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November 7, 2025

Scientists are uncovering serotonin’s role in cancer – here’s what we know

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jeremiah Stanley, Postdoctoral Researcher, Viral and Cancer Genes, University of Limerick

Serotonin is often described as the happiness chemical because of its well-known role in regulating mood. However, recent research suggests this familiar molecule may play an unexpected role in cancer development. Not through its effects on the brain, but through a completely different mechanism in other parts of the body.

Despite serotonin being commonly associated with the brain, almost 95% of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut. From there, it enters the bloodstream and travels to various organs and tissues, including the liver, pancreas, muscles, bones, fat tissue and immune cells.

Gut serotonin helps regulate blood sugar levels through its actions on the liver and pancreas, and regulate body temperature by acting on fat tissue. It also contributes to maintaining healthy bones, stimulating appetite and gut motility, stimulating sexual health, promoting wound healing, and supporting immunity against harmful microbes. It essentially drives the functions of many cells throughout the body, and its effects extend far beyond mood regulation.

In 2019, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York discovered that serotonin can enter cells and interact directly with DNA. They found that it binds to molecular “switches” that control whether genes are active or inactive – and this binding can turn specific genes on.

Studies since then have shown that serotonin can switch on genes involved in cancer growth. This mechanism has been seen in brain, liver and pancreatic cancers – and it may play a role in many other types of cancer.

My colleagues and I at the University of Limerick in Ireland are currently investigating the interaction between serotonin and DNA to better understand how it influences cancer. Identifying the specific sites where serotonin binds to cancer-related genes could support the development of targeted “epigenetic” therapies – treatments that control which genes are switched on or off.

Epigenetic therapies aim to reprogramme cancer cells by adjusting their gene activity directly. They can specifically turn off the harmful genes and turn on the beneficial ones in cancer cells without altering the DNA sequence itself. Such therapies may one day attack cancer cells with greater precision than current methods: surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. (While these approaches can be life-saving, they are often aggressive, carry significant side-effects and do not always prevent recurrence.)

Scientists are also exploring how serotonin produced in the gut reaches cancer cells. Understanding this pathway could allow doctors to manage serotonin levels in patients. Approaches might include dietary changes, maintaining a healthy gut microbiome, or using antidepressant drugs called “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors” (SSRIs).

Cells take up serotonin through tiny “transport channels” and the SSRIs block these channels, limiting serotonin’s entry into cancer cells. These drugs increase serotonin levels in the body but prevent it from reaching the DNA to cause their cancer-promoting effects. This strategy could complement existing therapies and possibly improve their effectiveness.

A bottle of SSRI antidepressants spilling out of a bottle. — Approaches might include using SSRI antidepressants.
CJSD/Shutterstock.com

Untangling serotonin’s double life

Brain and gut serotonin operate largely independently. The serotonin that influences mood does not appear to drive cancer growth. For instance, people with depression may have lower serotonin activity in the brain, but the serotonin produced in the gut doesn’t seem to have a clear effect on brain serotonin. SSRI antidepressants, such as Prozac, Celexa and Zoloft, act by increasing serotonin levels in the brain and, therefore, people taking these pills need not worry that their pills may be driving cancer.

On the contrary, as mentioned above, early studies suggest that SSRIs could have beneficial effects against certain cancers – although larger clinical trials are needed to confirm this.

Our research aims to build a detailed understanding of serotonin’s role across different tissues and cellular pathways, potentially opening new avenues for treatment. However, significant challenges remain.

A clearer understanding of how serotonin interacts with cancer-related genes is needed to determine which targets are most effective. Accurate delivery systems must also be developed to ensure epigenetic drugs reach their intended sites of action. Most importantly, encouraging results from cell-based experiments must be validated in ethically designed animal studies and human clinical trials before meaningful progress can be claimed.

If therapies can be developed to target serotonin’s activity specifically in cancer cells, tumours could become less aggressive and easier to remove surgically, with a lower risk of recurrence.

A more complete understanding of serotonin’s functions in the body – across mood, metabolism and cancer – may guide the development of more precise and effective therapies in the future.

Jeremiah Stanley receives funding from the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme of the European Commission.

– ref. Scientists are uncovering serotonin’s role in cancer – here’s what we know – https://theconversation.com/scientists-are-uncovering-serotonins-role-in-cancer-heres-what-we-know-266199

November 7, 2025

New national curriculum’s skills agenda starts to bring England in line with world-leading education systems

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mark Boylan, Professor of Education, Sheffield Hallam University

Proposed changes to England’s national curriculum aim to ensure it is fit for the future, writes Professor Becky Francis in her introduction to the final report of the government’s independent curriculum review. The panel that conducted the review sought to address the “rich knowledge and skills young people need to thrive in our fast-changing world”.

From the outset, the review limited itself to “evolution not revolution”, and in the report the changes are described as a “refresh” to the current curriculum rather than a new one. This is understandable given the current challenges education faces of tight budgets and teacher supply.

The present curriculum came into use in 2014. It tended to look more to the past, with the aim to “introduce pupils to the best that has been thought and said”.

The proposed revised curriculum looks more to the future. It expands the idea of a curriculum rich in knowledge to value “applied knowledge”, including life skills.

The review’s recommendations highlight the importance of financial literacy, digital literacy and media literacy, as well as education on climate change and sustainability, as well as oracy (speaking skills).

England is currently an outlier in not including life skills in the curriculum. Other countries, such as Singapore and Estonia, combine high standards with explicitly addressing these skills.

One way of doing this is to treat life skills as a whole in a similar way to a main curriculum subject. The other is to embed them as cross-curriculum themes within all subjects: making sure that every subject includes communication or digital skills.

The report is notable for recommending more of a hybrid approach. Citizenship is currently only taught as a subject in secondary schools, but in future will be taught in primary schools too. In both secondary and primary schools many of these life skills will be taught in citizenship lessons.

Some skills will be more explicitly addressed as part of other subjects, such as financial literature literacy? in maths and digital literacy in computing. But a new oracy framework will support communication skills across the whole curriculum.

