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For decades, terrorism researchers have generally distinguished terrorism from other forms of violence by one defining feature: the intention to intimidate a wider audience beyond immediate victims.

That distinction has shaped both academic research and criminal prosecutions in the U.S. Yet scholars have long debated a deceptively simple question: Is terrorism defined by why violence is committed, or by what the violence is intended to achieve? A new prosecution in Austin, Texas, may test whether that understanding is beginning to change.

The question is now before Texas courts following charges against 17-year-old Cristian Fajardo Mondragon, who, along with two juveniles, is accused of carrying out a two-day series of shootings, vehicle thefts and burglaries across Austin in May 2026. In Texas, 17-year-olds are charged as adults, not juveniles.

According to investigators, the group allegedly fired nearly 150 rounds during 13 separate shootings. They struck homes, occupied vehicles and two fire stations, injured multiple people and prompted shelter-in-place orders.

The case initially involved charges including aggravated assault, deadly conduct and firearm theft. Later, investigators recommended a first-degree terrorism charge, a rarely used offense in a case involving a juvenile suspect.

As a scholar of extremism, I believe this decision reflects a shift in how some prosecutors are applying terrorism laws. Rather than requiring proof of an offender’s political ideology, charging documents often focus on whether the alleged violence was intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, create widespread fear or influence government or public behavior.

No single federal crime

There is no single federal crime called “domestic terrorism.”

Federal law defines it as dangerous criminal acts intended to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy. However, Congress has never created a standalone federal domestic terrorism offense.

Instead, federal prosecutors generally rely on statutes covering murder, firearms offenses, conspiracy, hate crimes or civil rights violations. In many domestic terrorism cases, terrorism is not itself the criminal charge. Rather, terrorism designations can affect investigative priorities and may have specific legal consequences where particular statutes apply.

As my own research on terrorism and political violence has found, legal definitions of terrorism have never been static. They evolve as governments confront new forms of violence and seek legal tools to address them. The question has always been where to draw the boundary between terrorism and other forms of serious violent crime.

This legal gap has existed for decades. Scholars have argued that while the U.S. developed extensive legal tools to prosecute international terrorism after 9/11, fewer mechanisms exist for prosecuting domestic political violence.

As a result, states have enacted their own terrorism statutes. Texas amended its terroristic threats statute in 2023, expanding the circumstances under which certain underlying offenses can be elevated to a terrorism-related offense. It allows prosecutors to charge individuals who commit specified violent crimes with the intent to intimidate the public or influence government policy through coercion or intimidation.

Unlike traditional conceptions of terrorism that emphasize ideological motivation or affiliation with extremist organizations, the Texas statute focuses on the defendant’s intent to intimidate or coerce the public or influence government through intimidation.

Texas’ approach reflects a shift away from proving ideological motivation, or why someone committed violence, toward proving what the violence was intended to accomplish – for example, public intimidation or governmental coercion. That distinction is central to current debates over domestic terrorism law and may prove crucial in the Austin prosecution.

Why the Austin case is unusual

According to public reporting on the investigation, Texas investigators have not identified a manifesto, ideological writings or evidence linking the suspects to a recognized extremist movement.

One consistent lesson from terrorism studies is that investigators should avoid assuming motive before evidence becomes available. Mass violence can emerge from multiple pathways. They include extremist beliefs, criminal opportunism, interpersonal grievances or thrill-seeking. And distinguishing among them is crucial.

Instead, prosecutors appear to argue that the shootings themselves created widespread fear throughout Austin while disrupting emergency services after gunfire struck multiple fire stations. The alleged terrorism lies less in an established ideological motive than in the prosecutors’ claim that the defendants intended to intimidate the public and disrupt or influence government operations. That approach represents a significant departure from many of the country’s most widely publicized mass shootings.

The 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting resulted in a New York state conviction for domestic terrorism motivated by hate under a statute specifically addressing certain mass attacks motivated by hatred based on characteristics such as race, religion or national origin.

Likewise, the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting in Texas, which killed 23 people, involved federal hate crime charges alongside state capital murder charges because investigators alleged an explicitly anti-immigrant motive.

Other mass-casualty attacks – including those in Boulder, Colorado, in 2021; Highland Park, Illinois, in 2022; and Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 2021 – were prosecuted primarily as homicide cases by state authorities despite generating widespread public fear.

Similarly, the Pearl Street Mall firebombing in Boulder was prosecuted at the state level as a first-degree murder case, while federal prosecutors separately charged the defendant with a hate crime to address the alleged bias-motivated nature of the attack. In each of these cases, state prosecutors relied primarily on homicide statutes rather than state terrorism laws, either because no applicable terrorism offense existed or because homicide charges provided the principal support for prosecution.

Unlike Colorado, Illinois and Wisconsin, Texas has a standalone terrorism statute that enhances liability when violent crimes are committed with the intent to intimidate the public or influence government policy. This statutory framework gives Texas prosecutors an additional charging option that was generally unavailable in those earlier prosecutions.

The Austin case tests whether prosecutors can prove the intent required by Texas’ terrorism statute without establishing an ideological or political motive.

A broader criminal justice debate

Legal scholars have long debated whether terrorism should be defined by motivation or consequences.

In a seminal work on the subject, terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman argues that terrorism has historically involved politically motivated violence intended to communicate a broader ideological message. Brian Michael Jenkins, one of the nation’s leading terrorism scholars, similarly emphasizes that terrorism is violence intended to influence audiences beyond immediate victims.

Others argue that legal definitions should focus less on ideology and more on the deliberate creation of fear.

Former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary McCord has argued that the absence of a standalone federal domestic terrorism statute creates inconsistencies. Similar acts of mass violence may be prosecuted differently depending on the perpetrator’s ideology and the available criminal statutes.

The Austin prosecution illustrates this tension.

If Texas courts conclude that prosecutors need only demonstrate an intent to terrorize the public through indiscriminate violence, future cases involving serial shootings, coordinated attacks on infrastructure or prolonged community-wide violence may be prosecuted as terrorism even when investigators never establish a political objective.

Are younger offenders becoming more violent?

The Texas defendants’ ages have also attracted national attention. Juvenile violent crime has declined substantially since the mid-1990s. Arrest rates for homicide, robbery, aggravated assault and other violent offenses remain well below their historical peaks.

At the same time, firearm violence presents a more complicated picture. Firearms have become the leading cause of death among American children and adolescents, and firearm homicide rates among young people increased sharply during and immediately after the
COVID-19 pandemic.

Some researchers have argued that youth violence increasingly involves fluid peer networks, sometimes connected or intensified through social media, rather than only traditional street gangs.

At present, investigators have released little evidence explaining what motivated the Austin shootings. Without additional evidence, it would be premature to classify the case as ideological extremism, organized gang violence or another form of criminal activity.

Why this case matters

From the perspective of terrorism research, the most important question may not be whether the Austin defendants are convicted. Instead, it is whether courts accept a legal understanding of terrorism that does not require proof of an ideological motive.

If they do, the Austin case could become an important precedent, encouraging prosecutors elsewhere to consider terrorism charges in cases that previously would have been prosecuted as attempted murder or homicide. That would mark an important example of how state terrorism statutes are being applied to nonideological mass violence.

