Blog – Tuesdays with Mary

Tuesday, April 7, 2026 There’s a story economist Russ Roberts tells; one that has stayed with me, even if the details blur over time. An economist travels to Russia shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. He books a hotel conference space months in advance. Everything is agreed to. Contracts signed. Plans made.  And then, shortly before the event, the hotel cancels. Another group came along and offered more money, and the space was simply resold. There was no apology in the way we might expect. No real sense that anything improper had happened. No damages to pursue in [...]

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 series In 1803, the United States agreed to purchase a vast stretch of land from France; a transaction that would double the size of the young nation almost overnight. It is often remembered as a moment of vision and opportunity, and it was. It was also a decision made ahead of clarity. Even at the time, there were real questions about whether the Constitution allowed it, whether the United States could effectively govern it, and what, exactly, had just been acquired. What came with the Louisiana Purchase extended well [...]

Tuesday, March 24, 2026 I’ve been thinking about the conversation I recently had with Ed Pinto, Co-Director of the Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute. It stayed with me longer than most; because it challenged something I think many of us have started to accept as a given. That the housing supply problem is so complicated, so layered, so multi-faceted that meaningful progress and repair is going to take decades, if it happens at all.  We hear versions of that everywhere. And over time, it starts to sound true. But as you can hear in our Keys to Real [...]

Tuesday, March 17, 2026 Sometimes, after years of seeming inertia, Washington moves in several directions at once. Last week the Senate passed the Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream to Housing Act, a/k/a the ROAD to Housing Act. The bill, introduced by Sen. Tim Scott of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs with participation from ranking member Sen. Elizabeth Warren, gathers together a wide range of housing proposals with bi-partisan support, aimed at addressing the country’s persistent shortage of homes. Many of the provisions focus on housing supply and the barriers that slow development. Others touch [...]

Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 series Tuesday, March 10, 2026 When the American Revolution ended, independence solved one problem but created another.  If the King no longer ruled the colonies, what happened to the land he had governed? Under English law, vast amounts of land technically belonged to the Crown. Some parcels had already been granted to individuals or companies through colonial charters, patents, and deeds. But enormous areas, especially in the interior, remained “vacant” lands held in the name of the sovereign. When the colonies became states, those rights didn’t disappear. They had to go somewhere. For [...]

Tuesday, March 3, 2026 There is something special about being in the courtroom, including before the arguments ever begin. For me it’s a blend of awe and tension.  The quiet conversations, the shuffle of papers, the sense that everyone knows the stakes are high; even as the room feels measured and restrained.  And yes, the room feels majestic, too. When argument began in Pung v. Isabella County, it felt (at least at first) like a difficult morning for Pung’s counsel. The early questions pressed hard on theory and remedy. There were moments when the bench seemed very skeptical of how [...]

Tuesday, February 24, 2026 We’re headed back to SCOTUS this week to cover the oral arguments in Pung v. Isabella County.  For me, one of the best parts of any visit to the court is always the building itself.  Thomas Jefferson said of the Library of Congress that it was designed as a temple to knowledge; and honestly it feels just like that. Architect Cass Gilbert designed the Supreme Court building in a classical style, meant to suggest a temple of justice. In my estimation, mission accomplished. Surprisingly, the Supreme Court did not have its own building until 1935. For [...]

Tuesday, February 17, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 series In 1705, before there was a United States, a Supreme Court, or anything resembling modern federal Indian law, a land dispute began in Connecticut that would stretch nearly 70 years…and would not be fully resolved for another 220 years. Mohegan Indians v. Connecticut doesn’t come up often in casual conversation. It isn’t a dramatic courtroom story. There’s no single sweeping opinion to quote. What it offers instead is something understated and, in some ways, more telling: a glimpse of how unsettled land ownership really was in early America. [...]

Tuesday, February 10, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 series In its earliest days, the Massachusetts Bay Colony operated under English common law in most matters of property and civil governance. When it came to coastal land, private ownership generally extended only to the high-water mark, while the land below (the foreshore) remained the property of the Crown. Certain public rights, like fishing or navigation, could be granted and exercised there, but ownership stayed with the sovereign. That division of upland and foreshore shaped nearly every early dispute over waterfront property and would become the point of [...]

Tuesday February 3, 2026 One of the lesser acknowledged facts about today’s housing market is that scarcity isn’t universal. In many rural areas and small towns, a robust housing supply exists. Inventory is widely available. Prices are (often dramatically!) lower. What’s often missing isn’t housing itself, but the ability for people to live in those homes and connect to reliable high-speed broadband to remain economically productive. Said differently, the shortage in the housing supply today isn’t just about what’s built; it’s about what’s usable. And increasingly, usability depends on whether people can participate in the information economy from where they [...]