accession talks,” which are necessary for Ukraine to become the 28th state in the Union.[4] It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, was by the end of 2025 “deliberately structuring its proposals [for legislation and foreign policies] in order to avoid requiring unanimous consent” from the states in the councils, which, after all, represent the states whereas the European Parliament represents E.U. citizens.[5] With such governmental machinery, plus the E.U.’s supreme court, the European Court of Justice, residing at the Union level, the claim that the E.U. is not a true federal union of states is utterly untenable. “Pragmatic” federalism, which is actually a governmental tool in the E.U.’s basic law, does not nullify the E.U.’s federal system, rendering the E.U. as a “multi-speed bloc.” That label actually signifies decadent jargon rather than any kind of governmental system that is capable of enacting federal laws that are binding on the states and anyone on the E.U.’s territory.

Pragmatic federalism is simply a tactic that the Commission can use to bypass the requirement of unanimity in the Councils, which, like the U.S. Senate, represent the states. The tactic was used, for example, to pass federal legislation to phase-out “Russian fuels under the REPowerEU framework” and to “extend the freeze on the Russian assets.”[6] So too, in passing legislation enabling the E.U. to issue debt to support Ukraine militarily, the European Council “bypassed the need for unanimity among member states” by “gathering those [state governors] who wanted to work together while keeping Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic out of the deal as a condition for it to go forward. In doing so, the E.U. . . . showed a new path forward—one where the unanimity requirement need no longer obstruct” the passage of legislation at the federal level.[7] States could be exempted, such as had been done in the Schengen Agreement and the Stability Pact. The exemption of particular states from a federal program, policy, law, or regulation does not invalidate the federal system; rather, the tool merely renders the federal system more flexible. In fact, the U.S. could benefit by adopting the mechanism, especially because so much power has accrued especially since 1865 at the federal level at the expense of state differences. Exempting certain states from a given proposal would not nullify America’s federal system.

Beyond “pragmatic” federalism in the E.U., the question of rendering the state-veto obsolete was being seriously considered by the end of 2025. With 27 states in the E.U. and Russia invading Ukraine just east of the E.U.’s territory, the E.U. could ill-afford the continuance of the veto, especially in the domains of foreign policy and defense. That unanimity would be required to amend the E.U.’s basic law to rid the union of the state-veto is itself a problem, but it could be solved by any states objecting to such a change being exempted from any “enhanced cooperation” that would be switched from unanimity to qualified-majority voting. In short, the precedents of the Schengen Agreement and the European Stability Pact, which are not incompatible with federalism, could be followed. In terms of such competencies of the E.U. that would be added to those that are already subject to qualified-majority voting, states like Hungary and Slovakia could be exempted. This is not to say that there would be a union, such as the “EU-26,” within the union, or a foreign policy union, a defense union, and so on. Such jargon, as well as the euphemistic-sounding “enhanced cooperation” and, even worse, “multi-speed bloc,” only obscures the point that in a federal system, states can be exempted from particular federal legislation (and policies) without the federal system itself being nullified. Also, to refer to exempting certain states as allowing for “voluntary co-operation” in “coalitions of the willing” is also misleading because there is nothing voluntary about being subject to qualified-majority voting on an E.U. competency manifesting as law. Reducing the E.U. to voluntary cooperation and coalitions of the willing undermines the European Union itself by detracting from what strength it does have as a “true federal union.” The extent of vacuous, ideological jargon outdoes even that of the American retail sector, in which customers are called “guests” and even “members,” customer orders are considered “perfect,” and one of the official public holidays is singled out intentionally to be (ideologically) obscured passive-aggressively as “happy holidays.” But I digress.

To be sure, within the E.U., the state-veto has been seen by some people as “the last resort to protect” state rights.[8] Tamás Lattmann, an international-law expert, said, “A veto power is the last line of defence of vital interests. Every case of circumvention has led to a set of new problems, often the inoperability or discrediting of the system itself.”[9] However, that states could be exempted means that their vital interests would not be threatened. Also, exempting states would not discredit the E.U.’s federal system. In fact, the U.S. federal system could arguably benefit by being more flexible, as so much governmental power has been federalized and “one size does not fit all” in an empire-scale federal union, whether in North America or Europe.