Art Jipson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued new grant guidelines that threaten to withhold counterterrorism funds from states that do not comply with President Donald Trump’s election security directives.

The agency told states they must “reconcile the number of voters who voted in federal elections with the number of ballots cast. They must use the federal SAVE database to verify the citizenship of everyone in the state’s voter registration database.” States also have to verify the citizenship status of poll workers or anyone operating election systems.

The SAVE database helps government agencies “determine citizenship and immigration status of individuals within their jurisdiction for the purpose of granting benefits, licenses, as well as for other lawful purposes.” For states that comply, the database allows the federal government to review the citizenship of everyone registered to vote. It also enables the government to determine which state residents are allowed to vote, a power the U.S. Constitution reserves for the states.

The funds FEMA threatened to withhold for noncompliance would otherwise be used by state and local governments to pay for cybersecurity, emergency planning, training and equipment.

As someone who has studied the interplay of law and politics, I recognize the important role federal grants play in state funding and the legal standards that govern the establishment of conditions like those announced by FEMA.

Federal funding for local governments

In the federal system, states and localities rely on the federal government for a wide range of grants and other funding. In any one year, they amount to more than US$1 trillion and provide between one-quarter and one-third of state and local revenues.

Louisiana, Arkansas, Arizona and Montana are most dependent on revenues from the federal government. They get about 30% of the money they need to run their governments from Washington, D.C.

California, Connecticut and New York are less dependent on federal funding. Nonetheless, they each get more than 20% of their revenue from the federal government.

That is why threats to withhold federal funding have real bite. However, such threats from previous administrations have been targeted and rare.

In 2014, law scholar Eloise Pasachoff identified arguments scholars use to explain federal agencies’ reluctance to cut off funds. Agencies worry that withholding funds will “undermine the agency’s ultimate goals.” In addition, she notes that “political dynamics among state governments, Congress, the White House, and the agencies themselves make funding cut-offs difficult to achieve.”

But that long-standing reluctance seems to have changed after Trump returned to the Oval Office. Since then, the cancellation of funds, or threats to do so, for disfavored places or programs have become commonplace.

A week into the president’s second term, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memo that temporarily froze federal assistance and grants to all states, including funding that supports nursing homes and hospitals. Some of that funding has been restored after courts intervened.

A January 2026 report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities called these threats to withhold funds “extraordinary and politically motivated.” The report said they are designed “to punish residents of states President Trump considers political enemies or who disagree with the President, particularly on immigration enforcement.”

The center argued that “the Administration’s actions poison the long-standing, productive, and necessary partnership with states, local governments, and nonprofits to provide critical services that people in every state depend on.”

What the law allows

In 1988, law scholar Jeffrey S. Koppelmaa pointed out that federal funding cutoffs undermine the autonomy of states even as they help Congress ensure that those funds are spent for “the general welfare.”

The previous year, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed that tension in South Dakota v. Dole. The case involved congressional legislation that “ordered the Secretary of Transportation to withhold five percent of federal highway funds from states that did not adopt a 21-year-old minimum drinking age.” In South Dakota, state law permitted persons 19 years of age to purchase alcohol.

The court found that the imposed condition was reasonable because it was related to highway safety. However, it noted that the authority to impose conditions was not unlimited.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained that “the exercise of the spending power must be in pursuit of ‘the general welfare.’” He wrote that “if Congress desires to condition the States’ receipt of federal funds, it ‘must do so unambiguously … enabling the States to exercise their choice knowingly, cognizant of the consequences of their participation.’”

Rehnquist wrote that the government cannot impose conditions on federal grants if they “‘might be so coercive as to pass the point at which ‘pressure turns into compulsion.’”

In 2012, the court used the Dole test to strike down a provision of the Affordable Care Act that required states to expand their Medicaid programs and threatened to revoke the entire federal Medicaid funding if any state did not comply. It labeled such a condition “coercive” because of the impact such cuts would have on the entire budget of such a state.

Chief Justice John Roberts put it this way: “The threatened loss of over 10 percent of a State’s overall budget … is economic dragooning that leaves the States with no real option but to acquiesce in the Medicaid expansion.”

The Dole decision is still the law. But even so, some commentators argue that when executive branch agencies rather than Congress impose conditions on federal funds, courts should give these cases special scrutiny.

The FEMA threat

In August 2025 a federal district court stopped the Trump administration from “withholding or freezing federal funding from, or putting conditions on, municipalities and counties it labels as so-called ‘sanctuary jurisdictions,’” or places that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

The court stopped the administration’s efforts to punish those jurisdictions “by using unrelated federal funding as leverage to enforce unlawful immigration policy.”

In June 2026 a federal judge in New Jersey followed similar logic in a case involving the Trump administration’s effort to stop funding for a $16 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River. The complaint in that case had described those attempts as illegal and argued that “the Federal Government suddenly suspend(ed) the Project … because President Trump is engaged in political retribution.”

The federal judge seemed to agree, citing Trump interviews where he pointed out, “It’s billions and billions of dollars that (Sen. Chuck) Schumer has worked 20 years to get. It’s terminated. Tell him it terminated.’”

She ordered the funds restored.

That brings us back to FEMA’s recent threat. Congressional Democrats quickly denounced it as “potentially unlawful.”

They wrote: “As we approach the 25th anniversary of September 11th, it is deeply alarming that DHS and FEMA, under Donald Trump, continue to manipulate the very funding born out of a national tragedy.” They accused the agencies of “playing political games.”

Whether courts will agree remains to be seen.

Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The 2026 primaries are resurfacing controversies about mail-in ballots that were at the heart of election disputes in 2020.

California’s June 2 primary – in which candidates from every party ran together and the top two advanced to the general election – raised eyebrows because of its so-called “red mirage.” A mirage is a misleading early count that can temporarily show a candidate ahead in a race, sometimes by a significant margin.

For example, early Election Day returns showed Republican Steve Hilton leading for California governor and Republican Spencer Pratt among the top two candidates for Los Angeles mayor. However, 4 out of 5 California voters return their ballots by mail, so as additional mail ballots were counted, leads changed. Hilton narrowly held on to second place, but Pratt fell into third place and off the November ballot entirely.

Rumors swirled that a late “ballot dump” in Los Angeles had seen Pratt receiving zero votes out of 24,000. These reports were debunked by PolitiFact, but they were reminiscent of claims six years ago.

In the 2020 presidential election, when Donald Trump led early in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other crucial states, only to have that lead evaporate under the weight of mail ballots, he claimed a rigged election. This year, those claims returned, as Trump declared on Truth Social, his social media platform, on June 8: “Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!”

I am the associate director of the Institute of American Civics, and my teaching and research focuses on American political institutions, elections and public policy. I’ve been writing about American elections since 1992, and over the past three decades, I’ve followed with interest the growth of mail voting.

The controversy over mail ballot elections has become a microcosm of our polarized politics, with one narrative assuming mass fraud lies behind every electoral mirage, and another denying that there can be legitimate concerns about mail ballot elections. Both narratives warrant scrutiny.

The national picture

Today, eight states use all mail ballot elections: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington. In those states, registered voters are automatically sent a ballot. Voters may deliver their completed ballots in person to an early voting station or to an Election Day polling place. Most, however, simply return the ballot the same way it came, via the U.S. Postal Service.

