A new Brennan Center analysis finds that the number of employees in most cabinet agencies dropped dramatically over the past decade. A combination of budget cuts, hiring freezes, and periodic government shutdowns has reduced agencies’ efficiency and effectiveness, leaving them poorly equipped to carry out their duties. Both the Biden administration and Congress must ensure the government has the personnel and resources it needs to properly serve the public.

Last month, a House committee opened a probe into a Department of Homeland Security domestic intelligence program over potential civil liberties violations. It’s just the latest of many long-standing abuses by DHS agencies, which too often misuse their authority to undermine Americans’ privacy and First Amendment protections. A new Brennan Center report details reforms for establishing stronger safeguards and oversight to restrain DHS overreach and better protect the public’s constitutional rights.

A recent court decision in Hawaii signals a potential path for fighting climate change: environmental provisions in state constitutions. The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that before approving an energy company’s proposed power plant, state regulators had to consider the effects of potential greenhouse gas emissions. Although federal courts have so far failed to seriously engage with the growing climate crisis, the decision shows how state constitutional guarantees can be used to defend the planet.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, it said nothing about pregnant women whose lives might be endangered without an abortion, leaving the judgment up to the states. Last month, state supreme courts in Oklahoma and North Dakota decided that their constitutions offer limited rights to abortion when needed to preserve a woman’s life or health. These narrow but significant rulings target some of the most extreme abortion restrictions in the country, although neither court addressed whether their state constitutions protect abortion access more broadly. These and other questions on state-level reproductive rights remain pending as the post-Dobbs legal landscape takes shape.