The argument that the state-veto “serves as an equalizer between smaller and larger member states” has also been made, especially because the European Parliament has representation by population.[10] During its debt crisis, for example, the state of Greece could have made the case that E.U. policy reflected the interests of German creditors to the extent that even the anti-austerity party was pressured to accept continued austerity. Furthermore, the smaller eastern states could legitimately argue that the large states in the west have disproportionate (even in terms of the population part of qualified majority voting) informal as well as formal power. The problem is in relying on a mechanism, the state veto, that has been such a detriment to the enactment of federal policy and law.  In the U.S. Senate, which was established principally to safeguard the interests of the small member states, the filibuster, which can be overridden by 60 votes (out of 100), is typically viewed as sufficient for the minority on any given question. To be sure, a minority is not the same as one state. In E.U. competencies subject to qualified majority voting, a single state, whether large or small, could vote no and yet be subject to a federal policy or law. The case of tariffs on Chinese imports was a case in point in 2025. If the filibuster mechanism is sufficient protection for small states in a legislative chamber in which each state has the same number of votes, then the number-of-states set at 65% in qualified majority voting could be deemed sufficient. Generally speaking, a majority of 65 percent has more democratic legitimacy than does a simple majority—a point that Americans might want to consider.

In conclusion, the Commission and Council could hardly be blamed for trying to obviate the state-veto without subjecting objecting states, for their vital interests are untouched because they are exempted. With enlargement of the Union being an issue, as well as the need for federalized defense and foreign policies given the military aggression of Russia and even Israel, the Union could no longer afford the veto-mechanism itself even by 2023. The mechanism actually pertains to confederalism, in which governmental sovereignty is retained by the states, rather than to modern federalism, in which the atom of governmental sovereignty is split, though not necessarily evenly, in a federal system between the states and the federal level. That the E.U., even initially in 1993, has the salient feature of dual sovereignty means that that union has never been a mere confederal system; the E.U. is thus well-within being a “true federal union.” Even though it has been in the interest of E.U. officials to appease Euroskeptics so to as to render them more docile, ideological denial has cost the European project severely, and the state-veto has played a major role in the self-inflicted federal impotency.


1. Sandor Zsiros, “The EU Wants to End the Era of National Vetoes—But It’s Complicated,” Euronews.com, 23 December, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.

Thursday, December 18, 2025

Proliferating Blocs: The E.U. and Mercosur

Words matter; they may not break bones, but they can wreak havoc if they are used carelessly or ideologically. Political labels can stick, and, if inaccurate, they can result in people having an incorrect impression of what something or someone is, politically. The war that began in North America in 1861, for example, has typically been labeled as a civil war, but it may be more accurately labeled as the C.S.A.-U.S.A. War because the Confederate States of America did not want to take over the U.S.A.; it was not as if the C.S.A.’s goal was to conquer and government the U.S.A. Having established itself as a functioning political entity even though U.S. President Lincoln refused to acknowledge the political existence of the C.S.A., that union could be said to have existed and been at war with the U.S.A. from 1861-1865. Two unions of states were at war with each other; it was not as if the Union Army was at war with individual seceded states. The C.S.A. had a government apart from the state governments. So “the war between the states” is an inaccurate label because it denies the existence of the two unions. But the common label of a civil war is also problematic because two political factions were not fighting each other for control of the U.S.A. If this criticism seems unusual and even perhaps rather strange, the reason may be because the victor’s labeling of the war has been so overwhelming. My point is that this does not mean that the labeling is accurate just because it has been widely accepted. Similarly, the labeling by E.U. officials (including the E.U.’s ambassador to the U.S.) of the European Union as a bloc is not accurate. 

That the label has been meant to placate anti-federalist Euroskeptics, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, so they don’t further weaken the Union renders the actual, self-inflicted weakening as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Furthermore, that the E.U.’s self-inflicted weakening-by-label has fit the militaristic agenda of Russia’s President Putin and the isolationist agenda of the American President Trump like a glove seems not to have disturbed the E.U.’s political elite. That the E.U. has never been an informal trading “bloc” of sovereign countries like the Mercosur trading bloc in South America is seems not to have bothered the European labelers, including the enabling media.

