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Hudson Institute Issues Commentary: What Happened to Latin America's Old Right?
WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Aug. 18, 2026, by fellow Gil Guerra to the Oxford Review of Latin American Studies:
* * *
What Happened to Latin America's Old Right?
On April 23, 2025, former Argentine president Mauricio Macri gathered his remaining provincial lieutenants in Mar del Plata. The center-right party he had founded, Republican Proposal (PRO), was in the process of being stripped for parts. President Javier Milei's La Libertad Avanza (LLA) ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Aug. 18, 2026, by fellow Gil Guerra to the Oxford Review of Latin American Studies: * * * What Happened to Latin America's Old Right? On April 23, 2025, former Argentine president Mauricio Macri gathered his remaining provincial lieutenants in Mar del Plata. The center-right party he had founded, Republican Proposal (PRO), was in the process of being stripped for parts. President Javier Milei's La Libertad Avanza (LLA)was drawing PRO officials into its ranks while insisting that any electoral alliance between PRO and LLA run under his banner. "The party leaders who had a price have already been bought," Macri declared. "Those of us who remain have no price; we have values."
Macri's stance seemed like the beginnings of defiance, but by July it read more like an epitaph: PRO had accepted Milei's terms, and the city's mayor, Guillermo Montenegro--one of the men beside Macri that morning--was heading an LLA ticket in the region.
Macri is not alone in his woes. Over the past decade, Latin America's establishment right or "old" right has steadily lost ground to a "new" wave of right-of-center political figures and parties. While much has been written on the trajectory of the new right's ascent, relatively little attention has been paid to what will be lost as the old right recedes. More comprehensive examinations of the new right should consider it not only in contrast to the region's left, but also in contrast to the old right parties and figures they displaced.
* * *
Table 1. The establishment right and its challengers across thirteen countries, 2018-2026
* * *
The Two Rights
Neither camp is ideologically uniform, and their primary differences lie in their histories and how they operate. The old right is defined here as the party that held or credibly contested the presidency from the right during the 2010s on a platform of institutional continuity. In some places the category is relational, since Colombia's Centro Democratico and Peru's Fujimorismo, the movement around the Fujimori family, are hardline by any absolute standard. They qualify as establishment only because something more disruptive eventually appeared alongside them.
The new right is defined as the personalist insurgencies that displaced the establishment right parties or figures, and three traits cohere across their otherwise broad spectrum: security politics inspired by the Salvadoran model, an antipolitics aimed at the political class as such, and digital-native personalist organization.
In other areas of policy, the differences between the old and new rights are often indistinguishable from the differences within their own camps. Despite the new right's strong association with Trumpism, alignment with Washington and friendly attitudes towards President Trump apply just as readily to old-right figures, among them Honduras's Nasry Asfura and the Dominican Republic's Luis Abinader. The economic doctrine also ranges widely, from Milei's anarcho-capitalist outlook to Bolsonaro's heterodox spending.
The new right also shows a stronger affinity for civilizational framing in politics and a skepticism towards institutions they see as having failed or been corrupted. Parties survive on brands their voters can distinguish, as Noam Lupu's account of the region's party collapses establishes,[1] and competence under institutional continuity became a poor asset in an anti-incumbent decade. The establishment right asked electorates to trust that they would be able to fix institutions with better management. The new right asks them to trust a person instead and treats institutional restraint as one of the things better management must break, regardless of whether that restraint was established by the right or the left.
New Movements, Same Voters
Much of the new right's electoral success comes from winning over the old right's voter base rather than making inroads with entirely new groups. Both camps tend to do best among relatively well-off voters. For example, Datafolha's crosstabs from the June 2022 wave showed Bolsonaro leading Lula by double digits among Brazilians in the two upper-middle income brackets. However, some electoral differences between the two are still noticeable, particularly in education levels where higher-educated voters tend to favor old right candidates.
Chile's returns allow the closest look at how these intra-right voting dynamics manifest. The thirty-five communes where establishment right candidate Evelyn Matthei polled best in the first round are 31.4 percent tertiary-educated and 10.1 percent evangelical, against 13.4 and 27.7 percent in the thirty-five where Jose Antonio Kast polled best.[2] When the choice narrowed to two, the establishment's strongholds mostly crossed over to Kast. Published estimates of how many of Matthei's first-round voters went to Kast in the runoff range from 54 to 64 percent.[3]
Colombia illustrates a more direct form of displacement. Abelardo de la Espriella, the outsider right candidate, showed a stronger correlation with the electoral geography of former president Alvaro Uribe than Uribe's endorsed center-right candidate, Paloma Valencia, did.[4] Municipal co-movement on its own cannot separate an inheritance of Uribe's voters from the general stability of Colombia's left-right geography, but the returns also show that Valencia's first-round share predicts De la Espriella's runoff gain almost one for one, and AtlasIntel found roughly three-quarters of her voters moving to him after the first round.[5]
These transfers matter because several of the region's presidencies are now decided at the margin between two nearly even blocs. Keiko Fujimori won Peru's June runoff by 0.27 points, and De la Espriella won Colombia's by roughly a single point. In both cases the winning margin was far smaller than the vote inherited from the other right, so how completely one right movement's voters transfer to the other has become the difference between being in government and being in the opposition.
The residual establishment electorate, where it can be measured, is affluent, university-educated, and attached to institutional vehicles, but it is not uniformly moderate: the most educated comunas of Buenos Aires gave hardliner Patricia Bullrich roughly three-fifths to two-thirds inside her own coalition's primary.[6]
A 7-3 Winning Record
The new right's record against the establishment is strong but not flawless. In the eleven elections that the new right contested in Table 1, displacement followed in seven and failed in three. Bolivia is a mixed case, since Jorge Quiroga remade the old right in the insurgent style but lost the runoff to a centrist.
The three failures are in some ways more informative than the seven successes. In each, the insurgency ran into an old right whose organization ran deep. Uruguay's Cabildo Abierto and Paraguay's Cruzada both failed to displace their institutionally entrenched rivals on the right. Peru was the closest call. Rafael Lopez Aliaga's Renovacion Popular missed the runoff by some twenty-one thousand votes, and the presidency then went to perennial candidate Keiko Fujimori.[7]
The displaced parties did not all meet the same end. Jennifer Cyr's account of party crisis in Latin America helps explain why: brand and organization can outlast an electoral collapse, while money, patronage, and elites tend to vanish with it.[8]
Even the successes are less total than the scoreboard suggests. De la Espriella won the Colombian presidency in June. When the new Congress was installed on 20 July, the Senate elected Honorio Henriquez of the Centro Democratico as its president, 56 votes to 45, over the candidate the president-elect had backed. The ballot was secret, but press reconstructions agree that Uribe's bench prevailed with votes from the left-wing Pacto Historico and roughly nine defectors from the government's own coalition. De la Espriella's coalition holds 38 seats in a Senate where most bills need about 55, so majorities will have to be built vote by vote.
The Paths Back
As Argentina has shown, the old right cannot simply wait for the new right to lose popularity in order to regain its voters When Milei's standing sagged through 2025, the voters he shed drifted into abstention rather than back toward the establishment, and the October recovery went to his own party's line, which took 40.7 percent of the legislative vote after getting a boost from the Trump administration in the form of a pre-election $40 billion credit swap.
The old right thus has four viable paths back to political relevance in the countries where it has been displaced. The first is co-optation of the new right from within. Milei's economic program is run by Luis Caputo and Federico Sturzenegger, both senior Macri-administration figures, and his first security minister was Bullrich, who now sits in the Senate on his party's list.
The second and third paths both run through a vehicle, one built from scratch and one salvaged. Durable new parties, the party-building literature finds, tend to emerge from sustained conflict with a polarizing incumbent.[9] The potential for this exists in the educated, party-attached stratum visible in the Chilean and Argentine returns. The standing risk, on both the historical and the Argentine evidence, is that a fresher outsider harvests the backlash first. Salvaging the electoral vehicle is also an option in places like Chile, where Chile Vamos kept its label, bench, and municipal base while conceding only the presidential lane.
The fourth path, issue depreciation, is the most speculative. If the Salvadoran security model succeeds and violence recedes as the region's organizing question, the premium could shift back toward competence in administration, which the old right may be seen as having a better claim to. The old right's long game may thus depend on its conquerors becoming too successful for their own good.
Conclusion
In most of the region, over the past decade the establishment right's parties have been absorbed, taken over, or reduced to remnants, and its electorate has been annexed by movements that campaign against much of what it once claimed to represent.
But the old right is not dead across the board, and it remains a marginalized but decisive force in several countries where the new right needs its support in order to govern. Whether the new right's leaders recognize this interdependence is another matter. Asked about Macri a few weeks after Mar del Plata, Milei suggested that his old ally should perhaps come to understand que su tiempo paso, that his time had passed.
Read in Oxford Review of Latin American Studies (https://orlas.review/2026/08/17/what-happened-to-latin-americas-old-right/).
* * *
Gil Guerra is a fellow at Hudson Institute. He specializes in US strategy for the Western Hemisphere, with a focus on the political, economic, and security dynamics shaping Latin America and the Caribbean and their implications for US interests. His research covers hemispheric security, strategic competition in the Western Hemisphere, migration as an instrument of statecraft, and emerging technology in the region.
* * *
URL: Oxford Review of Latin American Studies
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/politics-government/what-happened-latin-americas-old-right-gil-guerra
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
What Happened to Latin America's Old Right?
On April 23, 2025, former Argentine president Mauricio Macri gathered his remaining provincial lieutenants in Mar del Plata. The center-right party he had founded, Republican Proposal (PRO), was in the process of being stripped for parts. President Javier Milei's La Libertad Avanza (LLA) ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Aug. 18, 2026, by fellow Gil Guerra to the Oxford Review of Latin American Studies: * * * What Happened to Latin America's Old Right? On April 23, 2025, former Argentine president Mauricio Macri gathered his remaining provincial lieutenants in Mar del Plata. The center-right party he had founded, Republican Proposal (PRO), was in the process of being stripped for parts. President Javier Milei's La Libertad Avanza (LLA)was drawing PRO officials into its ranks while insisting that any electoral alliance between PRO and LLA run under his banner. "The party leaders who had a price have already been bought," Macri declared. "Those of us who remain have no price; we have values."
Macri's stance seemed like the beginnings of defiance, but by July it read more like an epitaph: PRO had accepted Milei's terms, and the city's mayor, Guillermo Montenegro--one of the men beside Macri that morning--was heading an LLA ticket in the region.
Macri is not alone in his woes. Over the past decade, Latin America's establishment right or "old" right has steadily lost ground to a "new" wave of right-of-center political figures and parties. While much has been written on the trajectory of the new right's ascent, relatively little attention has been paid to what will be lost as the old right recedes. More comprehensive examinations of the new right should consider it not only in contrast to the region's left, but also in contrast to the old right parties and figures they displaced.
* * *
Table 1. The establishment right and its challengers across thirteen countries, 2018-2026
* * *
The Two Rights
Neither camp is ideologically uniform, and their primary differences lie in their histories and how they operate. The old right is defined here as the party that held or credibly contested the presidency from the right during the 2010s on a platform of institutional continuity. In some places the category is relational, since Colombia's Centro Democratico and Peru's Fujimorismo, the movement around the Fujimori family, are hardline by any absolute standard. They qualify as establishment only because something more disruptive eventually appeared alongside them.
The new right is defined as the personalist insurgencies that displaced the establishment right parties or figures, and three traits cohere across their otherwise broad spectrum: security politics inspired by the Salvadoran model, an antipolitics aimed at the political class as such, and digital-native personalist organization.
In other areas of policy, the differences between the old and new rights are often indistinguishable from the differences within their own camps. Despite the new right's strong association with Trumpism, alignment with Washington and friendly attitudes towards President Trump apply just as readily to old-right figures, among them Honduras's Nasry Asfura and the Dominican Republic's Luis Abinader. The economic doctrine also ranges widely, from Milei's anarcho-capitalist outlook to Bolsonaro's heterodox spending.
The new right also shows a stronger affinity for civilizational framing in politics and a skepticism towards institutions they see as having failed or been corrupted. Parties survive on brands their voters can distinguish, as Noam Lupu's account of the region's party collapses establishes,[1] and competence under institutional continuity became a poor asset in an anti-incumbent decade. The establishment right asked electorates to trust that they would be able to fix institutions with better management. The new right asks them to trust a person instead and treats institutional restraint as one of the things better management must break, regardless of whether that restraint was established by the right or the left.