Another 29 states require voters to submit a request for a mailed absentee ballot but do not require an excuse such as illness or absence.

Three dozen states require mailed ballots to be received by election officials on or before Election Day, while the remainder allow votes to arrive later, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

More than two dozen states, including California and most other mail-ballot states, either explicitly or implicitly permit a practice referred to as “ballot harvesting” or “ballot collection,” in which activists can collect ballots from voters and deliver them to election offices or official collection boxes.

The Trump narrative

Trump argues that the “red mirage” is by itself evidence of election rigging. However, there is good reason to challenge such a claim.

Pratt, the Los Angeles mayoral candidate, was running in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly 4 to 1. Pratt’s defeat does not require extraordinary explanations. To the contrary, his defeat has a very ordinary explanation – as do most mirages.

Even without mailed ballots, states where there was a systematic lag between vote counts in rural and urban areas could experience dramatically shifting results, too.

In the mail-ballot era, analysts know that different groups of voters sometimes cast their ballots in different ways. California, for example, will regularly experience a pronounced red mirage because Democrats are more likely than Republicans to return their votes by mail, while GOP voters are more likely than Democrats to vote in person.

Additionally, mail ballots are often accepted after Election Day, Democratic-affiliated advocacy groups are more experienced than Republicans in ballot harvesting, and in-person early and Election Day ballots, along with mail ballots received before Election Day, are counted first. Mail ballots received on or after Election Day are counted later.

Other states, with different party norms and election rules, experience different results. In “Divided We Stand,” a book about the 2020 elections, my co-author, John J. Pitney Jr., and I discuss blue mirages that have appeared in Texas and Ohio.

These mirages are not a new phenomenon: In 1982, Democrat Tom Bradley’s Election Day lead for governor of California was proved a mirage after Republican George Deukmejian overtook him as absentee ballots came in. Back then, Republicans were most likely to vote by mail.

The problems with mail ballots

These easily explained mirages don’t necessarily mean that mail-ballot fraud is a nonissue and that there is nothing to be concerned about.

One June 2026 analysis in The Guardian contends that California’s election system “is working as designed: to protect against fraud and assure every vote is counted.” Like Trump’s claims, however, this too requires scrutiny.

In 2005, a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, found absentee voting to be susceptible to fraud, intimidation and vote-buying, and recommended that states prohibit third parties from handling absentee ballots as one solution.

In reality, fraud in ballots sent and returned by mail – either all-mail ballot or absentee – has occurred on a large enough scale to invalidate a 2018 U.S. House election in North Carolina, a 1997 mayoral election in Miami and a 2020 municipal election in Paterson, New Jersey, among others. It’s also produced numerous absentee vote scandals in Texas.

Mail-in critics also note that none of the eight all-mail ballot states require a copy of photo identification when completing a ballot, though supporters argue that other fraud prevention measures – like signature verification and online ballot tracking – are sufficiently rigorous.

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Read more:
Mail-in voting is safe and reliable – 5 essential reads

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Absentee or mail-in ballot vote fraud estimates vary. A November 2025 Brookings Institution analysis of the 2016 through 2022 general elections found about four cases of mail-voting fraud out of every 10 million mail votes. The Heritage Foundation found roughly 400 cases since 2000.

There are reasons to believe this understates the problem, though. In cases of large-scale organized fraud – the kind that can challenge the integrity of the electoral system – it is typical that only candidates or political organizers are charged with a crime. In the 1997 Miami mayoral race vote fraud scandal, for example, after several hundred absentee ballots were proved fraudulent, courts invalidated them all; still, only about 57 individuals were charged. Further, it would be unrealistic to assume every instance of election fraud is detected and results in even one arrest.

Other concerns

Electoral mirages are not by themselves proof of fraud, but fraud in mail ballot elections is a valid concern – and it is not the only valid concern.

Ballot harvesting, for example, lends itself to social pressure, can impinge on the secret ballot and gives outsize influence to organized interests.

The potential for fraud and long delays in tabulation can undermine confidence in elections, especially when voters have formed expectations of efficient and competent election administration. Older voters remember close national elections – in 1960, 1976 and 2004 – when results were known the next day.

In any event, convenience from mail voting does not always translate into more voters.

In California’s all-mail ballot election in 2024, voter turnout was 62.1%; in Florida, which limits mail voting to absentee ballots that voters must request, prohibits vote harvesting and requires absentee ballots to arrive by Election Day – all of which makes it harder to vote by mail – voter turnout was 66.7%.

Colorado and Hawaii – both all-mail ballot states – were toward the top and the bottom of turnout rates in 2024: Colorado had 73.1% turnout and Hawaii 50.3%.

The next election

In my analysis, whatever the temptations of partisan tribalism, neither narrative around mail ballots can be taken at face value. One automatically ascribes fraud to results that are often predictable, even routine; the other dismisses legitimate concerns as conspiracy theories.

Mirages will continue to occur, especially in states that use all-mail ballot elections, states that allow no-excuse absentee voting and states where votes can arrive after Election Day. A better-informed public would be better prepared to understand mirages when they occur – and better able to focus on more meaningful conversations about both the pros and cons of mail ballot elections.

Andrew E. Busch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

It’s been four years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion.

In the immediate aftermath of the decision, national attention centered on implementation of state bans and a rapidly shifting legal landscape.

But four years later, one of the most impactful developments has been less visible: a significant, sustained and politically consequential shift in public opinion. In the wake of Dobbs, the debate over abortion rights did not simply return to the states. It fundamentally altered how many Americans think about the issue and how they vote.

In our recently published book, “Not Going Back: Public Opinion on Abortion in Post-Dobbs America,” we examined how and why these changes have occurred, and what they mean for U.S. politics. We believe the shift could have real consequences for the November 2026 midterms.

Post-Roe stability

Drawing on several nationally representative surveys conducted before and after Dobbs, we examined how Americans’ abortion attitudes, political priorities and voting behavior have changed in response to the most significant shift in abortion policy in half a century.

For nearly 50 years after Roe, public opinion on abortion was remarkably stable. In 1975, Gallup found support for legal abortion in certain circumstances at 54% and support for a ban in all circumstances at 22%. In 2021 – the year before the Dobbs decision – these figures were virtually the same: 48% and 19%, respectively.

Despite heated political rhetoric, most Americans held nuanced views. They were neither fully anti-abortion nor fully pro-abortion. Instead, they supported legal abortion in some circumstances and not in others.

That underlying stability shaped both policy and politics for decades. Republicans were able to rally a committed core of supporters around opposition to Roe, while the underlying constitutional right to access abortion remained unchanged.

As states moved quickly after the Dobbs decision to enact abortion bans and strict gestational limits, public opinion moved in the opposite direction.

Today, more Americans identify as pro-choice than they did before Dobbs. And, as we document in our book, more Americans are now taking absolutist positions. They support legal access to abortion in all or most cases and oppose government regulation altogether.

How Dobbs shattered the equilibrium

One of the most striking changes in the post-Dobbs era concerns who cares most about abortion. For decades, abortion was a higher priority for Republicans and those identifying as pro-life.

That dynamic has now flipped. In both 2022 and 2024, Democrats and pro-choice Americans were more likely than Republicans to say abortion was a top political issue shaping their vote. In our book, we document how in both 2022 and 2024, pro-choice Democrats were especially motivated to vote and remained highly loyal to Democratic candidates.