For example, reporting on a speech by E.U. President Von der Leyen’s to the Parliament, European journalists referred to both the E.U. and the coordination on trade by four countries in South America as “blocs,” as if the two were of the same political type or genre. For instance, Euronews reported that with regard to the E.U. helping Ukraine withstand Putin’s continuing invasion and signing a trade deal with the four countries in America, at “stake is the 27-member bloc’s credibility to shape its foreign policy and trade agenda.”[1] But it is the E.U.’s foreign policy and its trade agenda, not the aggregate of all of the states’ foreign policies and trade agendas, and this difference is backed up by the E.U. having an executive, legislative, and judicial branch of its own, albeit with state participation in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Blocs do not have governmental branches. The label of bloc does, however, fit “the South American Mercosur bloc” of four countries because that bloc is simply an alignment of trade policies.[2] There was not Mercosur executive, legislature, and supreme court, no Mercosur social policy, and not even a Mercosur federal system wherein governmental sovereignty is split between states and a federal level. The false equivalence of the European Union and Mercosur is a grave insult to Europe, and yet it has repeatedly been self-inflicted by the European political elite itself.

I contend that the E.U. has been a formidable accomplishment, not a perfect union, but far beyond what a bloc is and can muster, and that the potential of that union of states should therefore not be held back by a dominative label intended placate an anti-federalist minority. The costs of continuing to treat the E.U. as equivalent to a trading bloc of countries in South America may seem bearable, but President Von der Leyen’s point that the E.U. was then at a critical inflection-point concerning Europe’s security and independence, global image, and international standing means that the E.U. could no longer afford to label itself as a bloc as if were just another Mercosur group of countries.

For on the very same day as Von der Leyen was delivering a speech to the European Parliament, Russian President Putin was telling a gathering of his military brass, “European swine wanted to feast on the collapse of Russia” and—interestingly in echoing comments only recently made by the American President, Donald Trump—in referring to Europe and the E.U. in particular, “Today it turns out there is no civilisation there, only complete degradation.”[3] Swine degrading European civilization. Ouch! Unfortunately, Russian tanks, bombs, and troops in Ukraine combined with Putin’s rejection of the proposed American compromise because it does not give Russia all the territory is wants in Ukraine render the punch behind the insult more serious than mere words. It is ironic that words spoken outside of the E.U. have made the Europeans’ own use of their word, “bloc,” more costly because what bloc could expect itself to issue its own debt to help Ukraine militarily? What bloc can have a federal foreign policy? What bloc can do more than rely on state militias for a defense? Simply in degrading these expectations, the European political elite continued to shoot itself in its collective foot as Putin continued to apply his political theory that military might makes right in Europe.

The E.U. is neither a regional UN nor a trading bloc of sovereign countries, nor even an international organization. All of these claims are the result of ideological resentment and political expediency. These two vices in the E.U. are like water to a fish. That the member-states ceded some of their governmental sovereignty to be exclusive and even shared competencies of the European Union effectively relegates such false equivalencies to the dust bin, so it is strange that they persisted at least through 2025. In fact, the staying power of the principle of unanimity in place of qualified-majority voting on some major issues may stem from the continuing misunderstanding that the E.U. is merely a bloc.

So, labels do matter, and they can get in the way. This is especially problematic in hard times, for European integration in the E.U. has largely happened only times of crisis. The rhetoric of presidents Trump and Putin alone justifies President Von der Leyen’s statement, “Yesterday’s peace is gone. We have no time to indulge in nostalgia. What matters is how we confront today.”[4] Describing the E.U. as a bloc of member-states does not even qualify as nostalgia because the E.U. has never been a bloc; the self-defeating label sprang out of anti-Americanism (lest the E.U. be held to be equivalent to the U.S. as an empire-scale federal system characterized definitively by dual sovereignty) and the political fear of the domestic, yes, domestic, opposition of anti-federalist Euroskeptics that is ironically strengthened in its version of political reality by the label itself. Self-inflicted weakness in a partisan ideological battle hardly attracts support.