New Movements, Same Voters
Much of the new right's electoral success comes from winning over the old right's voter base rather than making inroads with entirely new groups. Both camps tend to do best among relatively well-off voters. For example, Datafolha's crosstabs from the June 2022 wave showed Bolsonaro leading Lula by double digits among Brazilians in the two upper-middle income brackets. However, some electoral differences between the two are still noticeable, particularly in education levels where higher-educated voters tend to favor old right candidates.
Chile's returns allow the closest look at how these intra-right voting dynamics manifest. The thirty-five communes where establishment right candidate Evelyn Matthei polled best in the first round are 31.4 percent tertiary-educated and 10.1 percent evangelical, against 13.4 and 27.7 percent in the thirty-five where Jose Antonio Kast polled best.[2] When the choice narrowed to two, the establishment's strongholds mostly crossed over to Kast. Published estimates of how many of Matthei's first-round voters went to Kast in the runoff range from 54 to 64 percent.[3]
Colombia illustrates a more direct form of displacement. Abelardo de la Espriella, the outsider right candidate, showed a stronger correlation with the electoral geography of former president Alvaro Uribe than Uribe's endorsed center-right candidate, Paloma Valencia, did.[4] Municipal co-movement on its own cannot separate an inheritance of Uribe's voters from the general stability of Colombia's left-right geography, but the returns also show that Valencia's first-round share predicts De la Espriella's runoff gain almost one for one, and AtlasIntel found roughly three-quarters of her voters moving to him after the first round.[5]
These transfers matter because several of the region's presidencies are now decided at the margin between two nearly even blocs. Keiko Fujimori won Peru's June runoff by 0.27 points, and De la Espriella won Colombia's by roughly a single point. In both cases the winning margin was far smaller than the vote inherited from the other right, so how completely one right movement's voters transfer to the other has become the difference between being in government and being in the opposition.
The residual establishment electorate, where it can be measured, is affluent, university-educated, and attached to institutional vehicles, but it is not uniformly moderate: the most educated comunas of Buenos Aires gave hardliner Patricia Bullrich roughly three-fifths to two-thirds inside her own coalition's primary.[6]
A 7-3 Winning Record
The new right's record against the establishment is strong but not flawless. In the eleven elections that the new right contested in Table 1, displacement followed in seven and failed in three. Bolivia is a mixed case, since Jorge Quiroga remade the old right in the insurgent style but lost the runoff to a centrist.
The three failures are in some ways more informative than the seven successes. In each, the insurgency ran into an old right whose organization ran deep. Uruguay's Cabildo Abierto and Paraguay's Cruzada both failed to displace their institutionally entrenched rivals on the right. Peru was the closest call. Rafael Lopez Aliaga's Renovacion Popular missed the runoff by some twenty-one thousand votes, and the presidency then went to perennial candidate Keiko Fujimori.[7]
The displaced parties did not all meet the same end. Jennifer Cyr's account of party crisis in Latin America helps explain why: brand and organization can outlast an electoral collapse, while money, patronage, and elites tend to vanish with it.[8]
Even the successes are less total than the scoreboard suggests. De la Espriella won the Colombian presidency in June. When the new Congress was installed on 20 July, the Senate elected Honorio Henriquez of the Centro Democratico as its president, 56 votes to 45, over the candidate the president-elect had backed. The ballot was secret, but press reconstructions agree that Uribe's bench prevailed with votes from the left-wing Pacto Historico and roughly nine defectors from the government's own coalition. De la Espriella's coalition holds 38 seats in a Senate where most bills need about 55, so majorities will have to be built vote by vote.
The Paths Back
As Argentina has shown, the old right cannot simply wait for the new right to lose popularity in order to regain its voters When Milei's standing sagged through 2025, the voters he shed drifted into abstention rather than back toward the establishment, and the October recovery went to his own party's line, which took 40.7 percent of the legislative vote after getting a boost from the Trump administration in the form of a pre-election $40 billion credit swap.
The old right thus has four viable paths back to political relevance in the countries where it has been displaced. The first is co-optation of the new right from within. Milei's economic program is run by Luis Caputo and Federico Sturzenegger, both senior Macri-administration figures, and his first security minister was Bullrich, who now sits in the Senate on his party's list.
The second and third paths both run through a vehicle, one built from scratch and one salvaged. Durable new parties, the party-building literature finds, tend to emerge from sustained conflict with a polarizing incumbent.[9] The potential for this exists in the educated, party-attached stratum visible in the Chilean and Argentine returns. The standing risk, on both the historical and the Argentine evidence, is that a fresher outsider harvests the backlash first. Salvaging the electoral vehicle is also an option in places like Chile, where Chile Vamos kept its label, bench, and municipal base while conceding only the presidential lane.
The fourth path, issue depreciation, is the most speculative. If the Salvadoran security model succeeds and violence recedes as the region's organizing question, the premium could shift back toward competence in administration, which the old right may be seen as having a better claim to. The old right's long game may thus depend on its conquerors becoming too successful for their own good.
Conclusion
In most of the region, over the past decade the establishment right's parties have been absorbed, taken over, or reduced to remnants, and its electorate has been annexed by movements that campaign against much of what it once claimed to represent.
But the old right is not dead across the board, and it remains a marginalized but decisive force in several countries where the new right needs its support in order to govern. Whether the new right's leaders recognize this interdependence is another matter. Asked about Macri a few weeks after Mar del Plata, Milei suggested that his old ally should perhaps come to understand que su tiempo paso, that his time had passed.
Read in Oxford Review of Latin American Studies (https://orlas.review/2026/08/17/what-happened-to-latin-americas-old-right/).
* * *
Gil Guerra is a fellow at Hudson Institute. He specializes in US strategy for the Western Hemisphere, with a focus on the political, economic, and security dynamics shaping Latin America and the Caribbean and their implications for US interests. His research covers hemispheric security, strategic competition in the Western Hemisphere, migration as an instrument of statecraft, and emerging technology in the region.
* * *
URL: Oxford Review of Latin American Studies
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/politics-government/what-happened-latin-americas-old-right-gil-guerra
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to Washington Times: Chinese Communist Party Must Answer for the Wuhan Abomination
WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Aug. 18, 2026, by Miles Yu, director and senior fellow of the China Center, to the Washington Times:
* * *
The Chinese Communist Party Must Answer for the Wuhan Abomination
It bears direct responsibility for the deadly virus's outbreak.
-
Six years after COVID-19 brought the world to its knees, the time for euphemisms is over.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bears direct responsibility for the outbreak of the deadly ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Aug. 18, 2026, by Miles Yu, director and senior fellow of the China Center, to the Washington Times: * * * The Chinese Communist Party Must Answer for the Wuhan Abomination It bears direct responsibility for the deadly virus's outbreak. - Six years after COVID-19 brought the world to its knees, the time for euphemisms is over. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bears direct responsibility for the outbreak of the deadlyvirus, for the systematic concealment of information at the outbreak's critical early stage and for the continuing obstruction that has prevented the world from obtaining a complete accounting of what happened in Wuhan.
The evidence for a research-related origin at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has grown substantially and irrefutably since the pandemic began. In June 2026, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence publicly described U.S.-funded the coronavirus work at WIV as research "now widely viewed as the source of the unintentional lab leak that sparked the pandemic."
That conclusion makes the history preceding the outbreak impossible to dismiss as coincidence.
For years, the CCP pursued global leadership in virus discovery and experimentation with breathtaking ambition while the nation's biosafety remained ghastly inadequate.
Wuhan became the center of that effort. WIV accumulated more than 15,000 bat-virus samples, the largest such collection in the world before becoming China's first BSL-4 laboratory, allowed by the CCP's central health authority to store and handle microorganisms of risk group 4, the most dangerous viruses in the world. This included the coronavirus and its lab-enhanced, more deadly variations.
Yet China's own Ministry of Science and Technology evaluation had rated WIV merely a mediocre "Good" grade, rather than among the country's 20 "Excellent" biological and medical laboratories. Nevertheless, Chinese authorities accredited it as the only bio-lab in China to handle the world's most dangerous pathogens.
Dr. Yuan Zhiming, then director of WIV's BSL-4 laboratory, repeatedly warned about China's deficient biosafety practices. He identified inadequate biosafety management, insufficient laboratory operations, shortages of specialized biosafety personnel and inadequate training.
In a 2018 paper, Dr. Yuan and his co-authors delivered an extraordinarily prescient warning: a biosafety laboratory is a "double-edged sword" that can benefit humanity but can also produce "disaster." They catalogued the nation's dismal biosafety deficiencies in China's biolabs, ranging from inadequate operational standards and professional instructions to shortcomings in waste disposal, disinfection, contamination monitoring and laboratory safety procedures.
This was not theoretical. SARS had already escaped from Chinese laboratories in Beijing in 2004, causing infections, hundreds of quarantines and at least one death.
The CCP therefore had ample warnings about what could happen when dangerous pathogens met inadequate biosafety. Yet WIV continued conducting sophisticated research on precisely the class of viruses capable of producing another SARS-like epidemic.
In 2015, WIV's Dr. Shi Zhengli, now infamously known worldwide as the Bat Lady of Wuhan, participated in research that constructed a chimeric SARS-like coronavirus to study its capacity for human emergence.
The resulting publication described a hybrid virus incorporating a spike protein from a coronavirus found in Chinese horseshoe bats. Then, in March 2019 -- nine months before COVID-19 erupted in Wuhan -- Dr. Shi and her research team warned that future SARS- or MERS-like coronavirus outbreaks were highly likely and that "there is an increased probability that this will occur in China."
Then it happened in Wuhan. Not Beijing, Shanghai or Yunnan, where many of the bats carrying SARS-related coronaviruses had been collected. It happened in Wuhan, the city containing China's premier institute for studying those viruses and conducting more deadly gain-of-function experiments on them.
A laboratory accident does not require a conspiracy. It requires a pathogen, risky research, inadequate safeguards and one human mistake. China possessed all the ingredients.
What followed transforms a story of scientific negligence into an indictment of the CCP political system. Beijing's instinct was not transparency. It was control.
WIV was gagged by China's central health authority from the beginning. On Jan. 1, 2020, WIV was ordered to destroy all collected coronavirus samples. Within days, the People's Liberation Army assumed control of the facility.
When WIV issued an open letter addressing allegations involving genetic engineering, a laboratory leak, military involvement and an alleged missing former employee, it offered no detailed evidence to resolve the allegations. Instead, all WIV employees were instructed to "rally around the CCP Central Committee and Comrade Xi Jinping." That response captures the fundamental problem.
A laboratory capable of affecting the health of every human being on Earth existed inside an authoritarian political system in which the Chinese Communist Party possessed ultimate authority over scientists, records, journalists and institutions. Even Mr. Xi acknowledged that the system had failed.
On Feb. 14, 2020, he said in his first public speech since the outbreak that the Wuhan outbreak had exposed "shortcomings" and "leaking holes" in China's management of biological materials and biological security. He demanded a new biological-security law and ordered biological security incorporated into China's national-security system.
Then there is the evidence Beijing has withheld. The CCP-ordered destruction of samples from early Wuhan patients made reconstructing the virus's origin more difficult.
The obstruction continues to matter today. In 2025, five years after the outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO)disclosed that China still had not supplied hundreds of early SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences, detailed information about animals sold in Wuhan markets, or requested information about research and biosafety conditions in Wuhan laboratories. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus consequently said that all hypotheses, including laboratory origin, must remain under consideration.
That is why Beijing cannot invoke uncertainty as an alibi. A government cannot destroy or withhold evidence and then demand exoneration because evidence is missing. Nor should the CCP's responsibility be measured only by what happened inside a laboratory.
The CCP's responsibility extends to what happened afterward. An authoritarian regime confronted an emerging infectious disease with the reflexes of an authoritarian regime: suppress information, enforce political discipline, control the narrative and resist independent scrutiny.
Accountability for COVID-19 should consequently be directed where political authority actually resided: the Chinese Communist Party and the institutions under its control.
With a contagious respiratory virus, lost time means lost lives. And the eventual price was almost beyond comprehension. Millions of people are dead -- 14.5 million souls worldwide, according to the WHO. Families were shattered. Trillions of dollars in wealth and economic activity vanished. A generation lived through a catastrophe that should never have happened.