At the same time, the considerable minority of Republicans who support legal abortion found themselves politically cross-pressured, meaning they experienced conflicting political influences.

Drawing on multiple nationally representative data sets, our book reveals that roughly one-third of Republicans hold views on abortion that do not align with the official pro-life position embraced by their party. They either identify as pro-choice or support legal abortion in at least some cases.

It was one thing to identify as a pro-choice Republican when Roe guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. After Dobbs, however, Republican electoral victories could directly result in abortion bans and other restrictions. That makes partisan choices far more consequential.

We found that cross-pressured Republicans had lower turnout rates and were more willing to cross party lines, reflecting the growing tension between their abortion views and their party’s position. Given the size of this group, that presents a serious challenge for GOP candidates.

Reshaping US politics

At the same time, efforts to find a middle ground on abortion have proven difficult. Republican legislators in North Carolina and Virginia, for example, have sought to position policies such as 12- or 15-week bans as a reasonable compromise.

That might have worked in 1990. But public opinion has shifted in ways that make this strategy increasingly untenable. Our research shows that most Americans, including Republicans, do not see these “moderate” policies as meaningfully different from more restrictive bans.

One reason may be that, in the wake of Dobbs, abortion restrictions have become concrete rather than abstract. Extensive media coverage of women denied care during miscarriages, severe pregnancy complications and other medical emergencies has highlighted the consequences of gestational limits. This leads many Americans to judge these policies by their practical effects rather than the specific week at which abortion is prohibited.

In addition, our original survey data reveals that many Americans have only a limited understanding of how pregnancy is dated. That makes distinctions between six-, 12- and 15-week bans less meaningful than policymakers often assume.

Another major change is the emergence of a gender gap in abortion attitudes. For decades, men and women held remarkably similar views on abortion. That is no longer the case.

Since Dobbs, women have become significantly more supportive of abortion rights than men. For example, 56% of women say abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, compared to 41% of men.

This new gender gap reflects both women’s experiences with pregnancy and abortion and the changed policy environment following Dobbs. After the ruling, the consequences of abortion restrictions became far more immediate and tangible.

Rather than accepting these new restrictions, many women reacted against them. As abortion policy moved sharply to the right in many states, women’s attitudes moved in the opposite direction. This has resulted in substantially greater support for abortion rights.

Our survey research further finds that a better understanding of human reproduction, including how pregnancies are dated, is associated with greater support for legal access to abortion.

Taken together, these changes have reshaped American politics in ways that advantage Democrats. Abortion rights played a key role in the 2022 midterms, contributing to stronger-than-expected Democratic performance nationwide.

And it continues to shape voter motivation and turnout patterns heading into future elections.

‘Not going back’

That said, abortion is not the only issue that matters in modern U.S. politics. In the 2026 midterm elections, the economy and partisanship – especially in an era dominated by President Donald Trump – will remain central to electoral outcomes.

Abortion alone is unlikely to determine any single race. But it has altered the political landscape in ways that will matter this November and beyond.

The phrase that gives our book its title – “Not Going Back” – captures this moment. The changes we document are not temporary reactions to a single Supreme Court decision.

The stability that defined abortion politics for half a century is gone. The new normal is a political landscape in which abortion rights have become both more widely supported and more politically consequential. They are motivating Democratic voters while creating new tensions within the Republican coalition.

Perhaps most importantly, Dobbs transformed abortion from a constitutional question into an electoral one. As abortion laws became substantially more restrictive, public opinion moved toward greater support for abortion access. The 2026 elections will offer another test of how the U.S. responds when public policy and public preferences move in opposite directions.

This story was produced in collaboration with Rewire News Group, an independent nonprofit media outlet that covers reproductive health.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The State Department on July 16, 2026, hosted what officials billed as a ministerial on the resurgence of left-wing political terrorism.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio invited representatives from more than 60 countries to Washington to hear an argument that many of them appear not to believe: that a transnational far-left terrorist movement called antifa threatens the democratic world. At the event, allies were asked to mobilize against that enemy despite nations like the Netherlands and Germany politely noting to their host that they cannot find evidence of any such group.

Some intelligence analysts have declined to brief on antifa at interagency meetings because they do not regard it as a serious counterterrorism threat.

As a terrorism scholar who spent a decade running the State Department office that designates terrorist organizations, I understand their confusion. The threat the administration describes does not exist in the form the administration describes it.

Antifa is not a group

As I and others have written before, antifa is not a group. It is a movement and an ideology, a loose commitment to opposing fascism. In its most organized form, it amounts to scattered local collectives like Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon.

There is no membership roll, no command hierarchy and no funding structure. There is no leader of antifa – the Trump administration has not named one – and there is no record of deadly attacks attributed to a U.S.-based organization called antifa.

Groups like the Islamic State group and al-Qaida have killed tens of thousands of people and have a documented chain of command. Antifa does not. You cannot decapitate a movement with no head, and you cannot sanction an organization that does not exist.

As such, the Trump administration created one.

Trump administration targets antifa

The construction project began on Sept. 22, 2025, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order purporting to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. The order describes antifa as “a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government.” It directs every relevant agency to investigate and dismantle its operations.

Two problems are immediately apparent. First, no legal authority exists to designate domestic organizations as terrorist groups. It’s a gap that Congress has deliberately preserved for First Amendment reasons.

Second, the order designates as an organization something the FBI’s past leadership has described as an ideology. Trump’s executive order asserts an antifa enterprise into existence and then declares war on it.

Three days after the executive order, the White House implemented the order through National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which converts the fiction into machinery. The memorandum directs the Treasury Department to identify and disrupt financial networks that fund what it deems domestic terrorism. The memorandum instructs banks to file suspicious activity reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the U.S. government’s financial intelligence unit.

That means the government’s financial surveillance apparatus, built to trace al-Qaida’s money in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is being pointed at Americans that the administration considers left-wing.

The memorandum likewise directs the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces to coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute and disrupt entities and individuals. That harnesses a network of roughly 200 task forces comprising over 4,000 personnel from federal, state and local agencies.

The wording of National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 gives away the administration’s true intent. It identifies the markers of this supposed terrorist movement as anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity. It criticizes the movement for its hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion and morality.

Those are not indicators of terrorism. They are political positions.

State Department targets groups overseas

The foreign component of the campaign arrived in November 2025. That’s when the State Department designated four European groups – one each from Germany and Italy and two from Greece – as Specially Designated Global Terrorists and Foreign Terrorist Organizations pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The State Department-designated groups are real. And some of their members have committed genuine crimes, including assaults and small-scale bombings.

But as I have noted, the designations are very peculiar. These groups have committed vandalism and harmed people, but not one of the four has carried out an attack that led to any fatalities.

German leaders have said the threat from one of the designated groups, Antifa Ost, or Antifa East, had recently decreased significantly.

As the former head of the State Department’s office that recommended to the secretary of state which groups to designate, I’ve been involved in the designations of hundreds of individuals and organizations. The bar was never this low. That’s because the Foreign Terrorist Organization list loses its meaning, and its deterrent power, when it includes groups whose body count is zero while genuinely lethal movements go unlisted.