Teenagers at school looking at laptop — The review proposes learning in financial skills and media literacy.
Jacob Lund/Shutterstock

The curriculum assessment review also uses recommendations specific to school subjects to promote a new way of combining knowledge and skills. Many of these changes are about addressing inconsistencies, gaps or weaknesses in the current subject curricula.

What counts as important cultural knowledge is expanded from the current curriculum to reflect current times and the diverse nation we live in. This is reflected in changes in the English curriculum with the inclusion of modern texts with authors from more diverse backgrounds.

Knowledge, the review recommends, should be “powerful” to support young people to collectively address the issues they face. This does not mean a dramatic rewriting of each subject curriculum but translates, in some subjects, to a shift in emphasis. This includes highlighting to pupils how relevant certain content is to their lives and to give them more opportunity to use what they know.

A standout way in which skills are valued in the report are recommendations in 16-19 curriculum and assessment. The introduction of new V-levels, already proposed in the government’s recent post-16 education and skills policy paper, intends to allow students to combine vocational and academic learning.

Other changes in the post-16 sector, such as different ways to support young people to gain GCSE-equivalent maths and English qualifications, also recognise that qualifications designed partly as gateways to A-level study are not appropriate for all learners.

These recommendations might well improve the experience of learners, in particular those who find secondary school demotivating. But the proposals in the curriculum review are limited. They are unlikely to do much to address the needs of those young people who are far from thriving in the current system.

The review notes the comparatively good performance by England on international tests. However, the same tests indicate that young people in England report low levels of life satisfaction. Enjoyment of school is falling, and school is affecting young people’s mental health.

The report’s final recommendation is for another review in ten years’ time. Even if the report is fully implemented, it is likely that in ten years a significant number of young people will still not be thriving in school. To address that we may need a much more fundamental curriculum change.

Mark Boylan receives funding for research from the Education Endowment Foundation

– ref. New national curriculum’s skills agenda starts to bring England in line with world-leading education systems – https://theconversation.com/new-national-curriculums-skills-agenda-starts-to-bring-england-in-line-with-world-leading-education-systems-268961

November 7, 2025

A psychedelic tour of Earth’s ecosystems – from the desert to Siberia

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jamie Thompson, Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology, University of Reading

Every mind-bending molecule in nature has an evolutionary origin; a defence against being eaten, a lure for pollinators, or perhaps a happy biochemical accident. Though they seem extraordinary, life has evolved psychedelic molecules that alter consciousness across almost every ecosystem.

Let’s take a tour of our surprisingly psychedelic planet.

The tropical rainforests hum with chemical diversity. Among the 10,000 tree species living in the Amazon are several which produce dimethyltryptamine (DMT), the molecule that makes psychedelic brew ayahuasca so powerful. DMT is a naturally occurring tryptamine molecule, which derives from the same chemical building block that gives us serotonin and melatonin, chemical messengers that change our mood and help us sleep.

One of these tree species, the Psychotria viridis, or chacruna, is a small understory tree from the plant family that also gives us coffee. Other DMT-producing species include yopo (Anadenanthera peregrina), a tree native to the Amazon that is also found in the Caribbean. Yopo is in the legume family, a close relative of beans, chickpeas and lentils. Scientists aren’t sure why some species in the same family develop psychedelic compounds while others don’t.

Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.
This article is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.

Many tryptamine compounds like DMT are thought to have evolved in plants as chemical defences against herbivores and pathogens, the result of an evolutionary arms race going back millions of years. Scientists are not yet sure which species the plants were trying to defend against.

Ayahuasca preparation in Peru.
Pisofrix/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

The deserts may not appear to hum with life. Their extreme heat, punishing aridity and sparse vegetation make survival seem improbable, and the organisms that persist often look strange.

However, deserts have given rise to powerfully psychedelic organisms. The peyote cactus is small and round and lives in the deserts of Mexico and south Texas, where it grows extremely slowly, often taking decades to reach maturity. Peyote is threatened as it is subject to intense poaching by collectors and recreational users of the mescaline it produces, a psychedelic alkaloid.

Alkaloids are part of the same chemical class as caffeine and nicotine, and are also thought to have evolved to defend plants against herbivores. Desert-living peyote are not the only psychedelic cactus though. A distant cousin of the high Andes, the San Pedro cactus (Trichocereus macrogonus var. pachanoi), also produces mescaline. But unlike peyote, San Pedro grows fast and tall.

Small round cacti growing out of sandy ground. — Peyote cacti grow in the desert.
Andrea De la Parra/Shutterstock

Beyond cacti, the Sonoran desert is host to the Sonoran Desert toad, which produces one of the most potent hallucinogens known to scientists, 5-MeO-DMT.

Tundra and toadstools

Like the deserts, the tundra hardly appears a friendly place to live. But even in the frozen north of Siberia, psychedelics can be found. When asked to visualise a
toadstool, many of us will picture a red-capped mushroom with white spots. This is the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), a species complex with a distribution in the boreal and temperate forests of the northern hemisphere including the UK, that originated in Siberia or Beringia.

Fly agaric produces psychedelic compounds including muscimol and ibotenic acid, which differ chemically from the more well-known psilocybin, but are also hallucinogenic. Like the psychedelic trees of the Amazon, mushrooms probably evolved these molecules specifically to put off animals that might eat them.

This mushroom has plenty of lore, spanning Viking berserkers, early Christianity and even the Father Christmas tradition. Whether these stories are true is up for debate, but we know there is deep use in indigenous cultures. We also know how important the fly agaric is for many trees including birch and oak, with which it forms symbiotic relationships, helping trees survive in the soil.

Red toadstools with white dots on the forest floor. — The fly agaric mushroom thrives in the forest.
DreamHack/Shutterstock

The world’s grasslands might appear serene, but they host one of nature’s darker psychedelic stories.

Hidden among the grains lives ergot (Claviceps purpurea), a tiny fungus which fills grass seeds with ergot alkaloids. These compounds, the chemical cousins of LSD, have haunted humanity for centuries. In the middle ages, outbreaks of ergot poisoning caused mass hallucinations and hysteria throughout Europe. Entire villages succumbed to visions and manic dancing, often attributed to demonic possession.