The international community should demand full access to WIV's virus databases, laboratory notebooks, experiment records, sample inventories, biosafety records and relevant personnel files. Scientists and employees with knowledge of the outbreak should be allowed to speak to independent investigators outside CCP supervision.
Governments should also establish enforceable international consequences for any state that conceals information about an outbreak with pandemic potential.
COVID-19 demonstrated that biosafety inside a sovereign country is not merely that country's domestic concern. A laboratory accident in one city can close schools in London, overwhelm hospitals in New York, destroy businesses in Tokyo and kill grandparents in Buenos Aires.
Sovereignty cannot mean a sovereign right to endanger humanity. And the world should reconsider whether laboratories conducting research capable of producing global consequences can be permitted to operate without meaningful international inspection.
The Chinese Communist Party should not be permitted to consign that catastrophe to history without accountability.
The world deserves the truth. The victims deserve justice. And the CCP must answer for COVID-19, morally, legally and financially.
Read more in Washington Times (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/aug/17/chinese-communist-party-must-answer-wuhan-abomination/).
* * *
Miles Yu is a senior fellow and director of the China Center at Hudson Institute. He is also a professor of East Asia and military and naval history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Dr. Yu specializes in Chinese military and strategic culture, US and Chinese military and diplomatic history, and US policy toward China.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/chinese-communist-party-must-answer-wuhan-abomination-miles-yu
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
The Chinese Communist Party Must Answer for the Wuhan Abomination
It bears direct responsibility for the deadly virus's outbreak.
-
Six years after COVID-19 brought the world to its knees, the time for euphemisms is over.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bears direct responsibility for the outbreak of the deadly ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Aug. 18, 2026, by Miles Yu, director and senior fellow of the China Center, to the Washington Times: * * * The Chinese Communist Party Must Answer for the Wuhan Abomination It bears direct responsibility for the deadly virus's outbreak. - Six years after COVID-19 brought the world to its knees, the time for euphemisms is over. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bears direct responsibility for the outbreak of the deadlyvirus, for the systematic concealment of information at the outbreak's critical early stage and for the continuing obstruction that has prevented the world from obtaining a complete accounting of what happened in Wuhan.
The evidence for a research-related origin at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has grown substantially and irrefutably since the pandemic began. In June 2026, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence publicly described U.S.-funded the coronavirus work at WIV as research "now widely viewed as the source of the unintentional lab leak that sparked the pandemic."
That conclusion makes the history preceding the outbreak impossible to dismiss as coincidence.
For years, the CCP pursued global leadership in virus discovery and experimentation with breathtaking ambition while the nation's biosafety remained ghastly inadequate.
Wuhan became the center of that effort. WIV accumulated more than 15,000 bat-virus samples, the largest such collection in the world before becoming China's first BSL-4 laboratory, allowed by the CCP's central health authority to store and handle microorganisms of risk group 4, the most dangerous viruses in the world. This included the coronavirus and its lab-enhanced, more deadly variations.
Yet China's own Ministry of Science and Technology evaluation had rated WIV merely a mediocre "Good" grade, rather than among the country's 20 "Excellent" biological and medical laboratories. Nevertheless, Chinese authorities accredited it as the only bio-lab in China to handle the world's most dangerous pathogens.
Dr. Yuan Zhiming, then director of WIV's BSL-4 laboratory, repeatedly warned about China's deficient biosafety practices. He identified inadequate biosafety management, insufficient laboratory operations, shortages of specialized biosafety personnel and inadequate training.
In a 2018 paper, Dr. Yuan and his co-authors delivered an extraordinarily prescient warning: a biosafety laboratory is a "double-edged sword" that can benefit humanity but can also produce "disaster." They catalogued the nation's dismal biosafety deficiencies in China's biolabs, ranging from inadequate operational standards and professional instructions to shortcomings in waste disposal, disinfection, contamination monitoring and laboratory safety procedures.
This was not theoretical. SARS had already escaped from Chinese laboratories in Beijing in 2004, causing infections, hundreds of quarantines and at least one death.
The CCP therefore had ample warnings about what could happen when dangerous pathogens met inadequate biosafety. Yet WIV continued conducting sophisticated research on precisely the class of viruses capable of producing another SARS-like epidemic.
In 2015, WIV's Dr. Shi Zhengli, now infamously known worldwide as the Bat Lady of Wuhan, participated in research that constructed a chimeric SARS-like coronavirus to study its capacity for human emergence.
The resulting publication described a hybrid virus incorporating a spike protein from a coronavirus found in Chinese horseshoe bats. Then, in March 2019 -- nine months before COVID-19 erupted in Wuhan -- Dr. Shi and her research team warned that future SARS- or MERS-like coronavirus outbreaks were highly likely and that "there is an increased probability that this will occur in China."
Then it happened in Wuhan. Not Beijing, Shanghai or Yunnan, where many of the bats carrying SARS-related coronaviruses had been collected. It happened in Wuhan, the city containing China's premier institute for studying those viruses and conducting more deadly gain-of-function experiments on them.
A laboratory accident does not require a conspiracy. It requires a pathogen, risky research, inadequate safeguards and one human mistake. China possessed all the ingredients.
What followed transforms a story of scientific negligence into an indictment of the CCP political system. Beijing's instinct was not transparency. It was control.
WIV was gagged by China's central health authority from the beginning. On Jan. 1, 2020, WIV was ordered to destroy all collected coronavirus samples. Within days, the People's Liberation Army assumed control of the facility.
When WIV issued an open letter addressing allegations involving genetic engineering, a laboratory leak, military involvement and an alleged missing former employee, it offered no detailed evidence to resolve the allegations. Instead, all WIV employees were instructed to "rally around the CCP Central Committee and Comrade Xi Jinping." That response captures the fundamental problem.
A laboratory capable of affecting the health of every human being on Earth existed inside an authoritarian political system in which the Chinese Communist Party possessed ultimate authority over scientists, records, journalists and institutions. Even Mr. Xi acknowledged that the system had failed.
On Feb. 14, 2020, he said in his first public speech since the outbreak that the Wuhan outbreak had exposed "shortcomings" and "leaking holes" in China's management of biological materials and biological security. He demanded a new biological-security law and ordered biological security incorporated into China's national-security system.
Then there is the evidence Beijing has withheld. The CCP-ordered destruction of samples from early Wuhan patients made reconstructing the virus's origin more difficult.
The obstruction continues to matter today. In 2025, five years after the outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO)disclosed that China still had not supplied hundreds of early SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences, detailed information about animals sold in Wuhan markets, or requested information about research and biosafety conditions in Wuhan laboratories. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus consequently said that all hypotheses, including laboratory origin, must remain under consideration.
That is why Beijing cannot invoke uncertainty as an alibi. A government cannot destroy or withhold evidence and then demand exoneration because evidence is missing. Nor should the CCP's responsibility be measured only by what happened inside a laboratory.
The CCP's responsibility extends to what happened afterward. An authoritarian regime confronted an emerging infectious disease with the reflexes of an authoritarian regime: suppress information, enforce political discipline, control the narrative and resist independent scrutiny.
Accountability for COVID-19 should consequently be directed where political authority actually resided: the Chinese Communist Party and the institutions under its control.
With a contagious respiratory virus, lost time means lost lives. And the eventual price was almost beyond comprehension. Millions of people are dead -- 14.5 million souls worldwide, according to the WHO. Families were shattered. Trillions of dollars in wealth and economic activity vanished. A generation lived through a catastrophe that should never have happened.
The international community should demand full access to WIV's virus databases, laboratory notebooks, experiment records, sample inventories, biosafety records and relevant personnel files. Scientists and employees with knowledge of the outbreak should be allowed to speak to independent investigators outside CCP supervision.
Governments should also establish enforceable international consequences for any state that conceals information about an outbreak with pandemic potential.
COVID-19 demonstrated that biosafety inside a sovereign country is not merely that country's domestic concern. A laboratory accident in one city can close schools in London, overwhelm hospitals in New York, destroy businesses in Tokyo and kill grandparents in Buenos Aires.
Sovereignty cannot mean a sovereign right to endanger humanity. And the world should reconsider whether laboratories conducting research capable of producing global consequences can be permitted to operate without meaningful international inspection.
The Chinese Communist Party should not be permitted to consign that catastrophe to history without accountability.
The world deserves the truth. The victims deserve justice. And the CCP must answer for COVID-19, morally, legally and financially.
Read more in Washington Times (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/aug/17/chinese-communist-party-must-answer-wuhan-abomination/).
* * *
Miles Yu is a senior fellow and director of the China Center at Hudson Institute. He is also a professor of East Asia and military and naval history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Dr. Yu specializes in Chinese military and strategic culture, US and Chinese military and diplomatic history, and US policy toward China.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/chinese-communist-party-must-answer-wuhan-abomination-miles-yu
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: Most Important Minnesota Conservative You've Never Heard of
MINNETONKA, Minnesota, Aug. 19 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary by Vice President of Communications Bill Walsh in its Summer 2026 Issue of Thinking Minnesota:
* * *
The most important MN conservative you've never heard of
Walter Judd is the most important conservative you've never heard of
* * *
Walter Judd is arguably Minnesota's most important conservative -- and you've probably never heard of him. Judd represented Minneapolis in the U.S. Congress from 1943 to 1963 and ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, Aug. 19 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary by Vice President of Communications Bill Walsh in its Summer 2026 Issue of Thinking Minnesota: * * * The most important MN conservative you've never heard of Walter Judd is the most important conservative you've never heard of * * * Walter Judd is arguably Minnesota's most important conservative -- and you've probably never heard of him. Judd represented Minneapolis in the U.S. Congress from 1943 to 1963 andserved as a trusted advisor to presidents from Truman to Reagan. More than 120 members of Congress regularly followed his lead on foreign policy. He quietly removed communists from the U.S. State Department before Sen. Joseph McCarthy sensationalized the effort. He played a leadership role in all major foreign policy issues of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, including the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the formation of NATO. He traveled to Europe to persuade Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to return home and run for president. His keynote address at the 1960 Republican National Convention almost won him the vice-presidential nomination. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981.
How could someone with such accomplishments on the world stage not be a household name in his home state? One theory is that Judd was overshadowed by two other prominent Minnesotans, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale. Humphrey was Judd's contemporary, serving in the U.S. Senate from 1949 to 1964, and again from 1971 to 1978. Mondale was younger, reaching the Senate in 1964. As Democrats from Minnesota, Humphrey and Mondale also rose to greater prominence in national politics than Judd, both serving as vice president and as their party's nominee for president. Humphrey was Lyndon B. Johnson's vice president from 1965 to 1969 and the Democratic nominee in 1968. Mondale was Jimmy Carter's vice president from 1977 to 1981 and the Democratic nominee in 1984.
But Judd's work as a civilian may have contributed to his never rising to the level of either Humphrey or Mondale. According to Judd's biography, "Missionary for Freedom: The Life and Times of Walter Judd," Judd was trained as a doctor. This was the beginning of a selfless life, always keeping the focus on his patients, never himself. Every time he ran for Congress, he told his supporters, "I will not raise money, I will not brag about myself, and I won't criticize my opponent." Judd instead released detailed plans about what he hoped to accomplish in Washington, D.C. and let the chips fall where they may. His disdain for political self-promotion -- a characteristic now considered practically a prerequisite for political life -- cost him the chance to be the vice-presidential nominee. After his rousing speech to the 1960 GOP convention, he perhaps sealed his fate as the most important conservative from Minnesota you've never heard of.
Early life
Walter Henry Judd was born in Rising City, Neb., on Sept. 25, 1898. He graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1920 and the University of Nebraska Medical School in 1923. He enlisted in the United States Army during World War I but was still in training when the war ended. After college and the army, Judd traveled the country giving speeches at universities for the Student Volunteer Movement. These early speeches helped the future politician become one of the best orators of his time in Congress. When Judd spoke on the House floor, people listened.
Missionary work
After a fellowship in surgery at the Mayo Clinic from 1924-25, Judd began the first stage of his life as a medical missionary to China. Judd did two "tours" in China. From 1926 to 1931, the young doctor worked in a small clinic in rural Fujian province, before persistent bouts of malaria forced him to return to the United States. He traveled back to China in 1934, where he ran a large hospital in the city of Fenchow in Shanxi Province. It was dangerous work. He was almost killed in a case of mistaken identity and had to talk his way out of several other near-death experiences with his not-so-grateful hosts. At one point, Judd put his wife and children on a train in the middle of the night to get them out of the county for fear of being captured by communist soldiers.