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Homelessness in the E.U.: Rectifying a Right

In late 2025, the E.U. Commission presented its first European Affordable Housing Plan. The E.U.’s involvement in “social housing,” which translates into federal funds being used to provide housing beyond homeless shelters for people who cannot afford to house themselves, implies that the programs of the states had been insufficient. The U.S. could take a lesson from the Commission’s plan, which is cleverly multi-pronged in tackling the societal problem. Both in the E.U. and U.S., both federal and state funds were needed even in 2025 when neither economy was in recession. It is better to increase the supply of affordable housing when times are good than when unemployment is soaring. This is an exception in the E.U. to the usual pattern wherein the E.U. increases its competencies, or enumerated powers, in periods of one crisis or another. Russia’s multi-year invasion of Ukraine, which borders the E.U., and the Union’s foreign and defense activity demonstrate how European integration has typically been enhanced by crisis rather than when times are good.

Homeless in both the E.U. and U.S. was a problem in 2024. In its “9th Overview on Housing Exclusion” in 2024, Feantsa estimated a total of 1,287,000 people “rough sleeping, staying in night shelters, or temporary accommodation” in the European Union.[1] According to the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, 771,400 people were homeless in January, 2024—an increase of 118,300 from 2023.[2] The total population of the E.U. at the end of 2024 was estimated at 450.4 million, and that of the U.S. was 341.8 million (whereas the respective states tended to cluster in the tens of millions). That works out to .0028% and .0023%, respectively. This may come as a surprise because in Europe, housing is more likely to be viewed as a right than in the United States.

Dan Jorgensen, the E.U. Commissioner for Energy and Housing (and the first such commissioner in E.U. history), said at the time of the Commission’s presentation of its proposal, “Housing is not just a commodity; it is a fundamental right. We must mobilise every euro and do everything in our power to make sure that in Europe everyone can afford a decent place to call home.”[3] In the U.S., the lax regulations on investor-speculators on houses, condos, and even apartment buildings evince a commodities-orientation to residential real-estate, whereas in the E.U. the homelessness problem may have more to do with insufficient supply rather than the salience of a political ideology favoring business or disfavoring the poor as deserving their plight.

I contend that permanent housing as a right is a better political ideology than is the business-commodity view of housing units both because being homeless takes such a terrible toll of the human psyche and because society should be obligated via the market or else the state to supply permanent housing because economic interdependence is endemic to a society as opposed to Hobbes’ state of nature, where life is short and brutish. Put another way, being in the state of nature in terms of housing while being in a society does not work because a society and a state of nature are mutually exclusive. 

It is inconsistent to insert, especially within city and even a town, even a slice of Hobbes' state of nature, whether in the form of sociopathic violent gangs for which law in south Chicago in Illinois is wholly disrespected, or homeless individuals in a town or city. Having the state of nature within a society is not like Yin being in Yang, and vice versa, in Chinese philosophy; rather, the state of nature inside a society contradicts the necessity that Kant argued is inherent to law, whether public or moral law. Furthermore, to tolerate homelessness within a society is like inserting a vice like vengeance into omnibenevolence—a point that Nietzsche makes in claiming that the Abrahamic deity is “dead” in the sense of having been discredited by being both vengeful and perfectly benevolent, which are incompatible with each other. Even though the effort to rid humans of vengeance is laudable, the cost in assigning the vice to God was surprisingly overlooked, and still is. Similarly, the utter incompatibility of homelessness and society is seldom recognized. 

By the end of 2025, it was well beyond time for the E.U.’s Commission to come up with a plan to rid the Union once and for all of the sordid plight of homelessness. Ridding Europeans of the constant, underlying existential angst that does not leave a mind that is subtly aware that homelessness could occur in the future can be expected to result in happier, more relaxed people and thus less interpersonal strife. It is indeed realistic that the E.U., together with the member-states, could together, as a shared competency, eliminate  the problem of homelessness in 2026 by relaxing state rules on whom can receive housing assistance (i.e., not just the very poor), using federal “European Social Housing” funds to get homeless people immediately into at least short-term housing (even hotels), and incentivizing the construction of more housing units to meet the demand, and even reducing housing prices and rents for everyone. The sordid commodity perspective in America would be exposed as severely flawed, as it reflects elected officials across that Union being in the campaign-financing pockets of private finance and business rather than looking out for, or protecting, all constituents from the horrible experience of being homeless. Just in virtue of being a human being—how we are hard-wired and how vulnerable the human brain or mind is to the incapacitating harm from severe, existential stress—something beyond short-term housing should be ensured unconditionally. How a human mind reacts to being homeless ought to justify the unconditional aspect, as those who do not work must wander around at all times and be subject to theft is a callous ideological belief.