In 1938, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann synthesised LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) from ergot molecules. The consequences of this discovery shaped modern culture and technology, even inspiring a Nobel prize winner to invent the PCR reaction that underlies modern genetic research and COVID testing.

Beyond ergot, the temperate grasslands are host to the liberty cap (Psilocybe semilanceata). This is a common and unassuming mushroom that produces some of the highest concentrations of psilocybin and psilocin, powerful psychedelic molecules. It is one of the most abundant mushrooms in some regions and grows undetected in many back gardens. The liberty cap recycles decaying grass and sedge roots, playing an important role in its ecosystem. And lab studies in the early 2000s discovered it also produces antimicrobial compounds, to prevent pathogens growing on it.

Some psychedelic species are found all over the planet. The psilocybin and psilocin producing mushrooms of genus Psilocybe can be found in regions as diverse
as the Mexican highlands, Australia, India and Japan. Several species of common ornamental grasses (Phalaris) living in the US and Eurasia produce DMT, as do certain Australian species of Acacia and South American Mimosa, which are in the legume family.

Small brown mushrooms growing in the grass. — Liberty cap mushrooms may look unassuming but they are potent.
Marek Prokes/Shutterstock

Curiously, DMT has also been found in small amounts in mammals, including humans, where it may possibly act as a neuromodulator, a molecule facilitating communication between neurons.

This is only scratching the surface of Earth’s psychedelic supply. The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants by Amazon explorer Richard Evans Schultes, published in 1976, describes over 100 plant and fungi species.

And this field of research is still young. Two new Psilocybe mushroom species, which both produce psilocybin, were scientifically recorded in southern Africa only in 2023. Recent work suggests that the 400,000 plant species alone may produce millions of unique molecules, with more than 99% of these unknown and not characterised in a lab. We do not even know how many fungal species there are, but there are likely to be millions, most yet to be discovered.

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

– ref. A psychedelic tour of Earth’s ecosystems – from the desert to Siberia – https://theconversation.com/a-psychedelic-tour-of-earths-ecosystems-from-the-desert-to-siberia-268719

November 7, 2025

How the China-US trade war could push up the cost of British chicken dinners

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Theo Stanley, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Environmental Geography, University of Southampton

Until the end of October, China had refused to purchase a single soya bean from the US’s 2025 harvest. It usually spends tens of billions of dollars on the crop, which is a key ingredient in animal feed, so the boycott hit US farmers hard – and affected food systems far beyond US and Chinese borders.

Since then, a meeting between the countries’ two presidents has meant that the soya bean trade is back on for the time being. But the stand-off is yet another reminder of the vulnerability of global trade to geopolitical crises.

Shocks in supply chains often lead to rising prices, and expensive soya beans can quickly push up the cost of meat elsewhere. This happened after the price of wheat, another animal feed ingredient, spiked in 2022 following Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Many countries are completely reliant on imported soya. In the UK, around 70% of the cost of producing a chicken is what farmers feed them, and soya is a vital ingredient.

Last year the UK imported 2.4 million tonnes of soya beans and “meal” (made from grounding and heating the beans after their oil has been extracted), mostly from Argentina and Brazil, two of the world’s largest exporters. China imported 105 million tonnes, including 27 million tonnes from the US.

If China switched to buying more, or even all, of its soya from South America, prices could increase for UK companies whose import infrastructure is locked in to the South American supply chain. To keep chicken prices low, some supermarkets and wholesalers may start selling fresh chicken produced overseas, which can be reared to much lower welfare and environmental standards than in the UK.

One of the reasons for the high demand in the UK for soya beans is that the meal used to feed chickens has an extremely high concentration of protein, at around 48%. Similar produce made from sunflower seeds or fava beans is about 30%.

It is this high protein content which allows modern meat (“broiler”) chickens to grow quickly and efficiently.

In the 1950s, chickens required around 4.4kg of feed per 1kg of meat produced. Improvements in the sciences of genetics and nutrition mean that today that ratio can be as low as 1.3kg of feed for the same amount of meat. The most common chicken strain, known as the Ross 308, can grow to 2.5kg in just six weeks.

For many in the industry, these developments are a triumph of science and biotechnology. Less feed means lower costs and a smaller environmental footprint. But animal welfare experts have highlighted that these efficiency gains can come at the expense of welfare and lead to increased mortality rates.

And there are also fears about a national protein shortage if the soya supply were to be compromised. This might be the result of drought in soya-growing regions, geopolitical tensions, trade blockades or war. As part of ongoing government-funded research into the resilience of the UK food system, I have been interviewing animal feed experts, and many expressed concern that the UK does not have a domestic protein source in sufficient quantities.

Protein fix

Currently the UK chicken industry – and all the roast dinners, nuggets, curries and sandwiches it provides – relies on soya beans. But because they struggle to grow in the UK’s cool and wet climate, they have to be imported.

Attempts to grow a domestic alternative protein for chicken feed have struggled. Peas, beans, sunflower and rapeseed, all of which grow in the British climate, have a much lower protein content than soya beans, are harder to grow predictably, and are difficult to digest.

Distillers’ grain, the byproduct leftover from bioethanol production, could be a promising high-protein alternative. But the largest bioethanol plant in the UK shut down in August 2025 because of changing US-UK tariff agreements, and cheap imports have now made domestic production economically non-viable.

Close up of soy crop growing with sunrise in background. — Soya needs sun.

Insect meal is promising in theory but cannot be scaled to anywhere near the same quantities as soya, which arrives in Liverpool from South America every week in huge amounts.

Modern supply chains have been built on systems of logistics which are incredibly efficient when things go right, but are not necessarily resilient to things going wrong. And while the “soya bean war” might not end up drastically disrupting the UK food system, it does highlight the precarious framework of international trade.