During his time as a missionary, Judd gained a deep understanding of communism and its practitioners. Some nights, he debated with them amicably about capitalism and the idea that human nature would always cause the fall of collectivist systems. Other nights, he witnessed terrible atrocities committed by communist soldiers and often cared for women and children who had been raped. Judd realized that Japanese communists used rape to weaken the Chinese by exploiting their love for family. The soldiers Judd met in China hadn't learned communism from academic study of Marxist theory; instead, they saw it as a practical way to create a fair society, believing that conflict was unavoidable whenever property ownership and wages existed. This direct experience with communist leaders and soldiers shaped Judd's future career in Congress.
Principled isolationist
When he returned home for good in 1932, Judd realized he had to alert the American people about the atrocities being committed by communist forces in China. He embarked on a national speaking tour, telling his story to any audience that would listen. His first campaign was to point out that America was unwittingly fueling the Japanese war machine by selling them scrap metal and American pickup trucks. He talked about pulling American scrap metal out of women and children in surgery. "What should we do?" he asked. "We don't need to knock Japan out. All we need to do is to stop holding her up and her military adventure collapses for lack of supplies." Judd pointed out that 60 percent of Japan's sales to the United States were silk and 74 percent of that went into silk stockings, imploring American women to choose between "their silk stockings now or their sons later."
Eventually, Judd brought this message directly to Congress, presenting his "eyewitness" testimony about the Chinese-Japanese situation before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1939. Judd's call for economic intervention in the Far East represented the first public articulation of the principled internationalist beliefs that would define his time in public life.
Judd believed it was in America's best interest to be involved in the affairs of other countries, especially to curb the spread of communism worldwide. At the time, isolationism was the prevailing doctrine in Congress, especially among the Minnesota delegation. In 1940, Judd reconnected with friends from the Mayo Clinic and was recruited to take over a small medical practice in Minneapolis. He had finished missionary work and traveling the country to warn about the spread of communism throughout the world. Judd planned to finally put his family first and looked forward to a comfortable life as a doctor. Everything changed when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Judd had ominously predicted the attack 10 years earlier when Japan seized Manchuria without any opposition from the West. Soon after the attack, a group of local Republicans urged Judd to challenge the incumbent isolationist Republican Congressman from Minneapolis in the primary election of 1942.
Judd, ever the reluctant candidate, told the group he wouldn't campaign, raise money, or criticize his opponent. He would continue practicing medicine and continue giving speeches and let the election take care of itself. The result: Judd defeated the popular Republican Oscar Youngdahl and began his 20-year career in Congress.
McCarthyism
In the early 1950s, Judd was quietly removing communists from the State Department before Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin sensationalized the issue with televised hearings of his Government Operations' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In the House, Judd served on the Committee on Government Operations as they quietly rooted out 134 "security risks" from the State Department. Most of them resigned on their own after learning they were under investigation. There were over 100 more security risks under investigation when the McCarthy hearings began, ruining the work of Judd's committee.
"Joe McCarthy was essentially right, but he was the best ally the Communists had because he never would present it in measured terms," Judd said. "He had to use extravagant terms, and if you can prove that one of them was wrong, your accusations, they discredit all the other things that you've said. Joe was the best friend the Communists had in this country. I told him this a time or two."
The 1960 Republican Convention keynote
The defining moment of Walter Judd's career was his keynote address to the Republican National Convention in 1960. Judd used the address to contrast Republican foreign policy success against the failures of recent Democratic administrations. It was the first convention of the television era, and the speech was watched by over 20 million Americans. Judd laid out his outline in a series of questions:
Which party has the greatest capacity to keep this country safe and sound? Which party is most alert to and best understands the powerful forces against us, abroad and at home? Which party best understands the forces for us abroad and at home? And which party has the ablest, the most experienced, the best qualified and the finest men to lead our country through the perilous months and years ahead?
Judd did not hold back, charging that under Democratic leadership, "Six hundred million human beings disappeared into human slavery behind the Iron Curtain in the first five years after World War II." Judd fired up the crowd, asking them a series of questions, with each "no!" louder than the last. The speech was so well-received that Judd's name was immediately put under consideration to be Richard Nixon's nominee for vice president. Ultimately, Judd's lack of ego and refusal to self-promote allowed this opportunity to pass him by.
The 1962 campaign: redistricting and President Kennedy
While Judd was on top of his game on the national stage, forces back home were conspiring to end his political career. Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) leaders in the Minnesota Legislature used a special session in December 1961 to pare down Minnesota's congressional districts from nine to eight. In the process, they added thousands of DFL voters from North Minneapolis to Judd's base of Republicans in South Minneapolis. The new map made it impossible for any Republican to win, even the popular Judd. The DFL recruited State Sen. Donald Fraser to run for the seat. Knowing that Judd had worked well with President John F. Kennedy, Fraser immediately sent the White House a letter demanding the president's support in the election. Judd understood politics and wasn't upset that Kennedy endorsed his opponent, saying, "You have to root for your own team." But he did take issue with the timing of the president's endorsement. While Kennedy was speaking to the annual DFL Bean Feed at the Minnesota fairgrounds on Oct. 6, 1962, Judd was stuck in Washington working to pass the president's foreign aid package. The split with the White House grew stronger throughout the campaign as Judd ramped up criticism of Kennedy's handling of Cuba. Judd questioned Kennedy's strength on the issue, saying, "If we are willing to stand by and permit the Soviets to turn this island into an advanced base for Soviet Communist aggression, the Soviets are bound to conclude that our response to any Communist adventures in Central Europe will be equally indecisive." Criticizing an immensely popular president in a district full of new DFL voters was not a recipe for success and Fraser ultimately won the election 52-48 percent.
Judd's brand of Republicanism
Speaking to the Minnesota Republican Convention in 1946, Judd gave us a glimpse into how he saw the differences between the two major parties: "Republicans stood for individual rights, personal liberty and a maxim of self-government, while Democrats have moved toward regimentation of our society and the concept of a political elite which knows better than the people how to govern." His biographer Lee Edwards described him as "not so much a 20th century conservative as an 18th century liberal, a disciple of Thomas Jefferson who believed in limited government, individual liberty and the duty of government to help those who cannot help themselves." He once opposed a bill that would have given a federal subsidy to almost every teacher in America because it would lead to "steadily increasing influence by the federal government over the public school system." No more prophetic words have ever been spoken.
At the height of his career, Walter Judd had 120 congressmen (75 Republicans and 45 Democrats) who followed his lead on foreign policy issues, and he advised every president from Truman to Reagan on foreign affairs, especially China policy. When he arrived in Congress, he was a solitary voice opposing the global rise of communism. However, through his relentless efforts, many in Washington eventually stood alongside him. The New York Times called him a liberal who was trusted by conservatives. From Richard Nixon: "The name of Walter Judd carries a real wallop around the country and I'm deeply grateful that you're in my corner." Dwight Eisenhower campaigned for Judd in Minnesota during the 1962 campaign and later wrote in his biography that Judd was one of five people on his short list for vice president in 1952.
Judd eventually received public recognition for a lifetime of achievement and service. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, one of only six Minnesotans to receive this award. Reagan called Judd, "an articulate spokesman for all those who cherish liberty and a model for all Americans who aspire to serve mankind as physicians, spiritual leaders and statesmen." As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of this great nation's founding, we must remember the few Minnesotans who had a significant impact on America's success. Walter Judd is one of those men.
* * *
American Experiment recommends "Missionary for Freedom: The Life and Times of Walter Judd," by Lee Edwards. This was the source material for Bill Walsh's American Experiment Book Club, from which this feature was adapted.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/magazine/article/a-life-of-service
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
The most important MN conservative you've never heard of
Walter Judd is the most important conservative you've never heard of
* * *
Walter Judd is arguably Minnesota's most important conservative -- and you've probably never heard of him. Judd represented Minneapolis in the U.S. Congress from 1943 to 1963 and ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, Aug. 19 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary by Vice President of Communications Bill Walsh in its Summer 2026 Issue of Thinking Minnesota: * * * The most important MN conservative you've never heard of Walter Judd is the most important conservative you've never heard of * * * Walter Judd is arguably Minnesota's most important conservative -- and you've probably never heard of him. Judd represented Minneapolis in the U.S. Congress from 1943 to 1963 andserved as a trusted advisor to presidents from Truman to Reagan. More than 120 members of Congress regularly followed his lead on foreign policy. He quietly removed communists from the U.S. State Department before Sen. Joseph McCarthy sensationalized the effort. He played a leadership role in all major foreign policy issues of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, including the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the formation of NATO. He traveled to Europe to persuade Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to return home and run for president. His keynote address at the 1960 Republican National Convention almost won him the vice-presidential nomination. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981.
How could someone with such accomplishments on the world stage not be a household name in his home state? One theory is that Judd was overshadowed by two other prominent Minnesotans, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale. Humphrey was Judd's contemporary, serving in the U.S. Senate from 1949 to 1964, and again from 1971 to 1978. Mondale was younger, reaching the Senate in 1964. As Democrats from Minnesota, Humphrey and Mondale also rose to greater prominence in national politics than Judd, both serving as vice president and as their party's nominee for president. Humphrey was Lyndon B. Johnson's vice president from 1965 to 1969 and the Democratic nominee in 1968. Mondale was Jimmy Carter's vice president from 1977 to 1981 and the Democratic nominee in 1984.
But Judd's work as a civilian may have contributed to his never rising to the level of either Humphrey or Mondale. According to Judd's biography, "Missionary for Freedom: The Life and Times of Walter Judd," Judd was trained as a doctor. This was the beginning of a selfless life, always keeping the focus on his patients, never himself. Every time he ran for Congress, he told his supporters, "I will not raise money, I will not brag about myself, and I won't criticize my opponent." Judd instead released detailed plans about what he hoped to accomplish in Washington, D.C. and let the chips fall where they may. His disdain for political self-promotion -- a characteristic now considered practically a prerequisite for political life -- cost him the chance to be the vice-presidential nominee. After his rousing speech to the 1960 GOP convention, he perhaps sealed his fate as the most important conservative from Minnesota you've never heard of.
Early life
Walter Henry Judd was born in Rising City, Neb., on Sept. 25, 1898. He graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1920 and the University of Nebraska Medical School in 1923. He enlisted in the United States Army during World War I but was still in training when the war ended. After college and the army, Judd traveled the country giving speeches at universities for the Student Volunteer Movement. These early speeches helped the future politician become one of the best orators of his time in Congress. When Judd spoke on the House floor, people listened.
Missionary work
After a fellowship in surgery at the Mayo Clinic from 1924-25, Judd began the first stage of his life as a medical missionary to China. Judd did two "tours" in China. From 1926 to 1931, the young doctor worked in a small clinic in rural Fujian province, before persistent bouts of malaria forced him to return to the United States. He traveled back to China in 1934, where he ran a large hospital in the city of Fenchow in Shanxi Province. It was dangerous work. He was almost killed in a case of mistaken identity and had to talk his way out of several other near-death experiences with his not-so-grateful hosts. At one point, Judd put his wife and children on a train in the middle of the night to get them out of the county for fear of being captured by communist soldiers.
During his time as a missionary, Judd gained a deep understanding of communism and its practitioners. Some nights, he debated with them amicably about capitalism and the idea that human nature would always cause the fall of collectivist systems. Other nights, he witnessed terrible atrocities committed by communist soldiers and often cared for women and children who had been raped. Judd realized that Japanese communists used rape to weaken the Chinese by exploiting their love for family. The soldiers Judd met in China hadn't learned communism from academic study of Marxist theory; instead, they saw it as a practical way to create a fair society, believing that conflict was unavoidable whenever property ownership and wages existed. This direct experience with communist leaders and soldiers shaped Judd's future career in Congress.
Principled isolationist
When he returned home for good in 1932, Judd realized he had to alert the American people about the atrocities being committed by communist forces in China. He embarked on a national speaking tour, telling his story to any audience that would listen. His first campaign was to point out that America was unwittingly fueling the Japanese war machine by selling them scrap metal and American pickup trucks. He talked about pulling American scrap metal out of women and children in surgery. "What should we do?" he asked. "We don't need to knock Japan out. All we need to do is to stop holding her up and her military adventure collapses for lack of supplies." Judd pointed out that 60 percent of Japan's sales to the United States were silk and 74 percent of that went into silk stockings, imploring American women to choose between "their silk stockings now or their sons later."