1. “What is Homelessness,” Feantsa, Feantsa.org (accessed 16 December 2025).
2. Lisa McKay and Kenneth Cowles, “Who Is Homeless in the United States? A 2025 Update,” The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, March 14, 2025.
3. Vincenzo Genovese, “EU to Revise State Aid Rules to Address bloc-wide Housing Crisis,” Euronews.com, 16 December 2025.

Monday, December 15, 2025

On the E.U.’s Mercosur Deal: State Obstructionism

After 25 years negotiating with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, the E.U.’s Commission sought to secure passage of the massive trade-deal in the European Council and the Parliament by the end of 2025. Even though the vote is by qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity in both chambers, one state that was against the treaty sought to delay the vote in the Council, which represents states rather than E.U. citizens. The Commission rightly pushed back on the tactic because for one state in opposition to be able to put off a vote is tantamount to having a veto, which a mechanism only for E.U. competencies that are subject to unanimous approval in the Council.

Due to concerns of possible unfair competition voiced by farmers in the E.U. state of France, that state’s government was “demanding strong safeguards to suspend tariff reductions if imports disrupt EU markets, so called ‘reciprocity clauses’ that align Mercosur’s environmental and agricultural standards with EU standards, and tougher EU sanitary and phytosanitary controls.”[1] Without a veto, making a demand would be too strong, and even presumptuous. So too is the statement that was made by the office of the state’s prime minister’s office: “While a Mercosur summit is scheduled for 20 December, It is clear that . . . the conditions are not in place for any vote by the EU Council on authorizing the signing of the agreement.”[2] This sounds a lot like a statement that the vote could not take place.

The Commission’s deputy chief spokesperson, Olof Gill, cut down the state’s claim that conditions were not in place. In fact, Gill told reporters that in “the view of the Commission signing the deal now is a matter of crucial importance economically, diplomatically, and geopolitically, but also in terms of our credibility on the global stage.”[3] The Parliament was due to vote the next day on a safeguard amendment, with some representatives set to add an amendment on reciprocity. With half of the month of December ahead, the only condition relevant to there being a vote in the European Council was whether the Parliament would vote in favor of the treaty. Whether or not the safeguard and reciprocity amendments pass in the Parliament is a legitimate concern to whether the state of France votes for or against the treaty in the Council, but whether the amendments pass should not pertain to whether the Council holds a vote. In short, the government of France was overreaching even if only in its rhetoric.

The problem of too many E.U. exclusive and shared enumerated competencies, including changes to the E.U.’s basic law, being subject to unanimity in the Council and thus contingent on no state wielding its veto in that upper chamber was already hampering the E.U., especially in the areas of foreign and defense policy even as Russia was invading Ukraine; the E.U. didn’t need the Council to set a precedent of delaying or cancelling a vote just because a state in opposition objects even to there being a vote. Such a precedent is as if each state would have a veto on matters subject to qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity. Even use of language that connotes or implies that the state of France could unilaterally control the European Council is troubling, given the power that the state governments continued to have at the federal level through the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Put another way, the E.U. was already “state-heavy” in terms of obstruction at the federal level; the E.U. could least afford a state in opposition deciding whether conditions for a vote in either of the councils have been met. Moreover, focusing too much on individual pieces of legislation without keeping an eye out for any negative impact on the federal system itself from how the legislative process is being carried out is short-sighted.