The foreign nexus

That brings us back to the State Department’s ministerial. The sequence of events leading up to it matter:

Invent the organization by executive order; build the enforcement machinery by presidential memorandum; manufacture the foreign nexus through the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designations; and then convene the world to ratify the story. Each step launders the previous one.

Behind it all, Trump administration officials have discussed using the foreign terrorism labels to justify going after Americans with links to the movement. That is the point of the exercise, and U.S allies like the Netherlands have explained how antifa could not be designated as a terrorist group under their laws.

Counterterrorism tools are among the most powerful instruments the U.S. government possesses. I don’t believe that using them against an ideology, one defined by opposition to fascism, makes America safer. I believe it tells every ally the U.S. asks for help that the world’s leading counterterrorism power can no longer tell the difference between a threat and an opponent.

Implications of the ministerial meeting

This is not just an issue of semantics and rhetoric – each action by the Trump administration against a strawman enemy creates risks. And the push to internationalize the antifa threat could have dire consequences at home.

First, if the State Department leaves the July 16 meeting with pliable allies willing to brand antifa a terrorist organization, it will embolden the administration to point to a supposed global conspiracy of the far left.

That path leads to a State Department foreign terrorist designation. Such a designation means Americans could have their bank accounts frozen and quite possibly find themselves rounded up for providing material support to a movement rather than an organization. This would be more dangerous than Trump’s earlier executive order.

Second, it could chill freedom of speech and assembly. Once other governments treat antifa as a terrorist entity, the U.S. government gains cover to shut down protests under the guise of exposing global left-wing plotting.

Third, it could justify the revival of projects like the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, resurrecting the surveillance, infiltration and disruption of lawful political activity that the bureau was supposed to have abandoned after the abuses of the 1970s.

Fourth, as one European counterterrorism scholar recently warned, the summit lays bare a widening split between American and European counterterrorism priorities and the Trump administration’s willingness to bend counterterrorism policy to partisan ends.

That divergence is the real hazard, far more than any phantom left-wing terrorism group, because European counterterrorism leans so heavily on U.S. intelligence. As such, transatlantic counterterrorism cooperation could be in for turbulent times.

Whatever the outcome of the ministerial meeting, there is no version that will make Americans safer.

I believe one result is certain: Genuine threats – from groups with leaders, actual funding and malicious intent – will get less attention from the U.S. and any ally co-opted to take action against antifa.

Jason M. Blazakis is running as a Democrat for county commissioner in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

When people think about criminal justice punishment, they might picture a prison cell or a crew picking up roadside trash to fulfill community service hours.

But for millions of Americans, another penalty quietly follows them for years after they have served their time: debt.

Known as legal financial obligations, or criminal justice debt, these penalties encompass a range of economic sanctions. They can include court costs, fines, fees and restitution payments imposed during criminal proceedings.

Legal financial obligations have become a routine feature of punishment across the United States. They are justified as a way to hold people accountable, reduce incarceration and help fund the criminal justice system itself.

We are a team of researchers and criminal justice policy evaluators who want to better understand when these fines and fees are assessed and the impact they have on individuals and communities.

Our analysis of more than a decade of court data from Philadelphia suggests that these financial penalties are not evenly distributed across the city.

Instead, they are heavily concentrated in Black and Latino neighborhoods – places already facing the highest crime and victimization rates, significant economic hardship and the repercussions of entrenched, historical discrimination.

Lasting consequences of legal debt

Previous research has shown that court debt can have lasting consequences. People burdened by legal debt are more likely to experience ongoing involvement with the justice system, including probation violations and reincarceration.

Financial obligations can also make it harder to find and keep employment and afford transportation, food and housing.

Much of this research has focused on individual outcomes. Our study asked a different question: Where do these people live, and how are the debts distributed across the city?

If legal debt is concentrated geographically, its effects may extend beyond individuals and their immediate family or support network. It can contribute to broader patterns of neighborhood-level disadvantage.

Mapping debt across Philadelphia

We analyzed addresses linked to nearly 200,000 felony court cases involving defendants sentenced in Philadelphia between 2010 and 2020.

Pennsylvania law mandates various court costs and fees, and it permits judges to impose a range of additional economic sanctions. This means a criminal sentence generally leads to at least some legal financial obligations, though the amount and requirements can vary meaningfully.

Using geographic information systems and spatial analysis techniques, our team mapped where Philadelphians who were assessed these financial penalties lived. We compared those locations with measures of income, crime and victimization.

The results revealed clear geographic patterns.

Neighborhoods in North Philadelphia and parts of West Philadelphia emerged as major hot spots for criminal justice debt. Kensington, Fairhill, Hunting Park and Nicetown showed particularly high concentrations.

These are also neighborhoods, particularly Kensington, widely recognized for their persistent poverty and economic distress.

A burden concentrated in disadvantaged communities

Our study found that ZIP codes with the highest rates of legal financial obligations shared several key characteristics. They had lower median household incomes, higher rates of shootings and arrests, and larger proportions of Black and Latino residents compared to the city’s average.

By contrast, neighborhoods with the lowest rates of legal financial obligations tended to have substantially higher incomes, lower crime rates and larger white populations. Most of these areas are in Center City.

When we examined the data on an even smaller geographic scale – census block groups – the relationship became even clearer. Even when accounting for population size, those areas with the highest concentrations of legal financial obligations were also more likely to have lower incomes and higher rates of violent crime and shootings. Statistical analyses confirmed that these patterns were unlikely to be random.

More than a personal punishment

A growing body of research shows that criminal justice policies often concentrate their effects in specific communities. For example, researchers have identified “million-dollar blocks,” where governments spend enormous sums incarcerating residents from a single city block. Others have shown that aggressive policing practices disproportionately affect disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Our data suggests that legal financial obligations may work in much the same way. Court debt accumulates in neighborhoods that already struggle with poverty, violence and limited economic opportunities.

Even in treatment-oriented diversion programs in Philadelphia, our internal data shows that average total debt can range from US$500 to $800 and increase substantially if restitution is ordered. While any single penalty may not seem like that much, their accumulation across the justice process can be substantial.

As residents pay fines and fees, money is extracted from the communities that can least afford the loss. People who owe these criminal justice debts may rely on borrowing money from friends and family members. Some use their mortgages or property as collateral to pay the debt. This can put them at risk for foreclosure if payments are missed.

If court debt is concentrated in disadvantaged neighborhoods, policies that focus solely on individuals’ repayment may overlook broader impacts on the community’s housing stability, transportation and health.

Some advocates have proposed eliminating many fines and fees altogether, or redirecting the revenue toward communities most affected by criminal justice involvement.

We believe policymakers should consider reforms, such as finely tuned ability-to-pay assessments, reduced reliance on monetary sanctions and greater transparency in how fines and fees are imposed and collected.

While our study shows where legal financial obligations were imposed, it does not show how much money was assessed or how much remains unpaid. It also cannot determine whether legal financial obligations directly cause neighborhood disadvantage. It only shows that they are concentrated in places where disadvantage is already severe.

Regardless, the research highlights an often overlooked dimension of criminal justice policy. Court debt – and punishment generally – is typically viewed as an individual responsibility. Yet when thousands of cases are mapped across a city, a different picture emerges: one in which economic sanctions become a neighborhood-level burden.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Jordan Hyatt receives funding from Arnold Ventures and the City of Philadelphia.