Eventually, Judd brought this message directly to Congress, presenting his "eyewitness" testimony about the Chinese-Japanese situation before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1939. Judd's call for economic intervention in the Far East represented the first public articulation of the principled internationalist beliefs that would define his time in public life.
Judd believed it was in America's best interest to be involved in the affairs of other countries, especially to curb the spread of communism worldwide. At the time, isolationism was the prevailing doctrine in Congress, especially among the Minnesota delegation. In 1940, Judd reconnected with friends from the Mayo Clinic and was recruited to take over a small medical practice in Minneapolis. He had finished missionary work and traveling the country to warn about the spread of communism throughout the world. Judd planned to finally put his family first and looked forward to a comfortable life as a doctor. Everything changed when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Judd had ominously predicted the attack 10 years earlier when Japan seized Manchuria without any opposition from the West. Soon after the attack, a group of local Republicans urged Judd to challenge the incumbent isolationist Republican Congressman from Minneapolis in the primary election of 1942.
Judd, ever the reluctant candidate, told the group he wouldn't campaign, raise money, or criticize his opponent. He would continue practicing medicine and continue giving speeches and let the election take care of itself. The result: Judd defeated the popular Republican Oscar Youngdahl and began his 20-year career in Congress.
McCarthyism
In the early 1950s, Judd was quietly removing communists from the State Department before Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin sensationalized the issue with televised hearings of his Government Operations' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In the House, Judd served on the Committee on Government Operations as they quietly rooted out 134 "security risks" from the State Department. Most of them resigned on their own after learning they were under investigation. There were over 100 more security risks under investigation when the McCarthy hearings began, ruining the work of Judd's committee.
"Joe McCarthy was essentially right, but he was the best ally the Communists had because he never would present it in measured terms," Judd said. "He had to use extravagant terms, and if you can prove that one of them was wrong, your accusations, they discredit all the other things that you've said. Joe was the best friend the Communists had in this country. I told him this a time or two."
The 1960 Republican Convention keynote
The defining moment of Walter Judd's career was his keynote address to the Republican National Convention in 1960. Judd used the address to contrast Republican foreign policy success against the failures of recent Democratic administrations. It was the first convention of the television era, and the speech was watched by over 20 million Americans. Judd laid out his outline in a series of questions:
Which party has the greatest capacity to keep this country safe and sound? Which party is most alert to and best understands the powerful forces against us, abroad and at home? Which party best understands the forces for us abroad and at home? And which party has the ablest, the most experienced, the best qualified and the finest men to lead our country through the perilous months and years ahead?
Judd did not hold back, charging that under Democratic leadership, "Six hundred million human beings disappeared into human slavery behind the Iron Curtain in the first five years after World War II." Judd fired up the crowd, asking them a series of questions, with each "no!" louder than the last. The speech was so well-received that Judd's name was immediately put under consideration to be Richard Nixon's nominee for vice president. Ultimately, Judd's lack of ego and refusal to self-promote allowed this opportunity to pass him by.
The 1962 campaign: redistricting and President Kennedy
While Judd was on top of his game on the national stage, forces back home were conspiring to end his political career. Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) leaders in the Minnesota Legislature used a special session in December 1961 to pare down Minnesota's congressional districts from nine to eight. In the process, they added thousands of DFL voters from North Minneapolis to Judd's base of Republicans in South Minneapolis. The new map made it impossible for any Republican to win, even the popular Judd. The DFL recruited State Sen. Donald Fraser to run for the seat. Knowing that Judd had worked well with President John F. Kennedy, Fraser immediately sent the White House a letter demanding the president's support in the election. Judd understood politics and wasn't upset that Kennedy endorsed his opponent, saying, "You have to root for your own team." But he did take issue with the timing of the president's endorsement. While Kennedy was speaking to the annual DFL Bean Feed at the Minnesota fairgrounds on Oct. 6, 1962, Judd was stuck in Washington working to pass the president's foreign aid package. The split with the White House grew stronger throughout the campaign as Judd ramped up criticism of Kennedy's handling of Cuba. Judd questioned Kennedy's strength on the issue, saying, "If we are willing to stand by and permit the Soviets to turn this island into an advanced base for Soviet Communist aggression, the Soviets are bound to conclude that our response to any Communist adventures in Central Europe will be equally indecisive." Criticizing an immensely popular president in a district full of new DFL voters was not a recipe for success and Fraser ultimately won the election 52-48 percent.
Judd's brand of Republicanism
Speaking to the Minnesota Republican Convention in 1946, Judd gave us a glimpse into how he saw the differences between the two major parties: "Republicans stood for individual rights, personal liberty and a maxim of self-government, while Democrats have moved toward regimentation of our society and the concept of a political elite which knows better than the people how to govern." His biographer Lee Edwards described him as "not so much a 20th century conservative as an 18th century liberal, a disciple of Thomas Jefferson who believed in limited government, individual liberty and the duty of government to help those who cannot help themselves." He once opposed a bill that would have given a federal subsidy to almost every teacher in America because it would lead to "steadily increasing influence by the federal government over the public school system." No more prophetic words have ever been spoken.
At the height of his career, Walter Judd had 120 congressmen (75 Republicans and 45 Democrats) who followed his lead on foreign policy issues, and he advised every president from Truman to Reagan on foreign affairs, especially China policy. When he arrived in Congress, he was a solitary voice opposing the global rise of communism. However, through his relentless efforts, many in Washington eventually stood alongside him. The New York Times called him a liberal who was trusted by conservatives. From Richard Nixon: "The name of Walter Judd carries a real wallop around the country and I'm deeply grateful that you're in my corner." Dwight Eisenhower campaigned for Judd in Minnesota during the 1962 campaign and later wrote in his biography that Judd was one of five people on his short list for vice president in 1952.
Judd eventually received public recognition for a lifetime of achievement and service. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, one of only six Minnesotans to receive this award. Reagan called Judd, "an articulate spokesman for all those who cherish liberty and a model for all Americans who aspire to serve mankind as physicians, spiritual leaders and statesmen." As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of this great nation's founding, we must remember the few Minnesotans who had a significant impact on America's success. Walter Judd is one of those men.
* * *
American Experiment recommends "Missionary for Freedom: The Life and Times of Walter Judd," by Lee Edwards. This was the source material for Bill Walsh's American Experiment Book Club, from which this feature was adapted.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/magazine/article/a-life-of-service
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Action Forum Issues Commentary Entitled 'Accredited Investor Definition - A Primer'
WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- The American Action Forum issued the following commentary on Aug. 18, 2026, by policy fellow Oren Swagel:
* * *
The Accredited Investor Definition: a Primer
Executive Summary
* Private investments are investment opportunities offered to investors with limited public disclosure of financial and business details; the Securities and Exchange Commissions' accredited investor definition limits the availability of these more opaque investments to investors who satisfy either a wealth, income, or professional qualifications standard.
* While created with the intention of protecting ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- The American Action Forum issued the following commentary on Aug. 18, 2026, by policy fellow Oren Swagel: * * * The Accredited Investor Definition: a Primer Executive Summary * Private investments are investment opportunities offered to investors with limited public disclosure of financial and business details; the Securities and Exchange Commissions' accredited investor definition limits the availability of these more opaque investments to investors who satisfy either a wealth, income, or professional qualifications standard. * While created with the intention of protectingunsophisticated investors from potentially risky investments, critics argue that the accredited investor definition is outdated, unreasonably equates financial resources to financial sophistication, and unfairly restricts access to potentially higher-returning private investments.
* Policymakers have signaled increased interest in updating the accredited investor definition - for example, the House of Representatives recently passed the Incentivizing New Ventures and Economic Strength Through Capital Formation (INVEST) Act of 2025 on a bipartisan basis to, among other provisions, reform the accredited investor definition; this primer reviews the accredited investor definition and recently proposed reforms to this definition
-
Introduction
Investment opportunities in the United States are separated into public and private investments. Public investments are required to include detailed public financial disclosures and are available to all investors. Private investments, by contrast, face no such detailed disclosure mandate and are restricted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investors who satisfy the accredited investor definition by having either (1) net worth excluding primary residence of at least $1 million; (2) annual income of $200,000 (or $300,000 for a couple) for the previous two years that the individual expects will continue; or (3) professional financial certification through employment in the financial industry.
This accredited investor definition was created with the goal of protecting investors who might be less able to understand the risks of private investments that lack detailed financial disclosures. The definition is also meant to ensure that private investments are limited to investors who have enough financial resources to sustain any losses from more opaque private investments. Yet critics argue that by equating financial resources to financial sophistication, the accredited investor definition unfairly restricts less affluent, yet still sophisticated, investors from potentially higher returning private investments. Critics also emphasize that the wealth and income thresholds used in the accredited investor definition are outdated, having not been updated since 1982.
In response to these criticisms, policymakers and regulators have recently shown renewed interest in reforming the accredited investor definition. The House of Representatives, for example, has passed the Incentivizing New Ventures and Economic Strength Through Capital Formation (INVEST) Act of 2025 on a bipartisan basis to, among other capital markets-related provisions, update the accredited investor definition. While the future of the INVEST Act is uncertain, as the Senate Banking Committee reportedly intends to introduce its own capital markets reform legislation, momentum toward reform of the accredited investor definition is building. This primer reviews the accredited investor definition and these recently proposed reforms.
Capital Markets and the SEC
To understand the accredited investor definition and the potential for it to be reformed, it is necessary to first understand the broader capital markets and regulation of which the accredited investor definition is a part. Capital markets are financial markets where investment opportunities are issued and traded. Companies can raise funds through capital markets by issuing equity (shares of ownership that entitle the holder to a portion of a firm's profits) and/or debt (borrowing money from investors with the promise to repay that debt with interest in the future). While capital markets are just one of many methods through which companies can raise money, they are by far the largest, with about 80 percent of all funding for non-financial U.S. companies being raised through capital markets as of 2026. Capital markets in the United States also include other investment opportunities such as mutual funds.
Capital markets in the United States are primarily regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Created in 1934, the SEC's mission is "protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation." A central means through which the SEC accomplishes these goals is its disclosure regime, which requires investment issuers to register publicly offered investments with the SEC and provide the public with regular financial disclosures. By requiring such registration and disclosure, the SEC can ensure that investors have enough information to properly gauge the risk-return tradeoff in their investments. (A more detailed summary of capital markets regulation can be found here.)
Not all investments, however, are subject to this strict disclosure regime. Indeed, only offerings that are made available to all investors are subject to it. Examples of such publicly available investments include stocks listed by the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ. Private investment offerings, by contrast, require only limited financial disclosures. Examples of private investments include private credit, private equity, hedge funds, and venture capital. (For a more detailed discussion of private credit, see this insight from the American Action Forum's Fred Ashton.) Although these private offerings are not uniform in the specifics of their legal requirements, as there are multiple legal exemptions through which private investments can be offered with reduced disclosures, all private offerings face limitations on who can invest in them.
These public and private offerings are often grouped together into public and private capital markets. Historically, public markets dominated in the United States. In the past few decades, however, public markets have contracted, while private markets have grown. The number of public companies in the United States has roughly halved since the 1990s. The annual number of initial-public offerings (IPOs) in 2020 was only about one-quarter of the annual IPOs in the late 1990s. In 2017, by contrast, new private capital raises by companies totaled $3 trillion while companies' new public capital totaled only $1.5 trillion.
Even though private capital markets have been growing, there are still tradeoffs to private investments relative to public ones. For those offering investment opportunities, the attraction of private offerings is that they reduce compliance costs by eliminating disclosures and freeing management from the pressure of responding to shareholder expectations and activism. Yet the downside is that capital access is limited because of the regulatory restrictions on who can invest in private offerings.
For investors, private investments can offer additional ways to diversify their portfolio. Because of their opacity, however, these private investments can often be hard to sell at short notice, meaning that investors may be forced to take a loss if they need to urgently sell them. Investors in private investment funds (hedge funds, for example) may additionally be subject to fees that erode their total returns and/or redemption restrictions that limit their ability to cash out investments at any given moment.