1. Peggy Corlin, “European Commission Turns Up Pressure on France over Mercosur,” Euronews.com, 15 December 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Sunday, December 14, 2025

Immobilizing E.U. Holdings of Russian Assets

By invoking Article 122 of the E.U.’s basic law, a clause that had been used most significantly during the Coronavirus pandemic and in the 2022 energy crisis, the E.U. in December, 2025 finally circumvented the twice-threatened veto by the state of Hungary and indefinitely froze €210 billion of assets of the Russian Central Bank that had been within the E.U.’s territory since Russia began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine nearly four years earlier. I contend that the European Court of Justice, the E.U.’s supreme court, could apply a rational basis in a judicial review of the triggering of the emergency-conditioned article, especially because the Commission invoked the article in order to obviate Hungary’s threatened veto. Because every E.U. state except for Belgium and Hungary were for freezing the assets until Russia such time as Russia ends its militaristic aggression and compensates Ukraine financially for damages the Belgian and Hungarian state governments were violating the informal norm of consensus in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Like the U.S. Senate, the European Council, which also represents the states, is like a club of sorts. The problem facing the Commission is that violating a norm is not a legal basis for obviating a threatened state-veto by invoking an emergency clause of the E.U.’s basic law, especially if no emergency actually exists after nearly four years of the invasion. Even though I am personally in favor of the E.U. obviating Hungary’s serial obstructionism that may be, at least in part, retaliation against President Von der Leyen’s Commission for having penalized the Hungarian government financially for having violated E.U. law, legal reasoning should not succumb to the gravity of the “black hole” of personal opinion.  There may be nothing so much like a god as a general on a battlefield, with power over life and death, but neither the European Commission nor myself is a general. In short, the Commission’s legal justification in invoking Article 122 is tenuous at best, even though countering Hungary’s Viktor Orbán’s abuse of his state’s veto-power in the European Council and the Council of Ministers was needed for the E.U. to be able to function within its enumerated competencies (i.e., powers).

The reason for indefinitely holding the Russian central bank’s financial assets that have been in the E.U. since the beginning of the invasion is so the E.U. could use those assets as a basis for making loans to Ukraine to bolster the sovereign state’s military position without the E.U. having to issue its own debt. “We are sending a strong signal to Russia that as long as this brutal war of aggression continues, Russia’s costs will continue to rise,” President Von der Leyen said.[1] The objective was to “make sure that our brave neighbour beomes even stronger on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.”[2] According to Euronews, the E.U. was able to shore up “its mightiest leverage,” push back against “external interference” and insulate “the money from the Kremlin’s war machine—all at once.”[3] The external interference was not really external, as this refers to the financially self-interested objection of the state of Belgium and the pro-Russian objection of Viktor Orbán of Hungary. Obviating self-interested states whose governors are willing to go against the other 25 states in the Council is laudable even though this objective can be traced back to the E.U.’s federal system, which must be taken as a given to the ECJ. To be sure, finding a way to do it by invoking an article of the E.U.’s basic law was not an easy task for the Commission.

“At first, the Commission suggested activating Article 31.2 . . . to switch the [6 months] renewal of sanctions from unanimity to qualified majority.”[4] The sanctions include holding the Russian financial assets. The article is vaguely, and thus problematically from the standpoint of constitutional language, based on “strategic interests and objectives.”[5] This wording could potentially enable the E.U., by qualified majority voting, to encroach excessively on governmental sovereignty retained by the states. That any state government could invoke “vital and stated reasons” of “policy”—again too vague—to veto any such bills that are in the strategic interests and objectives of the E.U. as a whole meant that the governor of Hungary could easily invoke its ties to Russia as vital reasons to veto the proposal to freeze the Russian assets indefinitely.

So, the Commission turned to Article 122, which applies qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity in the European Council (and the Council of Ministers) “in a spirit of solidarity . . . appropriate to the economic situation.”[6] Here too, the constitutional language is too vague. Hungary’s Orbán had been fragrantly violating the spirit of solidarity for years, and “economic situation” is so vague that the article could potentially be used to expunge unanimity from the federal level.

Furthermore, that Article 122 “bypasses the European Parliament” is also problematic because that democratically elected legislative chamber, the “lower house,” could otherwise act as a check on the Commission and the councils exploiting the article to rid the E.U. of the need for unanimity in the councils. Also, requiring a qualified majority vote in the Parliament would not in itself give the state governments the power to use their respective vetoes in the councils. One of the principal benefits of federalism, as distinct from confederalism, is the mechanism of state-federal checks-and-balances. Considering the American history of consolidation at the expense of the governmental sovereignty retained by the states, the vague constitutional language of Article 122 could be exploited. This is not to say that retaining the state-veto mechanism in the councils is at all healthy for the European federal system. Other means, such as requiring a qualified majority in the European Parliament, are consistent with federalism.

Such a check would be of value in terms of the indefinite freezing of Russian financial assets because the Commission interpreted “appropriate to the economic situation” to be invokable due to a “serious economic impact,” including in “supply disruptions, higher uncertainty, increased risk premia, lower investment and consumer spending,” as well as “non-economic drone incursions, sabotage and disinformation.”[7] Again, higher uncertainty and lower investment and consumer spending provide the Commission with virtually a wide-open door to obviate unanimity in the councils.

Earlier in 2025, the Commission had invoked Article 122 “to set up SAFE which allows member states to directly approve a Commission proposal [by qualified majority rather than unanimously] ‘if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain produces’ or if a member state is ‘seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control’.”[8] Tellingly, it was the Parliament rather than a state government that objected, which is a telling indication that the Parliament should not have been excluded from the procedure to be followed according to the article.

With regard to the “emergency” said by the Commission to justify invoking Article 122 to indefinitely freeze the Russian financial assets in the E.U., the governor of Belgium, Bart De Wever, “questioned the existence of any EU-wide emergency,” as Russia’s invasion was nearing its fourth anniversary.[9] For instance, only 10% of energy in the E.U. was by that time from Russia.[10] Even though the E.U.’s evident economic woes, coupled with the vague wording of Article 122 and its limited jurisprudence, gave the Commission enough leeway to forge ahead,” using even “the economic situation” to invoke the article is highly problematic, especially as the obvious intent was to undercut the state-veto mechanism, which under the E.U.’s basic law at the time, was valid even though Hungary and Belgium were, for self-interested political and financial reasons, respectively, abusing the mechanism given the norm of consensus in the councils.

The upshot is that the E.U. could do better in tightening its constitutional, or basic-law, language, enlarging the coverage of the Parliament (especially as a check on the Commission). In the meantime, the ECJ should take a look at the Commission’s invoking of Article 122, especially on the Commission’s interpretation that “economic situation” really means “economic emergency,” which actually makes sense so to avoid the article from being invoked for virtually anything, and that an emergency was still the case almost four years after the commencement of the Russian invasion, which does not seem to be a valid claim. In the background is the consolidation by the U.S. of power at the expense of that of the member-states, and the related switch from the state governments appointing U.S. senators to them being elected by the citizens of the states. Citizens of a state may not vote so to protect the remaining governmental sovereignty held by their state, whereas senators appointed by state governors and/or legislatures would naturally have an incentive to keep an eye on the federal division of governmental sovereignty. Nevertheless, the veto power of the E.U.’s state governments, especially as there were 27 at the time of the invocation of Article 122 to freeze Russian assets, is arguably excessive and thus harmful to the E.U. level as well as the federal system itself, which should allow for federal oversight “with teeth” on abuses by state governments, especially in infringing on democracy and liberty.


1. Jorge Liboreiro, “By Locking in Russian Assets for Good, the EU Is Finally Playing Hardball,” Euronews.com, 13 December 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.

Saturday, December 13, 2025

U.S. Presidential Encroachment on State Prerogatives

Both in the E.U. and U.S., the member-states are semi-sovereign, and are even guaranteed all residual sovereignty that is not in any of the enumerated competencies (i.e., powers) of the respective unions and the states. Europeans are smart to have multiple avenues for the state governments in the European Council and the Council of Ministers so those governments can protect themselves against encroachment by the Commission. To be sure, these safeguards go too far, especially given the sheer number of states even by the mid-2020s, in giving each state a veto especially on important matters in which qualified-majority voting does not apply. In other words, the safeguards against federal encroachment in the E.U. are excessive as long as each state can wield its veto against federal policies, legislation, and regulations. Regarding the latter, the directive means provides each state with some latitude. I suspect that the Europeans who constructed the E.U.’s federal system were in part fearful of federal encroachment because so much of that had already built-up in the U.S., where federal consolidation had become a threat to the governmental sovereignty of the member-states, as if they were just regions rather than republics holding even more sovereignty, on parchment at least, than does Congress and the federal president. So, it is worth taking not of the rare instances in which a state legislature pushes back against threats from the U.S. president on a competency (i.e., enumerated power) reserved by the states.  The rejection by the Indiana Senate of U.S. President Trump’s pressure to accept new districts for U.S. House representatives from Indiana—a map in which the Republican Group would likely pick up two seats—is important because Congressional-district maps are the prerogative of the states rather than an encroaching federal executive.