Clare Strange receives funding from the National Institute of Justice. She is affiliated with the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

Nathan Link receives funding from Arnold Ventures.

Brian Lawton receives funding from Arnold Ventures.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Why would a young Republican back solar power but reject a carbon tax? Why would two Democrats agree that climate change is real but split over a policy that would charge households more if they exceeded a monthly limit on energy use?

Those patterns may go against the partisan rhetoric of our times, but they reflect the reality that Americans do not sort neatly into simple camps on climate change.

We study complex systems. In a new paper, we analyzed 20 years of Gallup environmental surveys, digging into individual responses from 2000 to 2020 that aren’t released to the public. We wanted to look beyond the usual headline that Democrats and Republicans disagree when it comes to climate change.

Rather than treating age, education, income and ethnicity as separate influences, we studied how they combine inside each party to shape climate beliefs and support for specific policies.

This deeper, more nuanced view changes the story by identifying people as more than just their political affiliations. To be clear, political party is still the strongest divide, but it does not tell us enough on its own. The same policy can mean very different things to different people, even within the same party.

We found several enduring themes.

1. Climate polarization deepened after 2017

A broad partisan split already existed, but it sharpened after Donald Trump first won election to the presidency in 2016. In Gallup polling from 2017, concern about global warming jumped among Democrats and independents, while Republicans stayed far less worried.

In those first months, Trump moved quickly against Obama-era climate policies: His administration removed Environmental Protection Agency climate-related webpages, proposed deep EPA budget cuts and then moved to dismantle policies meant to reduce power plant emissions, while signaling that it would withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the international foundation of many climate actions. So the issue was suddenly much more visible and conflict-driven.

Our analysis shows that the greatest shifts in concern were among Democrats and independents, particularly those who worry about global warming, whether it is human-caused or natural, and whether it will threaten their way of life.

That matters because it suggests opinion on climate change and policy can be reshaped by political context.

2. Among Republicans, age is a major force

The biggest internal divide among Republicans was age.

Younger Republicans have often been much more open to renewable energy and much less supportive of fossil fuel expansion than older Republicans. In our data, Republicans ages 18 to 34 were more likely than older Republicans to oppose coal development and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They also showed strong support for solar energy and alternative fuels.

Among some older Republican subgroups, support for oil exploration and nuclear power was much stronger.

This is more than a descriptive age gap. The survey responses suggest that within today’s Republican coalition, climate and energy preferences are being sorted through different priorities. Younger Republicans appear more open to future-oriented energy development, such as spending more government money on developing solar and wind power. Older Republicans are more attached to established energy systems and the economic language surrounding them.

3. Climate policy support depends on what the policy asks people to do

One of the clearest lessons from our analysis is that support for climate action depends heavily on the design of the policy itself.

Younger Republicans often supported renewable energy, but Republican-leaning respondents ages 18 to 54 still tended to oppose carbon taxes, which would raise the price of continuing to rely on fossil fuels. Support for solar panels or alternative fuels did not automatically translate into support for every climate policy.

That distinction helps explain why public opinion on an issue such as climate can look inconsistent when it is viewed as a monolith. People are reacting not only to climate change itself but also to what a policy signals about government, markets, fairness and personal cost.

This finding fits with earlier research on solution aversion: When threatened by a solution, a person’s belief in the problem itself may be challenged.

We found something similar across the political spectrum with proposals to legally limit household energy use. Those were unpopular not just with Republicans but also with many Democrats and other respondents who described themselves as concerned about climate change. Even people who accept that there is a problem may resist solutions that feel coercive or too close to everyday private life, meaning policies that interfere directly with daily household choices or bills.

4. Education does not erase the partisan gap

A common but mistaken assumption is that more education naturally leads to more agreement on climate change. Our results point to a messier reality.

Among Democrats, higher education was linked to stronger support for climate policies such as carbon taxes, emissions standards for business and industry, and renewable energy investment. College-educated Democrats were especially supportive of regulatory and tax-based climate policies, such as imposing mandatory controls on carbon dioxide emissions and passing a carbon tax to encourage people and industries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.

Among Republicans, education did much less to reduce skepticism about climate policies. Better-educated Republicans did not simply converge toward Democrats. In some cases, they remained skeptical of climate regulation even while showing support for technologies such as nuclear power.

We believe that this is one of the most important analytical lessons in the study. Education is not just adding information into a neutral space. It is interacting with party identity. The same increase in education can deepen support for climate policy in one partisan context while leaving skepticism largely intact in another.

5. The biggest group is the ‘mixed middle’

The largest group in our analysis was not those most concerned about climate change or the skeptics. It was the mixed middle: people with complicated, sometimes inconsistent views.

That group matters because it suggests American opinions on climate change are polarized but not fixed. The surveys showed that this middle group was the largest of the three Gallup clusters: 10,617 mixed-middle respondents, compared with 6,682 who were highly concerned about climate change and 3,102 skeptics. Many people are neither fully convinced nor fully dismissive of the need for policies to counter the drivers of climate change. Their views depend on the issue, the framing of policy proposals – for example, whether it is presented as a tax or an incentive, a regulation or a technology investment – and the trade-offs involved.

If there is a practical takeaway from 20 years of climate surveys, it is this: Political party remains the strongest clue to how Americans think about climate change, but to understand where opinion might move next – and which policies might actually gain support – requires looking deeper than the party label.

Mayank Kejriwal receives funding from DARPA.

Yidan Sun receives funding from DARPA.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

President Donald Trump used a nationally televised address on July 16, 2026, to unveil a collection of declassified documents. He said these documents, which the White House posted online during the address, show serious vulnerabilities in American election systems, extensive Chinese acquisition of U.S. voter data, and an intelligence community effort to suppress reporting on those threats.

A common misconception is that declassification works like a curtain being pulled back: A “Top Secret” marking comes off, and the public sees the truth. In reality, a released record may be raw reporting, a fragment of a communication, a source’s claim or a draft assessment. Each carries a different relationship to reliability and analytic judgment.

I’m an international affairs professor with nearly 30 years of experience in the U.S. intelligence community, including executive roles in the Central Intelligence Agency, National Counterterrorism Center and National Security Agency. I would advise anyone reviewing this release – or any declassified intelligence – to keep one distinction in mind before drawing conclusions: Declassification changes who may see information, but it does not determine whether the information is true, important, current, corroborated or representative of the broader intelligence record.

The archive is not the assessment

The 17th-century French statesman Cardinal Richelieu is commonly credited as saying, “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” It’s an apt warning here – not because intelligence collection is indifferent to truth, but because of what it deliberately preserves.

Intelligence agencies collect widely and retain material across a full spectrum of reliability, including reporting that was later contradicted, downgraded or explicitly discounted, because judging what matters is supposed to happen through analysis over time, not by declining to collect something in the first place.

In my experience, that means the government’s holdings almost certainly contain a report that appears to support nearly any serious allegation someone could make about a public official, a foreign government or a disputed national event – sitting alongside the later reporting and analytic judgment that determined how much weight, if any, it deserved.

Mistaking a document’s existence for proof of its content – without the context of what came after it – is, in my assessment, the most common way declassified material can get misread.