The most relevant trade-off between private and public offerings is their relative risk-reward ratios. While it is still unclear whether private investments perform better on average than public ones, private investments can offer investors the potential for higher returns. But to do so, these investments often come with more risk than publicly available investment opportunities.
Accredited Investor Definition
It is this potentially elevated risk, together with the limited disclosure requirements for private investments, that has led policymakers to restrict access to private offerings to accredited investors considered by the government to be "financially sophisticated and have the wherewithal to sustain financial losses." This restriction, originally codified in 1982 and updated in 2010 and 2020, limits private investments to investors who meet at least one of three qualifications: (1) net worth of at least $1 million excluding one's primary residence; (2) income of $200,000 (or $300,000 for a couple) for the prior two years with expectation of that continuing; or (3) professional qualifications in the financial industry (such as a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Series 7 license).
Proponents of the accredited investor definition argue that, because private offerings are more opaque and potentially more risky, it is incumbent on the government to protect average investors from these harms by restricting public access to private investments. Another potential benefit of the accredited investor definition is that it reaffirms the importance of disclosures in capital markets regulation by restricting capital access for those who wish to circumvent disclosure requirements.
Critics of the accredited investor definition, however, argue that the definition is outdated and unfair. Indeed, opponents note that since it was first codified in 1982, the accredited investor definition's income and wealth thresholds have not been meaningfully updated, with the only change having been the exclusion of an investors' primary residence from their net worth added in 2010. Because of these stagnant thresholds, the percent of households satisfying the accredited investor definition has risen from 1.8 percent in 1982 to almost 20 percent today. For critics focused on investor protection, this increase in qualifying households suggests that too many unsophisticated and financially unprepared investors are being exposed to the risks of private investments.
Other critics argue that the accredited investor definition unreasonably equates financial resources with financial knowledge. Thus, they argue, the definition unfairly restricts less affluent investors from benefiting from potentially higher returns, while allowing wealthier investors - regardless of their financial sophistication - to invest in private investments and potentially fall prey to their risks. As Andrew Ross Sorkin explains, the consequence of this is that "the richest households...[are given] privileged entry into private markets. They can buy into companies like Facebook or Uber years before the public ever has the chance, capturing the overwhelming share of the gains. By the time the average investor can purchase shares on a stock exchange, much of the upside has already been taken."
Recent and Proposed Reforms to the Accredited Investor Definition
There is growing interest among policymakers and regulators in reforming the accredited investor definition. One proposed reform has already been completed, with the SEC under Chair Paul Atkins announcing in late 2025 that closed-end funds (a type of investment company) that invest at least 15 percent of their funds into private funds (a certain type of private investment) would no longer need to restrict access to investors who meet the accredited investor status.
Moreover, the House passed the Incentivizing New Ventures and Economic Strength Through Capital Formation (INVEST) Act of 2025, which includes reforms to the accredited investor definition, in December 2025 on a bipartisan basis. The INVEST Act would require the SEC to both index the accredited investor wealth and income thresholds to inflation and establish a free national exam that would automatically qualify any investor who passes the exam as sophisticated enough to be considered an accredited investor. The INVEST Act would also add the accredited investor definition's professional qualification stipulation to statute, as it is currently only found in SEC issued regulations.
Although the INVEST Act garnered bipartisan support in the House, its future is uncertain, as the Chamber of Commerce reports that the Senate Banking Committee's Republican Majority is planning to introduce its own capital markets legislation. While the details of this new legislation are currently unknown, they are likely to hew closely to those of the Empowering Main Street in America Act (EMSAA), a capital markets reform bill introduced in the previous Congress by then ranking member (now chair) of the Banking Committee Tim Scott (R-SC). With respect to the accredited investor definition, the EMSAA would, like the INVEST Act, have required the SEC to develop an examination for accredited investor status. The EMSAA would have also added a new method of qualification to the accredited investor definition: having at least $500,000 worth of investments. The EMSAA would have further expanded access to private markets by allowing non-accredited investors to invest a limited portion of their money in private investments. Any non-accredited investment would have been limited to being no "greater than the highest amount of either (1) "10 percent of the total investments of the person;" (2) "10 percent of the annual income of the person or 10 percent of the annual combined income with that person's spouse;" or (3) "10 percent of the net worth of the person excluding the value of the person's principal place of residence." If such legislation is officially introduced, it will be noteworthy to see how the new capital markets bill compares to Chairman Scott's previous proposal.
Conclusion
Bridging the gap between the INVEST Act and the Senate's likely-to-be proposed capital markets bill will not be a quick or easy task. The 2026 midterms may prove to be an additional hurdle to any legislative progress. Nonetheless, both chambers' pursuit of reforms to capital markets and the accredited investor definition highlight how capital formation and investor access to private markets is a salient issue that policymakers should continue to monitor.
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Original text here: https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/the-accredited-investor-definition-a-primer/
[Category: Think Tank]
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The Accredited Investor Definition: a Primer
Executive Summary
* Private investments are investment opportunities offered to investors with limited public disclosure of financial and business details; the Securities and Exchange Commissions' accredited investor definition limits the availability of these more opaque investments to investors who satisfy either a wealth, income, or professional qualifications standard.
* While created with the intention of protecting ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- The American Action Forum issued the following commentary on Aug. 18, 2026, by policy fellow Oren Swagel: * * * The Accredited Investor Definition: a Primer Executive Summary * Private investments are investment opportunities offered to investors with limited public disclosure of financial and business details; the Securities and Exchange Commissions' accredited investor definition limits the availability of these more opaque investments to investors who satisfy either a wealth, income, or professional qualifications standard. * While created with the intention of protectingunsophisticated investors from potentially risky investments, critics argue that the accredited investor definition is outdated, unreasonably equates financial resources to financial sophistication, and unfairly restricts access to potentially higher-returning private investments.
* Policymakers have signaled increased interest in updating the accredited investor definition - for example, the House of Representatives recently passed the Incentivizing New Ventures and Economic Strength Through Capital Formation (INVEST) Act of 2025 on a bipartisan basis to, among other provisions, reform the accredited investor definition; this primer reviews the accredited investor definition and recently proposed reforms to this definition
-
Introduction
Investment opportunities in the United States are separated into public and private investments. Public investments are required to include detailed public financial disclosures and are available to all investors. Private investments, by contrast, face no such detailed disclosure mandate and are restricted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investors who satisfy the accredited investor definition by having either (1) net worth excluding primary residence of at least $1 million; (2) annual income of $200,000 (or $300,000 for a couple) for the previous two years that the individual expects will continue; or (3) professional financial certification through employment in the financial industry.
This accredited investor definition was created with the goal of protecting investors who might be less able to understand the risks of private investments that lack detailed financial disclosures. The definition is also meant to ensure that private investments are limited to investors who have enough financial resources to sustain any losses from more opaque private investments. Yet critics argue that by equating financial resources to financial sophistication, the accredited investor definition unfairly restricts less affluent, yet still sophisticated, investors from potentially higher returning private investments. Critics also emphasize that the wealth and income thresholds used in the accredited investor definition are outdated, having not been updated since 1982.
In response to these criticisms, policymakers and regulators have recently shown renewed interest in reforming the accredited investor definition. The House of Representatives, for example, has passed the Incentivizing New Ventures and Economic Strength Through Capital Formation (INVEST) Act of 2025 on a bipartisan basis to, among other capital markets-related provisions, update the accredited investor definition. While the future of the INVEST Act is uncertain, as the Senate Banking Committee reportedly intends to introduce its own capital markets reform legislation, momentum toward reform of the accredited investor definition is building. This primer reviews the accredited investor definition and these recently proposed reforms.
Capital Markets and the SEC
To understand the accredited investor definition and the potential for it to be reformed, it is necessary to first understand the broader capital markets and regulation of which the accredited investor definition is a part. Capital markets are financial markets where investment opportunities are issued and traded. Companies can raise funds through capital markets by issuing equity (shares of ownership that entitle the holder to a portion of a firm's profits) and/or debt (borrowing money from investors with the promise to repay that debt with interest in the future). While capital markets are just one of many methods through which companies can raise money, they are by far the largest, with about 80 percent of all funding for non-financial U.S. companies being raised through capital markets as of 2026. Capital markets in the United States also include other investment opportunities such as mutual funds.
Capital markets in the United States are primarily regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Created in 1934, the SEC's mission is "protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation." A central means through which the SEC accomplishes these goals is its disclosure regime, which requires investment issuers to register publicly offered investments with the SEC and provide the public with regular financial disclosures. By requiring such registration and disclosure, the SEC can ensure that investors have enough information to properly gauge the risk-return tradeoff in their investments. (A more detailed summary of capital markets regulation can be found here.)
Not all investments, however, are subject to this strict disclosure regime. Indeed, only offerings that are made available to all investors are subject to it. Examples of such publicly available investments include stocks listed by the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ. Private investment offerings, by contrast, require only limited financial disclosures. Examples of private investments include private credit, private equity, hedge funds, and venture capital. (For a more detailed discussion of private credit, see this insight from the American Action Forum's Fred Ashton.) Although these private offerings are not uniform in the specifics of their legal requirements, as there are multiple legal exemptions through which private investments can be offered with reduced disclosures, all private offerings face limitations on who can invest in them.
These public and private offerings are often grouped together into public and private capital markets. Historically, public markets dominated in the United States. In the past few decades, however, public markets have contracted, while private markets have grown. The number of public companies in the United States has roughly halved since the 1990s. The annual number of initial-public offerings (IPOs) in 2020 was only about one-quarter of the annual IPOs in the late 1990s. In 2017, by contrast, new private capital raises by companies totaled $3 trillion while companies' new public capital totaled only $1.5 trillion.
Even though private capital markets have been growing, there are still tradeoffs to private investments relative to public ones. For those offering investment opportunities, the attraction of private offerings is that they reduce compliance costs by eliminating disclosures and freeing management from the pressure of responding to shareholder expectations and activism. Yet the downside is that capital access is limited because of the regulatory restrictions on who can invest in private offerings.
For investors, private investments can offer additional ways to diversify their portfolio. Because of their opacity, however, these private investments can often be hard to sell at short notice, meaning that investors may be forced to take a loss if they need to urgently sell them. Investors in private investment funds (hedge funds, for example) may additionally be subject to fees that erode their total returns and/or redemption restrictions that limit their ability to cash out investments at any given moment.
The most relevant trade-off between private and public offerings is their relative risk-reward ratios. While it is still unclear whether private investments perform better on average than public ones, private investments can offer investors the potential for higher returns. But to do so, these investments often come with more risk than publicly available investment opportunities.
Accredited Investor Definition
It is this potentially elevated risk, together with the limited disclosure requirements for private investments, that has led policymakers to restrict access to private offerings to accredited investors considered by the government to be "financially sophisticated and have the wherewithal to sustain financial losses." This restriction, originally codified in 1982 and updated in 2010 and 2020, limits private investments to investors who meet at least one of three qualifications: (1) net worth of at least $1 million excluding one's primary residence; (2) income of $200,000 (or $300,000 for a couple) for the prior two years with expectation of that continuing; or (3) professional qualifications in the financial industry (such as a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Series 7 license).
Proponents of the accredited investor definition argue that, because private offerings are more opaque and potentially more risky, it is incumbent on the government to protect average investors from these harms by restricting public access to private investments. Another potential benefit of the accredited investor definition is that it reaffirms the importance of disclosures in capital markets regulation by restricting capital access for those who wish to circumvent disclosure requirements.
Critics of the accredited investor definition, however, argue that the definition is outdated and unfair. Indeed, opponents note that since it was first codified in 1982, the accredited investor definition's income and wealth thresholds have not been meaningfully updated, with the only change having been the exclusion of an investors' primary residence from their net worth added in 2010. Because of these stagnant thresholds, the percent of households satisfying the accredited investor definition has risen from 1.8 percent in 1982 to almost 20 percent today. For critics focused on investor protection, this increase in qualifying households suggests that too many unsophisticated and financially unprepared investors are being exposed to the risks of private investments.
Other critics argue that the accredited investor definition unreasonably equates financial resources with financial knowledge. Thus, they argue, the definition unfairly restricts less affluent investors from benefiting from potentially higher returns, while allowing wealthier investors - regardless of their financial sophistication - to invest in private investments and potentially fall prey to their risks. As Andrew Ross Sorkin explains, the consequence of this is that "the richest households...[are given] privileged entry into private markets. They can buy into companies like Facebook or Uber years before the public ever has the chance, capturing the overwhelming share of the gains. By the time the average investor can purchase shares on a stock exchange, much of the upside has already been taken."