MI5 has a saying that the UK is “four meals away from anarchy”, suggesting any serious interruption to the country’s food supply chain would lead to mass disorder. Chicken, the county’s most popular meat, is completely dependent on overseas imports. And although global commodity supply chains have stayed generally stable throughout the 21st century, that stability can never be taken for granted.

Theo Stanley receives funding from the UK Government (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation; and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

– ref. How the China-US trade war could push up the cost of British chicken dinners – https://theconversation.com/how-the-china-us-trade-war-could-push-up-the-cost-of-british-chicken-dinners-268040

November 7, 2025

The Land Sings Back: a gorgeous exhibition of drawings inspired by ecofeminism

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pragya Agarwal, Visiting Professor of Social Inequities and Injustice, Loughborough University

The Land Sings Back, a new exhibition at the Drawing Room gallery in London, is a gorgeous evocation of our rights to our lands and our symbiotic relationship with nature.

Thirteen artists with ancestral lands in south Asia, Africa and the Caribbean are subverting the role that sketching and drawing have played in conquest and colonialism. Instead, they have reimagined it as a way to reclaim indigenous knowledge for environmental justice. Drawing on archival research, soundscapes, zines, ceramics, found objects and ephemera, the work on show dissolves the boundaries and lines between various media, questioning the institutionalisation of knowledge.

The exhibition draws on the concept of ecofeminism, first coined by French writer Françoise d’Eaubonne in her 1974 book Feminism or Death. Ecofeminism maintains that patriarchy and colonialism are inherently interlinked. The subjugation of women and marginalised people, which has severed their connection to the lands and the oppression of their myths and stories, has created an imbalance between nature and humans.

The exhibition opens with the work of Lado Bai, a Bhil artist from Madhya Pradesh in India. Bai combines traditional motifs with contemporary symbolism to show a deep connection to the natural world. The Bhil religion is deeply rooted in animism. Animism is the belief that everything from trees and rivers to rocks and animals possesses a spiritual essence and that these entities must be respected through rituals and offerings.

In the 1901 census, 97% of Bhils identified as animists, and they retain this connection through stories and folklore. This forms the basis of Bai’s work. Like so much of indigenous art from India, there is a deceptive simplicity to her work, but within the dots and lines, there is a deeper story of ancient knowledge. Every painting presents an episode in the larger story of Bhil ritual and tradition.

Another Indian artist on display is Manjot Kaur. Kaur reimagines the historical miniature paintings from Mughal art and Rajasthani tradition and uses anthropomorphism to challenge black-and-white thinking. It’s a hopeful response to the climate crisis and extinction. Not merely content with representing the traditional stories and rituals, Kaur is reimagining the mythologies for a post-queer world – a world where people no longer feel the need to define themselves through queer labels – or even a post-human one.

This series is titled Chthonic Beings. The title comes from the Greek mythological creatures of the underworld. These monstrous looking beings are gods of fertility – but also of death. Both coexist, fluidly merging into one another. And so, here too, Kaur decentres the human, instead imagining many of the local Indian species such as blackbuck and great Indian bustard playing the roles of protectors and care givers.

Whose truth and whose land?

Every artist in this exhibition is unique in their approach and response, but drawing is the thread that weaves their stories together. There are broad questions at play: what does a line on the paper mean? Whose labour is hidden? Who has the power to imbue meaning in these lines?

Historically, lines have been drawn to divide people, marginalise them and push them away from the mainstream of society where power lies. Here, the lines are doing the opposite. They are discordant, but only to challenge the disharmony and oppression of the past and the present.

The lines are uncomfortable at times, as in Anupam Roy’s work, which uses satirical imagery and protest posters to draw attention to the land rights movement against the many mining projects in rural Bengal. In February 2025, local activists from west Bengal’s Birbhum district demanded the mining work in the Deocha-Pachami-Dewanganj-Harisingha coal block be cancelled.

It led to the displacement of thousands of indigenous people from their lands. Roy’s drawings demand urgent action for the subaltern subjects (those people who have been historically marginalised and excluded from the dominant power structures) and their precarious condition in the contemporary capitalist system.

But the larger question in Roy’s work is the matter of truth, and whose truth we see represented in images around us. Truth and propaganda are very much on the same axis, as we are seeing today in our current political climate.

The Land Sings Back is beautifully curated by Natasha Ginwala, artistic director of Colomboscope. And it is an emotional experience too, which left me with more questions than answers. But then, that is what good art always does.

The Land Sings Back is on at Drawing Room, London until December 14 2025

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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

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

– ref. The Land Sings Back: a gorgeous exhibition of drawings inspired by ecofeminism – https://theconversation.com/the-land-sings-back-a-gorgeous-exhibition-of-drawings-inspired-by-ecofeminism-269033

November 7, 2025

Who gets SNAP benefits to buy groceries and what the government pays for the program – in 5 charts

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Tracy Roof, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Richmond

Some 42 million Americans rely on SNAP benefits to put food on the table. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images News

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has helped low-income Americans buy groceries for decades with few disruptions.

But on Nov. 1, 2025, the federal government halted the flow of funds to states to distribute as SNAP benefits. The Trump administration blames this unprecedented disruption on the federal government shutdown, which began a month earlier. Following multiple court orders, federal officials said they plan to distribute at least a portion of the US$8 billion that’s supposed to flow monthly to the states to cover the costs of the program’s benefits. On Nov. 6, another judge ordered the distribution of all SNAP funds that were due in November.

Although the program costs billions, the benefits that families and individuals can receive from it are modest. The most a person living on their own can get is $298 a month, but many people receive far less. The average benefit is an estimated $6.17 daily – which falls below some estimates of the minimum cost of eating a nutritious diet in the United States.

The Conversation U.S. asked Tracy Roof, a political scientist who has researched the history of government nutrition programs, to explain who SNAP helps, how enrollment varies from state to state and what the program costs to run.

How many Americans are enrolled in SNAP?

The number of people getting SNAP benefits soared during the Great Recession, a big downturn that began in December 2007 and had long-lasting effects on the economy.