‘Intelligence report’ is misleading

The phrase “intelligence report” adds to the confusion. It is often used as though it describes one kind of document. It does not. A report might be an unevaluated database entry, a clandestine source account, an intercepted communication or a finished assessment such as the President’s Daily Brief. These documents sit at different points in the intelligence cycle: planning, collection, processing, analysis, dissemination and evaluation. Evaluation, though it’s listed as a step in the cycle, is continuous.

A human-source report includes both what a source said and how the intelligence officer handling that source assessed the source’s access, reliability and possible motives. Those judgments help analysts weigh the reporting. They do not make it definitive. A well-placed source can misunderstand what he heard. A generally reliable source can still be wrong.

Signals intelligence can create a different kind of false confidence. Intercepted communications can appear definitive, but a single intercept shows only that something was said. It does not establish that the speaker knew the truth, that the communication was complete or that later reporting supported it.

Finished intelligence exists to weigh those questions. Analysts compare reporting streams, test assumptions, identify gaps, assign confidence levels and state what remains uncertain. Finished products can still be wrong.

This is why intelligence work runs on a cycle, with evaluation happening at every stage, not only at the end. That discipline is what keeps flawed or incomplete information from being mistaken for settled fact.

What a declassification review exists to catch

That distinction matters in any declassification, but it becomes especially important when the process is rushed.

Removing a classification marking is only one part of the process. Review also asks what release might expose beyond the text: a human source, collection method, foreign liaison relationship, ongoing operation or analytic context needed to keep the public from being misled.

One document can also involve several agencies. A report about a foreign leader might draw on information from a CIA source, quote communications collected by the National Security Agency and discuss a diplomatic relationship managed by the State Department. Large-scale declassification is therefore normally interagency work, not simply the decision of one office.

The Biden administration’s decision to declassify intelligence on Russian preparations leading up to the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine moved unusually fast by intelligence standards. I was involved in that process while serving at the CIA. But the speed served a specific purpose: warning allies and shaping Russian calculations before an invasion occurred. The review process was compressed, not abandoned.

What to look for once something is released

Readers should ask practical questions when declassified material appears: Is this document raw reporting, an intercept, a source account, a draft or a finished assessment? Was it released with the caveats, later reporting and interagency review needed to judge its weight? If it is being used to challenge an intelligence assessment, does the release show how analysts evaluated that material, what other reporting they weighed and why they accepted or discounted it?

None of these questions requires assuming bad faith. They are the same questions intelligence professionals ask before turning information into judgment. A raw report in a classified system is evidence that something was reported. It is not, by itself, proof that the report was true.

Brian O’Neill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Pittsburgh-area courts have a new tool for people in mental health crisis: the power to order treatment instead of incarceration or hospitalization.

Between 2015 and 2022, more than 5,000 people a year were evaluated for involuntary hospitalization in Allegheny County, and roughly 3,700 were committed. Fewer than half got follow-up outpatient care afterward, and 20% died within five years of that first evaluation. These deaths often trace to more than psychiatric illness – untreated medical conditions, substance use, unstable housing, poverty and limited care access all raise mortality risk too.

Assisted outpatient treatment is a shift from the county’s existing process for mental health crises, known as a 302 commitment.

A 302 is Pennsylvania’s process for involuntary emergency psychiatric evaluation and short-term hospitalization. Someone with firsthand knowledge – a family member, clinician or other person – can petition, describing behavior showing the person is a danger to themselves or others due to mental illness.

In Allegheny County, a mental health delegate typically authorizes the petition, though police or physicians can act directly in some cases. Once authorized, a physician examines the person and decides whether to admit them. If admitted, they can be held up to 120 hours. Extending treatment beyond that requires a separate court hearing. The process doesn’t require any follow-up care after release.

Not everyone qualifies for assisted outpatient treatment. To meet Pennsylvania’s criteria, a person generally must have a serious mental illness that significantly impairs daily functioning. Or they must have a history of repeated hospitalizations, incarceration or behavioral health crises and difficulty staying engaged in voluntary treatment.

I study poverty, mental health and access to social services among vulnerable populations, with a focus on racial justice and health equity, and I know that asking whether someone meets that bar is only the first question. What happens next depends on whether the services their plan calls for actually exist and are accessible. That’s not always the case.

How assisted outpatient treatment is supposed to work

Pennsylvania has allowed counties to adopt assisted outpatient treatment since 2018, but nearly all of the state’s 67 counties have opted out every year, citing cost and staffing concerns. Aside from Allegheny, only five counties – Bucks, Dauphin, Carbon, Monroe and Pike – have operational assisted outpatient treatment programs.

Allegheny County describes assisted outpatient treatment as a “step down” from inpatient care, a “step up” before a 302 becomes necessary, or a “step over” from the criminal justice system into civil treatment. It carries no criminal penalties – a judge can hold a review hearing, change the plan or order a new evaluation, but the person can’t be jailed for noncompliance alone. If someone becomes an immediate danger, the county can still use the 302 process.

Assisted outpatient treatment is intended to help people remain safely in their community while a court keeps the case open. An assisted outpatient treatment petition can be filed by a family member, provider or other concerned party. If a petition is granted, the order lasts up to 90 days.

A service coordinator tracks whether appointments, medication management, peer support and housing referrals are actually happening during this period. At the end of 90 days, the order can end or be extended if the person still meets the criteria. The need for treatment isn’t always just psychiatric. Other common needs include financial support, medical care, stable housing, financial support and transportation.

A person may leave the hospital with a referral, miss an appointment, stop medication or deteriorate again. Assisted outpatient treatment is meant to keep a team attached after the crisis passes: A coordinator reports to a judge, and missed appointments can trigger more hearings. Nonadherence alone can’t lead to jail, but a separate emergency commitment can still be filed if the person becomes a danger to themselves or others.

On paper, Allegheny County has hundreds of mental health providers ready to see Medicaid patients. In practice, most of them aren’t reachable at all. Public funding – state, federal and county – covers most mandated psychiatric care, and most people leaving involuntary hospitalization rely on Medicare or Medicaid. Yet many still struggle to find care.

In a University of Pittsburgh simulated-patient study, 279 outpatient mental health providers in Allegheny County listed as accepting adult Medicaid. Out of that number, only 34 had available appointments, and more than 50% of patient calls went unreturned.

In other words, roughly 1 in 8 listed providers could actually see a new patient.

Even among Medicaid clients who eventually secured care, patients spent an average of 28 days searching for an appointment and another 19 days waiting to be seen.

Fewer hospitalizations, but why?

Allegheny County’s assisted outpatient treatment program is too new to evaluate on its own, but Pennsylvania isn’t the first state to try this approach to helping people with mental illness. California and New York have run similar programs for years. Their results, which depend heavily on whether people get timely community services, offer the best preview of what to expect.

Most people referred under Laura’s Law in California never had to appear in court. Over 80% instead accepted voluntary services in 2023. Even those who went through the court process improved: Homelessness, hospitalizations, police contact, violent behavior and substance use all declined, while employment rose.

Still, a 2020 state audit found that many Californians cycled through repeated involuntary hospitalizations without ever being connected to ongoing care.

On the other side of the country, Kendra’s Law in New York showed similar gains: lower hospitalization and treatment costs in its first two years, as crisis use fell and outpatient care rose. But a 2024 state audit found the program was often slow to check on people and get them into treatment, with some court orders lapsing before renewal.