According to Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. basic law (consolidated as a constitution), the member-states have the primary authority to regulate the “times, places, and manner” of the U.S. House or Representatives’ elections. This authority includes enacting the boundaries of the districts within a state. To be sure, Congress has been delegated authority to override a state’s Congressional-district map, as federal oversight is in line with the “checks and balances” feature of modern federalism. For instance, a state’s map that discriminates against regions populated mostly by a racial minority would be ripe for Congressional action. It is significant that the U.S. president plays no role either in crafting such maps or in oversight. Therefore, U.S. President Trump’s threats laid against certain senators in the Indiana Senate so they would pass a new Congressional map before the next census so to give Trump’s Republican group in the U.S. House of Representatives more representation than otherwise would likely be the case was a case of federal encroachment of a state power encased in the U.S. Constitution. The Indiana senators voted prudently and justifiably in rejecting the U.S. President’s “bully tactics.”

Senator Michael Crider, a Republican, who faced “threats of violence and intimidation,” issued a statement after he voted no on the redistricting proposal.[1] “When you get kind of bullied and threatened, if that tactic works, then you can expect to deal with that for the rest of your political career.”[2] Sen. Vaneta Becker issued the following statement: “I think this looks like and feels like bullying, and I don’t think Hoosiers respond well to bullying.”[3] Neither, I might add, do Illinoisians on the other side of the Wabash river, to whom people from the Indiana side of the river-border used to shout, “Whos you’r,” hence the mascot, “Hoosier”, instead of who are you?

The same consequences of giving into a bully can be said of a state legislature; once it capitulates to threats and pressure from the federal executive (or Congress), threats will be more likely to continue and even become more dire until the member-state legislators are afraid to use even the powers reserved for the states. In the case of the redistricting plan, President Trump even threatened the Indiana government that federal funds would be cut off from the state in retaliation for not approving the president’s partisan plan. Sen. Spencer Deery made the problem of encroachment on the state explicit: “As long as I have breath, I will use my voice to resist a federal government that attempts to bully, direct and control this state or any state. Giving the federal government more power is not conservative.”[4] That a prerogative of a state legislature could be circumvented “at the whim of a president’s request” was too much for Sen. Mike Bohacek too.[5] Therefore, both in terms of threatening Indiana lawmakers, who have been democratically elected, and in terms of eclipsing federalism, wherein the vital element of checks-and-balances between the federal institutions and those of states, the political courage of the Indiana Republican senators who voted against President Trump’s partisan plan is laudable. Threats of violence have no place in politics, and efforts to usurp the governmental sovereignty that is reserved for the states, whether in the U.S. or E.U., should be resisted lest the check-and-balance “oversight” feature of modern, dual-sovereignty, federalism be lost.

Fortunately, the “acts of intimidation and threats and acts of violence targeting [Republican Indiana] senators who opposed” the proposal backfired, as a majority of the 40 Republican senators voted against the bill.[6] Ironically, politically conservative principles were cited by some of those senators. The head of the Republican Group in the Indiana Senate, Sen. Rodric Bray, said, “many of my caucus members don’t think redrawing our Congressional map mid-cycle is a guaranteed way for Indiana.”[7] In short, changing maps for partisan purposes mid-way through a decade violates the tradition of redrawing maps only just after the U.S. census, which occurs once every decade. As per conservative principles, Bray urged Republicans to campaign more so as to sway a district that was then held by a Democrat but becoming increasingly Republican. As the saying goes, elections have consequences.

 

1. Paul Blumenthal, “These Are The Indiana Republicans Who Voted To Crush Trump’s Redistricting Plan,” The Huffington Post, December 12, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

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