Recent and Proposed Reforms to the Accredited Investor Definition
There is growing interest among policymakers and regulators in reforming the accredited investor definition. One proposed reform has already been completed, with the SEC under Chair Paul Atkins announcing in late 2025 that closed-end funds (a type of investment company) that invest at least 15 percent of their funds into private funds (a certain type of private investment) would no longer need to restrict access to investors who meet the accredited investor status.
Moreover, the House passed the Incentivizing New Ventures and Economic Strength Through Capital Formation (INVEST) Act of 2025, which includes reforms to the accredited investor definition, in December 2025 on a bipartisan basis. The INVEST Act would require the SEC to both index the accredited investor wealth and income thresholds to inflation and establish a free national exam that would automatically qualify any investor who passes the exam as sophisticated enough to be considered an accredited investor. The INVEST Act would also add the accredited investor definition's professional qualification stipulation to statute, as it is currently only found in SEC issued regulations.
Although the INVEST Act garnered bipartisan support in the House, its future is uncertain, as the Chamber of Commerce reports that the Senate Banking Committee's Republican Majority is planning to introduce its own capital markets legislation. While the details of this new legislation are currently unknown, they are likely to hew closely to those of the Empowering Main Street in America Act (EMSAA), a capital markets reform bill introduced in the previous Congress by then ranking member (now chair) of the Banking Committee Tim Scott (R-SC). With respect to the accredited investor definition, the EMSAA would, like the INVEST Act, have required the SEC to develop an examination for accredited investor status. The EMSAA would have also added a new method of qualification to the accredited investor definition: having at least $500,000 worth of investments. The EMSAA would have further expanded access to private markets by allowing non-accredited investors to invest a limited portion of their money in private investments. Any non-accredited investment would have been limited to being no "greater than the highest amount of either (1) "10 percent of the total investments of the person;" (2) "10 percent of the annual income of the person or 10 percent of the annual combined income with that person's spouse;" or (3) "10 percent of the net worth of the person excluding the value of the person's principal place of residence." If such legislation is officially introduced, it will be noteworthy to see how the new capital markets bill compares to Chairman Scott's previous proposal.
Conclusion
Bridging the gap between the INVEST Act and the Senate's likely-to-be proposed capital markets bill will not be a quick or easy task. The 2026 midterms may prove to be an additional hurdle to any legislative progress. Nonetheless, both chambers' pursuit of reforms to capital markets and the accredited investor definition highlight how capital formation and investor access to private markets is a salient issue that policymakers should continue to monitor.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/the-accredited-investor-definition-a-primer/
[Category: Think Tank]
America First Policy Institute: Improving Voter List Maintenance Through Amending the National Change of Address Form
WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following research report on June 9, 2026, by Anna Pingel entitled "Improving Voter List Maintenance Through Amending the National Change of Address Form."
Here are excerpts:
* * *
Introduction
Maintaining accurate voter rolls, which is the list of registered voters, is a vital responsibility for state and local election officials across the country. It helps ensure that both state and federal elections are fair and trustworthy, as the voter rolls are supposed to dictate who is eligible to cast a ballot. This task ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following research report on June 9, 2026, by Anna Pingel entitled "Improving Voter List Maintenance Through Amending the National Change of Address Form." Here are excerpts: * * * Introduction Maintaining accurate voter rolls, which is the list of registered voters, is a vital responsibility for state and local election officials across the country. It helps ensure that both state and federal elections are fair and trustworthy, as the voter rolls are supposed to dictate who is eligible to cast a ballot. This taskof voter roll maintenance is both absolutely essential and immensely difficult. Voters move frequently across state lines, and often there is a significant lag in updating the voter rolls in the old state of residence to reflect that the individual no longer resides there. To reconcile how voters so frequently move with the vast scale of outdated registrations this creates, this report proposes adding a checkbox to the United States Postal Service (USPS) Change of Address (COA) form allowing voters to manually request immediate removal from the voter rolls in the jurisdiction from which they are moving, as well as a new section for proof of identity if requesting removal.
The Voter Roll Maintenance Problem
There are several factors that make voter roll maintenance extremely difficult in modern-day America, primarily a combination of mobility rates, certain federal laws, and state laws. Accurate elections depend on accurate voter rolls, and the current list maintenance protocols do not ensure this standard is met.
Americans Relocate Frequently, Which Complicates Voter Roll Maintenance
Mobility rates are the first factor complicating voter rolls. The sheer volume of Americans relocating each year creates a persistent challenge for election officials tasked with maintaining accurate voter rolls. According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, almost 12% of the U.S. population relocated in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2025). This represents millions of address changes that voter rolls must somehow track and reconcile; each one of these moves creates a discrepancy between a voter's previous voter registration address and their actual residence, generating outdated records that linger on the rolls and create serious vulnerabilities High-turnover populations are precisely those where voter roll maintenance is most critical and yet are the most difficult to properly track for voter roll maintenance.
Federal law attempts to address this problem. Three specific federal provisions under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) outline the authority granted to states for managing voter registration when it comes to Americans relocating.
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View full report at: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/assets/uploads/files/Research_Report_-_Checkbox_Addition_to_USPS_NCOA_Form.pdf
[Category: ThinkTank]
Here are excerpts:
* * *
Introduction
Maintaining accurate voter rolls, which is the list of registered voters, is a vital responsibility for state and local election officials across the country. It helps ensure that both state and federal elections are fair and trustworthy, as the voter rolls are supposed to dictate who is eligible to cast a ballot. This task ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following research report on June 9, 2026, by Anna Pingel entitled "Improving Voter List Maintenance Through Amending the National Change of Address Form." Here are excerpts: * * * Introduction Maintaining accurate voter rolls, which is the list of registered voters, is a vital responsibility for state and local election officials across the country. It helps ensure that both state and federal elections are fair and trustworthy, as the voter rolls are supposed to dictate who is eligible to cast a ballot. This taskof voter roll maintenance is both absolutely essential and immensely difficult. Voters move frequently across state lines, and often there is a significant lag in updating the voter rolls in the old state of residence to reflect that the individual no longer resides there. To reconcile how voters so frequently move with the vast scale of outdated registrations this creates, this report proposes adding a checkbox to the United States Postal Service (USPS) Change of Address (COA) form allowing voters to manually request immediate removal from the voter rolls in the jurisdiction from which they are moving, as well as a new section for proof of identity if requesting removal.
The Voter Roll Maintenance Problem
There are several factors that make voter roll maintenance extremely difficult in modern-day America, primarily a combination of mobility rates, certain federal laws, and state laws. Accurate elections depend on accurate voter rolls, and the current list maintenance protocols do not ensure this standard is met.
Americans Relocate Frequently, Which Complicates Voter Roll Maintenance
Mobility rates are the first factor complicating voter rolls. The sheer volume of Americans relocating each year creates a persistent challenge for election officials tasked with maintaining accurate voter rolls. According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, almost 12% of the U.S. population relocated in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2025). This represents millions of address changes that voter rolls must somehow track and reconcile; each one of these moves creates a discrepancy between a voter's previous voter registration address and their actual residence, generating outdated records that linger on the rolls and create serious vulnerabilities High-turnover populations are precisely those where voter roll maintenance is most critical and yet are the most difficult to properly track for voter roll maintenance.
Federal law attempts to address this problem. Three specific federal provisions under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) outline the authority granted to states for managing voter registration when it comes to Americans relocating.
* * *
View full report at: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/assets/uploads/files/Research_Report_-_Checkbox_Addition_to_USPS_NCOA_Form.pdf
[Category: ThinkTank]
America First Policy Institute: 529 Plan Conformity Across the States: A Reform Agenda After the One Big Beautiful Bill
WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following research report on June 9, 2026, by James Paul and Rose Laoutaris entitled "529 Plan Conformity across the states: A Reform Agenda After the One Big Beautiful Bill."
Here are excerpts:
* * *
Introduction
529 education savings plans, also known as qualified tuition plans, are tax-advantaged accounts in which families invest after-tax dollars in mutual funds, index funds, and age-based portfolios offered by plan administrators under contract with state governments. Earnings grow free from federal income tax, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following research report on June 9, 2026, by James Paul and Rose Laoutaris entitled "529 Plan Conformity across the states: A Reform Agenda After the One Big Beautiful Bill." Here are excerpts: * * * Introduction 529 education savings plans, also known as qualified tuition plans, are tax-advantaged accounts in which families invest after-tax dollars in mutual funds, index funds, and age-based portfolios offered by plan administrators under contract with state governments. Earnings grow free from federal income tax,and withdrawals remain tax-free when used for qualified education expenses. Established under Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code, these plans were originally designed to help families save and pay for postsecondary education but have expanded significantly in the past decade to include tuition and other expenses in K-12 education--making them dramatically more attractive vehicles for education freedom. When parents save for college, their children benefit through reduced educational debt (Elliott et al., 2014), and even small levels of school-designated savings strongly predict postsecondary enrollment and graduation (Briscese et al., 2025; Elliott, 2013).
In 2025, American families held a combined $576.7 billion in assets in 529 plans (Investment Company Institute, 2026; Credit Karma, 2025). While all states except for Wyoming sponsor a 529 program (Education Commission of the States, 2020), state tax treatment varies considerably, particularly with respect to K-12 usage.
Recent Congressional legislation broadened the definition of qualified educational expenses, but state conformity to these federal changes is uneven. Some states fully exclude K-12 expenses, while others identify tuition as the only eligible K-12 category. This may cause confusion in non-conforming states, leaving residents at risk of state tax penalties should they withdraw funds for expenses that qualify under federal law but not under their own state's code.
Existing research on 529 policy examines how states have responded to federal changes (Burke & Butcher, 2017; Mann, 2019; Trinidad & Johnson, 2025), but this research report advances on prior work in several dimensions. First, it is the most current analysis available, published after states have had sufficient time to respond to federal changes to 529 plans included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Second, it provides the most thorough documentation of state law assembled in one place, with direct citations to statutory text, administrative rules, and plan manager guidance for each state's conformity determination. Finally, this report examines state-level tax incentives for 529 contributions and advances policy recommendations to expand education freedom through 529 plans.
Background
History of 529 Plans
529 plans originated as state prepaid tuition programs, through which parents purchased future enrollment at participating colleges or universities. Michigan launched the first such program in 1986, which prompted litigation over its federal tax treatment (Michigan Education Trust Act, 1986, Sec. 390.1421-390.1442). In State of Michigan v. United States, the Sixth Circuit ultimately ruled that these tuition programs were exempt from federal income tax (State of Michigan and Michigan Education Trust v. United States of America, 1995), laying the groundwork for future federal policy.
In 1996, Congress codified 529 plans through the Small Business Job Protection Act (H.R. 3448, 1996). Subsequent legislation expanded allowable expenses to include room, board, and college tuition (H.R. 2014, 1997), though earnings accumulated only on a tax-deferred basis with qualified withdrawals subject to federal tax. By 2000, 30 states had created their own 529 programs (College Savings Plans Network, n.d.).
The 2001 Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act permitted tax-free withdrawals for qualified expenses (H.R. 1836, 2001), and the Pension Protection Act of 2006 made tax-free withdrawals permanent (H.R. 4, 2006). Later 529 expansions included technology-related expenses such as computers, peripheral equipment, and internet access (H.R. 2029, 2015).
Expansion to K-12
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) marked the first significant expansion of 529 plans beyond higher education, amending the definition of qualified education expense to include up to $10,000 in annual tuition expenses at K-12 public, private, or religious schools (H.R. 1, 2017). This landmark legislation expanded educational freedom by providing parents with another option for educating their children in nonpublic elementary and secondary schools. Two years later, the SECURE Act added student loan repayments and certified apprenticeships as allowable expenses (H.R. 1865, 2020). SECURE 2.0 passed Congress in 2022, permitting up to $35,000 in 529 funds to be rolled over into Roth IRAs for retirement savings (H.R. 2617, 2022).