Several studies suggest people’s daily functioning often improves once assisted outpatient treatment begins. They have fewer hospitalizations, less crisis-service use, fewer interactions with law enforcement and stronger connections to care providers and community supports.

A 2025 peer-reviewed evaluation followed 392 clients in federally funded assisted outpatient treatment programs across several states. The evaluation found that participants were more likely to attend appointments and take medications. They reported improved symptoms, life satisfaction and stronger relationships with their care teams. They also had fewer hospitalizations and arrests, and they reported less illicit drug use, homelessness, suicidal thoughts and violent behavior.

What to watch

Assessing the success of assisted outpatient treatment in Pennsylvania requires asking not just whether it “works,” but which part is doing the work. A typical plan is a bundle of legal pressure, service coordination, provider accountability and community supports, and these vary widely by location.

Before assisted outpatient treatment launched, Allegheny County gathered feedback from 58 people with lived experience of the behavioral health or justice systems. Participants saw potential value in assisted outpatient treatment as a way to help people stay in or return to the community instead of cycling through jail or inpatient care – but also raised concerns about service speed and deepening contact with police.

Allegheny County’s public dashboards offer a way to monitor what’s changing as assisted outpatient treatment rolls out. Suicides were 14% lower from January through June 2026 compared to the same months in 2025. At the same time, however, 302 petitions rose 5.3% year over year and upheld petitions rose 2%.

None of this shows the direct impact of assisted outpatient treatment. The program launched in January, and there’s likely an adjustment period as professionals, families and community members learn how to use it. For now, these are early indicators worth continuing to track.

Assisted outpatient treatment may help some people avoid incarceration, hospitalization or other restrictive measures, but only if Allegheny County addresses the severe shortages of community mental health services and supports.

Erica Maloney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

In a time of political polarization, it’s easy to forget that the vast majority of Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs – 80% or more, depending on the poll – value environmental conservation. However, this support is not easily or often translated into successful, popular initiatives.

One success story is the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Since 2010, it has provided over US$5 billion to improve the quality of the region’s environment, with an overarching goal of cleaning up the water in the Great Lakes watershed. And it has survived multiple attempts to reduce its funding or eliminate it altogether.

As a water policy and politics expert and a former leader in the Great Lakes advocacy community who has worked on and analyzed the initiative, I worked with environmental historian and Great Lakes expert Marc Gaden along with a team of graduate students to comprehensively assess the initiative and determine useful lessons learned for other projects in conservation and beyond.

A bit of background

The Great Lakes contain approximately 20% of the world’s available surface freshwater, providing drinking water to over 40 million people in the U.S. and Canada and billions of dollars annually in economic activity and ecological productivity.

Throughout most of the 20th century, the ecosystem in and around the lakes was degraded and contaminated due to raw sewage, industrial waste, invasive species, loss of natural habitats and runoff pollution from development, among other issues.

Many problems remained even after the major environmental and Great Lakes laws of the late 20th century took effect. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has funded more than 8,000 specific projects, focusing on cleaning up especially toxic locations, controlling invasive species, restoring natural habitat and educating the next generation of leaders.

Government reports, public opinion polls, economic analysis and many other accounts suggest that the initiative has not only been successfully implemented and popular but has led to positive results for water quality, habitat restoration and wildlife while boosting the local and regional economy.

Deep connection

But these results didn’t happen by accident, and they weren’t inevitable. Our research team identified converging forces, some unique to the Great Lakes but many broadly applicable, that led to this success.

Underlying each force is the iconic status of the waters themselves. People in the region feel a deep attachment to the lakes and the quality of life they enable, with more than 50% of residents engaging in walking/hiking, swimming, boating or simply being with family and friends along the lakes. As U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, Republican co-chair of the Great Lakes Congressonal Task Force, said in mid-July 2026: “The Great Lakes aren’t a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. They’re an economic engine, a source of drinking water for millions of people, and part of our way of life here in Michigan. Protecting them is something we can all rally around.”

A 2024 poll of a random sample of more than 2,500 Americans and Canadians found 96% of the region’s residents think it’s important for governments to invest in protecting the Great Lakes – a level of near-unanimity unheard of for other issues.

A prominent launch

Shared identity and popular support are not enough to launch a major government effort without a spark and a plan.

In 2004, President George W. Bush – in part driven by the swing state electoral power of the Great Lakes region – signed an executive order declaring the Great Lakes to have “national significance” and launching the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy. Developed over the course of a year through work groups involving more than 1,500 people combined with public input sessions, the strategy laid out common goals for restoration and prioritized a list of needs, such as funding to clean up toxic hot spots and sewage overflows, which was critical to securing congressional support for funding.

Diverse allies

A plan for restoration – even for an iconic resource – will not garner billions of dollars in federal funding without significant bipartisan support from all levels of government and strong community support.

Those speaking up for the new program were “not simply one group or one voice. It was governors, mayors, the NGO community and tribes,” David Naftzger, executive director of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers, which works with all the chief state and provincial executives across the region, told our research team.

Business leaders have been particularly crucial backers. They relay to lawmakers the economic value of restoration projects, providing political cover for a program that increases government spending.

The broad range of support continues today and has helped the initiative weather various efforts to reduce or eliminate its funding.

Most famously, in 2019, President Donald Trump proposed cutting the initiative’s funding by 90%. Three weeks later, while traveling with Trump to a political rally in Michigan, three Michigan congressional Republicans explained how critical the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is to the region’s identity and economy, and how popular it is. At the rally, Trump reversed course and announced he would support keeping funding levels at US$300 million per year, promising to “make the Great Lakes great again.”

At a Washington, D.C., event celebrating the Great Lakes in 2023, I saw JD Vance, then a Republican U.S. senator from Ohio, and U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, proclaim that while they may not agree on much, they are united in their support for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Clear communication

Our analysis found that initiative supporters have been organized and disciplined about how they talk about the program and the overall goals. State officials, local leaders, tribal nations, nonprofit groups and businesses all deliver a “coordinated, consistent kind of beating of the drum,” Erika Jensen, executive director of the Great Lakes Commission, told our research team.

This includes not only the many positive stories of success but also the economic benefits. A University of Michigan study that showed the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative boosts the region’s economic output by more than $3 for every dollar of federal spending is used often to make this case.

These coordinated messages allow political leaders to tie the initiative into their priorities and build support across diverse audiences. One key reason for this kind of powerful communication is that the initiative funds work in every congressional district in the Great Lakes watershed, so every member of Congress in the region can say they brought home federal money to make significant improvements in their own districts.

‘Secret sauce’

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative pays for community-based work on local lands and waterways – it does not regulate industries or tread into particularly controversial territory.

Everywhere has places that need help, cleanup and care. These ecosystems are relatively easy to build support for, and when connected with other projects across a wide region, these smaller efforts can make a significant difference in environmental quality and quality of life while building political and community support for even bigger undertakings.

I believe that many of the core lessons and converging forces that make up the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative’s “secret sauce” can be applied not only to the future of the Great Lakes but to conservation initiatives across the U.S. and the world. And they may even be able to help restore bipartisanship to at least some parts of U.S. politics.

Mike Shriberg previously worked at the National Wildlife Federation, which received external funding from foundations and private donors to work on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The research highlighted in this article is supported by grants from the Wege Foundation and the Joyce Foundation.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation