Opinion Columns

We’d all be better off if a Carson City judge sided with a conservative think tank and allowed a lawsuit over the separation-of-powers clause to proceed.

Let’s get a few things straight.

For all the pride Iowa takes in its first-in-the-nation caucus, for all the attention the state’s voters get from candidates, for all of the column inches and broadcast hours consumed by reporting stories before, during and after voting, the impact is almost entirely rhetorical.

Usually, odd-numbered years aren’t that great for political news. But 2011 proved to be an exception in some very big ways.

For many people, sitting in a room with a professor of constitutional law — even a noted one, a Harvard graduate — to listen to a lecture about recent cases is a definition of torture prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

It’s not surprising that the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee thinks the way to end gridlock in Washington is to elect more Democrats. Surely, Republicans think winning back the Senate and the White House is the key to progress.

There are two, and only two, possibilities surrounding U.S. Senate Republicans’ decision to filibuster the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.