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View full report at: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/529-plan-conformity-across-the-states-a-reform-agenda-after-the-one-big-beautiful-bill
[Category: ThinkTank]
Here are excerpts:
* * *
Introduction
529 education savings plans, also known as qualified tuition plans, are tax-advantaged accounts in which families invest after-tax dollars in mutual funds, index funds, and age-based portfolios offered by plan administrators under contract with state governments. Earnings grow free from federal income tax, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following research report on June 9, 2026, by James Paul and Rose Laoutaris entitled "529 Plan Conformity across the states: A Reform Agenda After the One Big Beautiful Bill." Here are excerpts: * * * Introduction 529 education savings plans, also known as qualified tuition plans, are tax-advantaged accounts in which families invest after-tax dollars in mutual funds, index funds, and age-based portfolios offered by plan administrators under contract with state governments. Earnings grow free from federal income tax,and withdrawals remain tax-free when used for qualified education expenses. Established under Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code, these plans were originally designed to help families save and pay for postsecondary education but have expanded significantly in the past decade to include tuition and other expenses in K-12 education--making them dramatically more attractive vehicles for education freedom. When parents save for college, their children benefit through reduced educational debt (Elliott et al., 2014), and even small levels of school-designated savings strongly predict postsecondary enrollment and graduation (Briscese et al., 2025; Elliott, 2013).
In 2025, American families held a combined $576.7 billion in assets in 529 plans (Investment Company Institute, 2026; Credit Karma, 2025). While all states except for Wyoming sponsor a 529 program (Education Commission of the States, 2020), state tax treatment varies considerably, particularly with respect to K-12 usage.
Recent Congressional legislation broadened the definition of qualified educational expenses, but state conformity to these federal changes is uneven. Some states fully exclude K-12 expenses, while others identify tuition as the only eligible K-12 category. This may cause confusion in non-conforming states, leaving residents at risk of state tax penalties should they withdraw funds for expenses that qualify under federal law but not under their own state's code.
Existing research on 529 policy examines how states have responded to federal changes (Burke & Butcher, 2017; Mann, 2019; Trinidad & Johnson, 2025), but this research report advances on prior work in several dimensions. First, it is the most current analysis available, published after states have had sufficient time to respond to federal changes to 529 plans included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Second, it provides the most thorough documentation of state law assembled in one place, with direct citations to statutory text, administrative rules, and plan manager guidance for each state's conformity determination. Finally, this report examines state-level tax incentives for 529 contributions and advances policy recommendations to expand education freedom through 529 plans.
Background
History of 529 Plans
529 plans originated as state prepaid tuition programs, through which parents purchased future enrollment at participating colleges or universities. Michigan launched the first such program in 1986, which prompted litigation over its federal tax treatment (Michigan Education Trust Act, 1986, Sec. 390.1421-390.1442). In State of Michigan v. United States, the Sixth Circuit ultimately ruled that these tuition programs were exempt from federal income tax (State of Michigan and Michigan Education Trust v. United States of America, 1995), laying the groundwork for future federal policy.
In 1996, Congress codified 529 plans through the Small Business Job Protection Act (H.R. 3448, 1996). Subsequent legislation expanded allowable expenses to include room, board, and college tuition (H.R. 2014, 1997), though earnings accumulated only on a tax-deferred basis with qualified withdrawals subject to federal tax. By 2000, 30 states had created their own 529 programs (College Savings Plans Network, n.d.).
The 2001 Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act permitted tax-free withdrawals for qualified expenses (H.R. 1836, 2001), and the Pension Protection Act of 2006 made tax-free withdrawals permanent (H.R. 4, 2006). Later 529 expansions included technology-related expenses such as computers, peripheral equipment, and internet access (H.R. 2029, 2015).
Expansion to K-12
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) marked the first significant expansion of 529 plans beyond higher education, amending the definition of qualified education expense to include up to $10,000 in annual tuition expenses at K-12 public, private, or religious schools (H.R. 1, 2017). This landmark legislation expanded educational freedom by providing parents with another option for educating their children in nonpublic elementary and secondary schools. Two years later, the SECURE Act added student loan repayments and certified apprenticeships as allowable expenses (H.R. 1865, 2020). SECURE 2.0 passed Congress in 2022, permitting up to $35,000 in 529 funds to be rolled over into Roth IRAs for retirement savings (H.R. 2617, 2022).
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View full report at: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/529-plan-conformity-across-the-states-a-reform-agenda-after-the-one-big-beautiful-bill
[Category: ThinkTank]
America First Policy Institute: 'Academic Freedom' is No Excuse for Viewpoint Discrimination
WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following research report on July 1, 2026, by Christopher Schorr entitled "'Academic Freedom' is no Excuse for Viewpoint Discrimination."
Here are excerpts:
* * *
Introduction
Higher education plays a vital role in supporting the discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge (Kalven Committee, 1967). To this end, institutions of higher education (hereafter, "universities") are charged with cultivating atmospheres of open inquiry and robust intellectual exchange (University of Chicago, 2015). The familiar ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following research report on July 1, 2026, by Christopher Schorr entitled "'Academic Freedom' is no Excuse for Viewpoint Discrimination." Here are excerpts: * * * Introduction Higher education plays a vital role in supporting the discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge (Kalven Committee, 1967). To this end, institutions of higher education (hereafter, "universities") are charged with cultivating atmospheres of open inquiry and robust intellectual exchange (University of Chicago, 2015). The familiarmetaphor of the university as a "marketplace of ideas" captures this aspiration: progress--scientific, moral/ethical, methodological, cultural, etc.--requires challenging orthodoxies and unsettling conventions (Mill, 1859). These processes require not only the freedom to advance ideas, but also meaningful exposure to competing perspectives. Absent such exposure, errors go unnoticed, assumptions go untested, and dominant frameworks risk becoming insulated from critique (Nemeth, 2010; Tetlock, 1994).
Today, unfortunately, competing perspectives are often suppressed in campus settings. Mounting evidence suggests conservative faculty face discrimination from their far more numerous liberal peers in hiring, promotion, grant review, and disciplinary processes (Inbar & Lammers, 2012; Honeycutt & Freberg, 2017; Kaufmann, 2021; Honeycutt, 2024). Conservative and other heterodox faculty, students, and visitors also find their expression constrained by speech codes, diversity statement requirements, and cancellation campaigns (Palmer, 2024; Academic Freedom Alliance, 2022; Schorr, 2025). In addition to limiting the range of accessible campus perspectives (viewpoint diversity), this viewpoint discrimination denies equal treatment to a class of people in public life while leaving certain dominant or ascendant perspectives insufficiently challenged--a dynamic that appears to contribute to troubling violations of civil rights and liberties (Pidluzny, 2024).[1]
Many thoughtful scholars and education reformers nonetheless resist government-led efforts to address viewpoint discrimination, including the Trump Administration's recent higher education "compact" proposal, which offered participating institutions preferential access to grants and other federal benefits in exchange for specified reforms (Trump Administration, 2025; George et al., 2025; Tomasi & Haidt, 2025). A prominent concern among this eclectic group--which includes liberals, centrists, libertarians, and even conservatives--is that government "intrusion" of this sort into university affairs infringes on academic freedom. Traditionally, "academic freedom" describes the right of scholars, researchers, and students to "explore, research, and express ideas without fear of censorship, retaliation, or institutional pressure" (HxA, n.d.-a); however, opponents of government action ("anti-interventionists") here invoke the term in defense of institutional discretion to deny these same freedoms to viewpoint minority scholars and students (Rosenberg, 2025).
Conflicting appeals to "academic freedom" reflect a common--though not a formally codified-- understanding of the term as comprising three related elements: (1) individual academic freedom, or the freedom of faculty, researchers, and students to pursue inquiry and expression; (2) institutional autonomy, or the ability of universities to direct their own affairs without external control; and (3) professional and disciplinary norms governing scholarly practice and evaluation (AAUP, 1940/1970; Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 1957; Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 1978). However, it is important to emphasize that the relationship between these elements is not one of equals. Focusing on the first two, the primary value conferred by institutional autonomy is the maintenance of the conditions under which individual academic freedom--and, through it, the mission of the university--can be realized (AAUP, 1940/1970; Post, 2012; Byrne, 1989).
Institutional autonomy advances the mission of the university when it protects and enables the free exchange of ideas among scholars. Conversely, when institutional practices (whether formal or informal) systematically constrain the participation or advancement of disfavored viewpoints, autonomy becomes an impediment to that mission. The same authority that enables universities to foster open inquiry can be abused to stifle debate and exclude competing perspectives (see Figure 1).
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View full report at: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/academic-freedom-is-no-excuse-for-viewpoint-discrimination
[Category: ThinkTank]
Here are excerpts:
* * *
Introduction
Higher education plays a vital role in supporting the discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge (Kalven Committee, 1967). To this end, institutions of higher education (hereafter, "universities") are charged with cultivating atmospheres of open inquiry and robust intellectual exchange (University of Chicago, 2015). The familiar ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following research report on July 1, 2026, by Christopher Schorr entitled "'Academic Freedom' is no Excuse for Viewpoint Discrimination." Here are excerpts: * * * Introduction Higher education plays a vital role in supporting the discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge (Kalven Committee, 1967). To this end, institutions of higher education (hereafter, "universities") are charged with cultivating atmospheres of open inquiry and robust intellectual exchange (University of Chicago, 2015). The familiarmetaphor of the university as a "marketplace of ideas" captures this aspiration: progress--scientific, moral/ethical, methodological, cultural, etc.--requires challenging orthodoxies and unsettling conventions (Mill, 1859). These processes require not only the freedom to advance ideas, but also meaningful exposure to competing perspectives. Absent such exposure, errors go unnoticed, assumptions go untested, and dominant frameworks risk becoming insulated from critique (Nemeth, 2010; Tetlock, 1994).
Today, unfortunately, competing perspectives are often suppressed in campus settings. Mounting evidence suggests conservative faculty face discrimination from their far more numerous liberal peers in hiring, promotion, grant review, and disciplinary processes (Inbar & Lammers, 2012; Honeycutt & Freberg, 2017; Kaufmann, 2021; Honeycutt, 2024). Conservative and other heterodox faculty, students, and visitors also find their expression constrained by speech codes, diversity statement requirements, and cancellation campaigns (Palmer, 2024; Academic Freedom Alliance, 2022; Schorr, 2025). In addition to limiting the range of accessible campus perspectives (viewpoint diversity), this viewpoint discrimination denies equal treatment to a class of people in public life while leaving certain dominant or ascendant perspectives insufficiently challenged--a dynamic that appears to contribute to troubling violations of civil rights and liberties (Pidluzny, 2024).[1]
Many thoughtful scholars and education reformers nonetheless resist government-led efforts to address viewpoint discrimination, including the Trump Administration's recent higher education "compact" proposal, which offered participating institutions preferential access to grants and other federal benefits in exchange for specified reforms (Trump Administration, 2025; George et al., 2025; Tomasi & Haidt, 2025). A prominent concern among this eclectic group--which includes liberals, centrists, libertarians, and even conservatives--is that government "intrusion" of this sort into university affairs infringes on academic freedom. Traditionally, "academic freedom" describes the right of scholars, researchers, and students to "explore, research, and express ideas without fear of censorship, retaliation, or institutional pressure" (HxA, n.d.-a); however, opponents of government action ("anti-interventionists") here invoke the term in defense of institutional discretion to deny these same freedoms to viewpoint minority scholars and students (Rosenberg, 2025).
Conflicting appeals to "academic freedom" reflect a common--though not a formally codified-- understanding of the term as comprising three related elements: (1) individual academic freedom, or the freedom of faculty, researchers, and students to pursue inquiry and expression; (2) institutional autonomy, or the ability of universities to direct their own affairs without external control; and (3) professional and disciplinary norms governing scholarly practice and evaluation (AAUP, 1940/1970; Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 1957; Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 1978). However, it is important to emphasize that the relationship between these elements is not one of equals. Focusing on the first two, the primary value conferred by institutional autonomy is the maintenance of the conditions under which individual academic freedom--and, through it, the mission of the university--can be realized (AAUP, 1940/1970; Post, 2012; Byrne, 1989).
Institutional autonomy advances the mission of the university when it protects and enables the free exchange of ideas among scholars. Conversely, when institutional practices (whether formal or informal) systematically constrain the participation or advancement of disfavored viewpoints, autonomy becomes an impediment to that mission. The same authority that enables universities to foster open inquiry can be abused to stifle debate and exclude competing perspectives (see Figure 1).
* * *
View full report at: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/academic-freedom-is-no-excuse-for-viewpoint-discrimination
[Category: ThinkTank]