Because of high unemployment and poverty rates, more people were eligible for SNAP during those years. Many states, eager to bring dollars into their economies from federally funded SNAP benefits, made unprecedented efforts to enroll eligible families. SNAP enrollment peaked in 2013 at roughly 15% of Americans. The number of the program’s participants fell as the economy recovered, but never returned to pre-recession levels because a greater share of eligible families continued to enroll in the program after the economic crisis than before.

When the COVID-19 pandemic upended the U.S. economy in 2020, the number of people with SNAP benefits soared again. President Donald Trump has blamed high enrollment in SNAP on the Biden administration “haphazardly” handing benefits “to anyone for the asking.”

That assertion is misleading. While the Biden White House increased benefits, it did not expand who was eligible for SNAP. In fact, President Joe Biden agreed to apply work requirements and time limits to more SNAP recipients. Moreover, states, not the federal government, are primarily responsible for determining eligibility and enrolling people in SNAP. The number of people who received SNAP benefits during Biden’s presidency never exceeded 43 million – the peak reached in September 2020 during the first Trump administration.

The number of people using SNAP benefits to buy groceries has not fallen substantially because the number of people in poverty and the cost of living, including what Americans pay for food, have both increased since 2020.

How much does the program cost the federal government?

In inflation-adjusted 2024 dollars, spending peaked at $128 billion in 2021 and fell to $100 billion in 2024 – nearing pre-pandemic levels.

The program’s spending had previously increased significantly during the Great Recession because SNAP enrollment rose and benefits were temporarily increased. Spending declined as the economy gradually recovered.

While the number of people on SNAP during the pandemic and its aftermath never reached the peak of the Great Recession, the level of spending did reach much higher levels. This was because of three steps taken to increase benefits by more sizable amounts than during the Great Recession.

The Families First Act, which Trump signed into law in March 2020, offered “emergency allotments” that increased monthly benefits for many households receiving SNAP. Biden extended emergency benefits to all households enrolled in the program in April 2021, driving spending even higher. Budget legislation that Congress passed in December 2022 ended the emergency benefits in February 2023.
Biden signed two pieces of legislation in 2021 that temporarily increased the maximum SNAP benefit by 15% through September 2021 – the height of the pandemic’s effects on the economy.
The Biden administration adjusted the basis for calculating monthly benefits in October 2021, just as the temporary increase was expiring. That change permanently increased benefits.

Most households getting SNAP benefits include children and older people

Nearly 60% of Americans enrolled in SNAP are either children under 18 or adults who are 60 or older.

About 1 in 5 non-elderly adults with SNAP benefits have a disability.

Less than 10% of all the people receiving SNAP benefits are able-bodied adults without children who are between the ages of 19 and 49.

Around 55% of all families with children that receive SNAP benefits include at least one employed adult.

Enrollment ranges widely from state to state

In some states, 1 in 5 people receive SNAP benefits. In others, it’s 1 in 20.

The share of a state’s population getting SNAP is determined both by its poverty rate and its policies. Those policies can affect who is eligible and the share of eligible families and individuals who enroll in the program.

Of the 10 states with the highest percentage of people on SNAP, five are also in the top 10 for the percentage of the population in poverty: New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Nevada.

According to 2022 data, nine of those 10 states have enrolled nearly all families who are eligible for SNAP benefits: New Mexico, Louisiana, Oregon, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

States vary widely in terms of the percentage of eligible families who obtain SNAP benefits. In the bottom quarter of states, fewer than 81% of eligible residents in 2022 were getting benefits. The percentage in Arkansas was the lowest: 59%.

States with the highest enrollment numbers tend to make it easier for their residents to get SNAP benefits by minimizing red tape and engaging in more outreach to eligible families. They also adopt policies that allow some people to qualify for SNAP at higher incomes or with more assets.

Americans of all races and ethnic backgrounds rely on SNAP

A little over 35% of people who get SNAP benefits are white, more than any other racial or ethnic group. Around 26% are Black and 16% are Hispanic.

Although more white people are enrolled in SNAP, Census data shows that greater percentages of Black and Hispanic people get these benefits: 24.4% of Black people and 17.2% of Hispanic people compared with 9.7% of white people. This is because these groups are disproportionately poor.

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for SNAP. Only 4.4% of SNAP recipients in the 2023 fiscal year were immigrants who were not citizens but legally present in the U.S., such as refugees.

The “big” tax-and-spending package Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, however, ended SNAP eligibility for most of those immigrants.

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

– ref. Who gets SNAP benefits to buy groceries and what the government pays for the program – in 5 charts – https://theconversation.com/who-gets-snap-benefits-to-buy-groceries-and-what-the-government-pays-for-the-program-in-5-charts-269032

November 7, 2025

Always watching: How ICE’s plan to monitor social media 24/7 threatens privacy and civic participation

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nicole M. Bennett, Ph.D. Candidate in Geography and Assistant Director at the Center for Refugee Studies, Indiana University

ICE’s surveillance gaze is likely to sweep across millions of people’s social media posts. Westend61/Westend61 via Getty Images

When most people think about immigration enforcement, they picture border crossings and airport checkpoints. But the new front line may be your social media feed.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has published a request for information for private-sector contractors to launch a round-the-clock social media monitoring program. The request states that private contractors will be paid to comb through “Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, VK, Flickr, Myspace, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Reddit, WhatsApp, YouTube, etc.,” turning public posts into enforcement leads that feed directly into ICE’s databases.

The request for information reads like something out of a cyber thriller: dozens of analysts working in shifts, strict deadlines measured in minutes, a tiered system of prioritizing high-risk individuals, and the latest software keeping constant watch.

I am a researcher who studies the intersection of data governance, digital technologies and the U.S. federal government. I believe that the ICE request for information also signals a concerning if logical next step in a longer trend, one that moves the U.S. border from the physical world into the digital.

A new structure of surveillance

ICE already searches social media using a service called SocialNet that monitors most major online platforms. The agency has also contracted with Zignal Labs for its AI-powered social media monitoring system.

The Customs and Border Protection agency also searches social media posts on the devices of some travelers at ports of entry, and the U.S. State Department reviews social media posts when foreigners seek visas to enter the United States.

ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies already search social media.

What would change isn’t only the scale of monitoring but its structure. Instead of government agents gathering evidence case by case, ICE is building a public-private surveillance loop that transforms everyday online activity into potential evidence.

Private contractors would be tasked with scraping publicly available data to collecting messages, including posts and other media and data. The contractors would be able to correlate those findings with data in commercial datasets from brokers such as LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR along with government-owned databases. Analysts would be required to produce dossiers for ICE field offices within tight deadlines – sometimes just 30 minutes for a high-priority case.

Those files don’t exist in isolation. They feed directly into Palantir Technologies’ Investigative Case Management system, the digital backbone of modern immigration enforcement. There, this social media data would join a growing web of license plate scans, utility records, property data and biometrics, creating what is effectively a searchable portrait of a person’s life.

Who gets caught in the net?

Officially, ICE says its data collection would focus on people who are already linked to ongoing cases or potential threats. In practice, the net is far wider.

The danger here is that when one person is flagged, their friends, relatives, fellow organizers or any of their acquaintances can also become subjects of scrutiny. Previous contracts for facial recognition tools and location tracking have shown how easily these systems expand beyond their original scope. What starts as enforcement can turn into surveillance of entire communities.

What ICE says and what history shows

ICE frames the project as modernization: a way to identify a target’s location by identifying aliases and detecting patterns that traditional methods might miss. Planning documents say contractors cannot create fake profiles and must store all analysis on ICE servers.

But history suggests these kinds of guardrails often fail. Investigations have revealed how informal data-sharing between local police and federal agents allowed ICE to access systems it wasn’t authorized to use. The agency has repeatedly purchased massive datasets from brokers to sidestep warrant requirements. And despite a White House freeze on spyware procurement, ICE quietly revived a contract with Paragon’s Graphite tool, software reportedly capable of infiltrating encrypted apps such as WhatsApp and Signal.

Meanwhile, ICE’s vendor ecosystem keeps expanding: Clearview AI for face matching, ShadowDragon’s SocialNet for mapping networks, Babel Street’s location history service Locate X, and LexisNexis for looking up people. ICE is also purchasing tools from surveillance firm PenLink that combine location data with social media data. Together, these platforms make continuous, automated monitoring not only possible but routine.

ICE is purchasing an AI tool that correlates people’s locations with their social media posts.

Lessons from abroad

The United States isn’t alone in government monitoring of social media. In the United Kingdom, a new police unit tasked with scanning online discussions about immigration and civil unrest has drawn criticism for blurring the line between public safety and political policing.

Across the globe, spyware scandals have shown how lawful access tools that were initially justified for counterterrorism were later used against journalists and activists. Once these systems exist, mission creep, also known as function creep, becomes the rule rather than the exception.

The social cost of being watched

Around-the-clock surveillance doesn’t just gather information – it also changes behavior.

Research found that visits to Wikipedia articles on terrorism dropped sharply immediately after revelations about the National Security Agency’s global surveillance in June 2013.

For immigrants and activists, the stakes are higher. A post about a protest or a joke can be reinterpreted as “intelligence.” Knowing that federal contractors may be watching in real time encourages self-censorship and discourages civic participation. In this environment, the digital self, an identity composed of biometric markers, algorithmic classifications, risk scores and digital traces, becomes a risk that follows you across platforms and databases.

What’s new and why it matters now

What is genuinely new is the privatization of interpretation. ICE isn’t just collecting more data, it is outsourcing judgment to private contractors. Private analysts, aided by artificial intelligence, are likely to decide what online behavior signals danger and what doesn’t. That decision-making happens rapidly and across large numbers of people, for the most part beyond public oversight.

At the same time, the consolidation of data means social media content can now sit beside location and biometric information inside Palantir’s hub. Enforcement increasingly happens through data correlations, raising questions about due process.

ICE’s request for information is likely to evolve into a full procurement contract within months, and recent litigation from the League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center against the Department of Homeland Security suggests that the oversight is likely to lag far behind the technology. ICE’s plan to maintain permanent watch floors, open indoor spaces equipped with video and computer monitors, that are staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year signals that this likely isn’t a temporary experiment and instead is a new operational norm.

What accountability looks like

Transparency starts with public disclosure of the algorithms and scoring systems ICE uses. Advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union argue that law enforcement agencies should meet the same warrant standards online that they do in physical spaces. The Brennan Center for Justice and the ACLU argue that there should be independent oversight of surveillance systems for accuracy and bias. And several U.S. senators have introduced legislation to limit bulk purchases from data brokers.

Without checks like these, I believe that the boundary between border control and everyday life is likely to keep dissolving. As the digital border expands, it risks ensnaring anyone whose online presence becomes legible to the system.

Nicole M. Bennett is affiliated with the Center for Refugee Studies at Indiana University.

– ref. Always watching: How ICE’s plan to monitor social media 24/7 threatens privacy and civic participation – https://theconversation.com/always-watching-how-ices-plan-to-monitor-social-media-24-7-threatens-privacy-and-civic-participation-268175

November 7, 2025

Pennsylvania counties face tough choices on spending $2B opioid settlement funds

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Halie Kampman, Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Geography, Penn State

In Pennsylvania, local governments will decide which substance use programs to fund in their communities. Jeff Fusco/The Conversation U.S., CC BY-SA

In communities across Pennsylvania, local officials are deciding how to spend over US$2 billion dollars from the state’s opioid settlement agreements.

For many, the task is proving promising yet challenging – and raises questions about how to best navigate complex local needs.

Pennsylvania will receive the money over 18 years from lawsuits filed by state attorneys general against opioid manufacturers and distributors. About 70% of these funds will be distributed to county governments, with the remaining funds going to the state legislature and the groups that leveraged the lawsuits.

The amount provided to each county is proportional to the opioid-related harms experienced by the county. Each county government is responsible for developing its own funding strategy for substance use programs, which can focus on things such as prevention, treatment, recovery or harm reduction.

Our research team at Penn State interviewed 72 county officials, health professionals and service providers across six counties in Pennsylvania to understand their early experiences with these funds.

We summarized our findings in a recent article for the peer-reviewed Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy journal. We found that stakeholders view the settlement funds not simply as extra money but as an opportunity to heal – and to test how well local communities can make their own choices about spending.

‘Bags of money’ but limited guidance

Pennsylvania’s distribution strategy was designed to give local governments flexibility. A document called Exhibit E lists the ways that counties can spend the settlement money.

This collaborative document was written as part of the settlement to outline shared guidelines that apply to all the states receiving funds. It lists everything from the types of approved substance use treatments to what qualifies as prevention. In practice, Exhibit E provides diverse opportunities for spending but has also created widespread uncertainty among recipients about which strategies to prioritize.

Some interviewees felt overwhelmed by the logistics of their funding decisions. They understood that the general purpose of the money is to support communities harmed by opioid overprescription. But they lacked clarity on how much time they had to spend it, what the reporting requirements are, and what counts as an eligible activity. For example, some wanted to use the funds to pay administrators for new prevention programs, but administration isn’t included in Exhibit E.

As one local elected official in southeastern Pennsylvania put it, “There’s been a whole lot of stuff that we don’t know – more than we do know. And now we’re running with bags of money through the community and (we’re) not sure how we can spend it, or if we can spend it.”

Many county officials worried about spending the funds too slowly, or on activities that could end up being ineligible or ineffective. Service providers sometimes didn’t know who in their county had the authority to decide where the money went. While they may have wanted to provide recommendations or input, they were unsure how.

A chance to experiment and innovate

Even amid confusion, most of the people we interviewed saw the settlement funding as a unique opportunity.

Exhibit E’s broad guidelines allow for experimentation, and many expressed interest in supporting local needs and implementing projects that they had wanted for a long time. This included things like expanding peer recovery support programs or establishing family support services.

“The guidelines are so varied that it gives those local communities opportunities to look at the menu and find out from community members, ‘How can we help resolve this problem together?’” one local drug and alcohol department employee told us. “It’s a collaborative that really helps the community as a whole get well as a whole. I am a real believer in ‘It takes a village.’”

Several participants emphasized that the flexibility in Exhibit E creates room to revise plans as needs evolve or change. Counties can change their funding priorities each year to adapt.

Several counties have already started issuing small grants to grassroots organizations, recognizing that those closest to people harmed by the opioid crisis often know best what kinds of interventions might work.

One county employee involved in distributing funds in her county shared that her team was “willing to try anything, really, within the bounds.”

“And if it doesn’t work, we can back off,” she added. “But I feel like you don’t know until you try it.”

A moral responsibility to get it right

Although our study focused on policy implementation, participants often framed their responsibilities in moral terms.

Many said they felt a strong obligation to use the funds wisely, given the scale of loss their communities have endured. The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 4,719 overdose deaths in the state in 2023, and 83% were opioid-related. That number dropped to 3,336 in 2024, mirroring national trends.

One elected official described the funds as “the only hope we can provide families that have lost loved ones to this crisis,” emphasizing that he felt a “real obligation” to make the funds count.

Others echoed that careful, transparent decision-making is part of a broader recovery effort. Beyond abiding by funding guidelines, they felt it was also important to be honest and transparent to community members.

“We don’t want to come out with ‘Pennsylvania wasted its money, or (this) county wasted its money,’” said an addictions researcher.

Still others cautioned that the settlement funds alone cannot repair the full scope of harms caused by the opioid crisis, warning against viewing the settlements as a cure-all.

“There’s not really a monetary value that you can put on these things,” a person who works in the substance use sector told us. “I’m glad that this money’s available, but ultimately for me … it’s a little too late. You know? All my friends are already dead.”

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.

Glenn Sterner receives funding from the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust, Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, Pennsylvania Department of Health, Independence Blue Cross Foundation, Montgomery County Government in Pennsylvania, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Institute of Justice, and National Science Foundation.

Brian King, Halie Kampman, Kristina P. Brant, and Maya Weinberg do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Pennsylvania counties face tough choices on spending $2B opioid settlement funds – https://theconversation.com/pennsylvania-counties-face-tough-choices-on-spending-2b-opioid-settlement-funds-267725

November 7, 2025

Overwhelm the public with muzzle-velocity headlines: A strategy rooted in racism and authoritarianism

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Angie Chuang, Associate Professor of Journalism, University of Colorado Boulder

The seemingly unending barrage of stressful news is a strategy with ties to the past. zimmytws/iStock via Getty Images

The headlines documenting President Donald Trump’s plan to send federal troops to San Francisco followed a familiar arc. “Trump claims ‘unquestioned power’ in vow to send troops to San Francisco,” The Guardian reported on Oct. 20, 2025. The next day, the San Francisco Chronicle blared: “S.F. threatens to sue if Trump brings in National Guard.” Then, on Oct. 23, “Trump reverses his decision to send troops to San Francisco,” as ABC News put it, after Trump posted that conversations with the city’s mayor and tech moguls had swayed him.

It was another example of how Trump’s shifting policy positions, racially inflammatory statements and threats frequently fuel a flurry of headlines, reflecting what some psychologists are calling “media saturation overload” or “Trump stress disorder.”

This barrage of information may seem like overcommunication from a hyperactive administration. But it is much more than that.

Scholars have found that the constant, often conflicting and at times false information coming out of the White House and shared via social media posts and the conventional news media causes members of the public to see truth and fact as relative and makes them more likely to dismiss those who disagree with them as untruthful. This leaves doubt about what’s real and what isn’t.

This citizen paralysis creates what philosopher Hannah Arendt described in “The Origins of Totalitarianism” as a general public “for whom the distinction between fact and fiction … no longer exist.” When lies are truth and truth is derided as lies, Arendt wrote, ordinary people lose their bearings and can be manipulated for totalitarian objectives.

Meanwhile, many journalists have openly acknowledged fatigue with the pace and nature of the Trump administrations’ news cycles, amid frequent newsroom layoffs, mergers and closures.

I am a longtime journalist and now scholar of journalism and race, trained to see the methods and aims behind political leaders’ press operations. And as I show in my forthcoming book, the Trump administration’s rhetorical strategies echo the playbooks of authoritarian and white supremacist organizations such as the Third Reich and some factions of the modern alt-right movement. They are intended to narrow the scope of who belongs as an American.

Headlines at ‘muzzle velocity’

The Trump administration’s rhetorical strategies include claiming victim status while often laying blame on immigrants or other scapegoats in ways that I believe betray racist intent. At the same time it has overwhelmed journalists and the public with breaking news.

This strategy was laid out by Steve Bannon, an influential Trump supporter and strategist in his first administration, during a 2019 PBS “Frontline” interview, when he described the media as “the opposition party.”

“They’re dumb and they’re lazy, they can only focus on one thing at a time,” he said. “All we have to do is flood the zone. … Bang, bang, bang. These guys will never – will never be able to recover. But we’ve got to start with muzzle velocity.”

Steve Bannon outlined the strategy of overwhelming people with announcements at what he termed muzzle velocity in a 2019 interview with “Frontline.”

Bannon has long been associated with the alt-right, a movement known for rhetorical tactics that minimize and obfuscate its true aims.

A strategy forged in Trump’s first term

As I detail in my book, “American Otherness in Journalism: News Media Representations of Identity and Belonging,” Trump and his key advisers have been developing, refining and ramping up their news media manipulation for a long time.

An early example of this is the way the administration used these tactics through Trump’s public responses to the fatal violence at the August 2017 Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The two-day rally was organized by a white nationalist blogger and attended by members of neo-Nazi, white supremacist and far-right militias protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a Charlottesville park. They marched with tiki torches, flew Confederate and Nazi flags and chanted antisemitic and racist slogans.

Amid violent clashes with counterprotesters on the second day, a neo-Nazi sympathizer drove into a crowd, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring many others.

Rescue personnel working on someone on a stretcher in a street crowd — Emergency workers help people after a car drove into a large group of counterprotesters in the aftermath of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017, killing one and injuring 19.
AP Photo/Steve Helber

My study of television news coverage of Unite the Right found that the majority of news reports focused on the contradictory and inflammatory statements that Trump made about the antisemitic and racist protesters. Trump’s Aug. 15, 2017, press conference remark about blame on both sides after what happened garnered the most news media attention: “I think there is blame on both sides,” he said. “You had some very bad people in that group. You also had some very fine people on both sides.”

Exploiting chaos

The uncertainty surrounding what he meant created a cycle of news stories implying and denying that he sympathizes with white supremacists.

This is-he-or-isn’t-he intrigue spurred a surge of what fits the description of Bannon’s “muzzle-velocity” news headlines: “Trump declares ‘racism is evil’ amid pressure over Charlottesville” followed closely by “Trump defends White-nationalist protesters” and “Why Trump can’t get his story straight on Charlottesville.”

With the focus on Trump’s comments and what he might have really meant, the news media ultimately missed covering at the time the long-term threat posed by these white supremacist and other extremist groups.

Echoing a playbook from the past

Scholars have identified the fascist roots of these “post-truth” strategies: strongmen leaders uninterested in establishing leadership through honesty and transparency.

A recent scholarly analysis of Trump’s leadership concludes that the second-term president is overwhelming the public into “organized despair” by pitting races against each other while targeting minority groups as scapegoats, a tactic that hearkens back to 1930s Germany.

A 2019 analysis of Trump’s narrative style describes how he presents himself as a “strongman” fighting invisible forces of censorship and suppression. It also points out that this was part of the appeal of fascist leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler.

Researchers of Nazi propaganda identified key tactics in the German press such as name-calling and lumping together groups seen as opposition – communists, liberals and Jews – until public understanding of those groups blur into phrases like “enemies of Germany.” The messaging was constant and immersive, carried in local and national newspapers, radio, film and posters.

A key part of Trump’s rhetorical strategy is using race without directly referring to it. For example, Trump has described cities with large nonwhite populations such as Washington, D.C., and Chicago as “out of control” or “dirty,” contrary to actual crime statistics. He’s also questioned Kamala Harris’ racial identity, suggesting she “happened to turn Black.” And referring to Black football players who had been protesting systemic racism by kneeling during the national anthem, Trump said, “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now,” which many observers interpreted as racist because he was insulting people of color for the act of protesting racism.

This racial coding has been used by white supremacist groups to mask their true intent. They also use less overt labels such as “alt-right” or “pro-white” as a “rhetorical bridge” to the mainstream public.

In the case of the NFL protesters, the plausible deniability became an actual denial. Trump perfected this move when, during a 2020 debate with Joe Biden, he said, “Proud Boys – stand back and stand by,” referencing another group accused of thinly veiled racism.

Drowning in headlines

I believe that the endgame for this strategy is authoritarian power that greatly narrows the scope of who truly belongs and has rights in this country as an American.

This media saturation – drowning the public with a thousand Trump-generated headlines – allows his administration to keep dominating and controlling national attention.

But the media-consuming public can use the tools they have to encourage news outlets to better inform the public by identifying the media saturation strategy and reporting on why leaders are using it.

Otherwise, if news consumers let the headline overload do what it’s intended to do, and become overwhelmed and paralyzed, they become pawns in what I consider a ploy to make America less egalitarian and less democratic.

Angie Chuang is affiliated with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the Boulder Faculty Assembly.

– ref. Overwhelm the public with muzzle-velocity headlines: A strategy rooted in racism and authoritarianism – https://theconversation.com/overwhelm-the-public-with-muzzle-velocity-headlines-a-strategy-rooted-in-racism-and-authoritarianism-267491

November 7, 2025

House speaker’s refusal to seat Arizona representative is supported by history and law

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jennifer Selin, Associate Professor of Law, Arizona State University

The U.S. Capitol is seen on Nov, 5, 2025. Tom Brenner/Getty Images

Adelita Grijalva won a special election in Arizona on Sept. 23, 2025, becoming the newest member of Congress and the state’s first Latina representative.

Yet, despite the Arizona secretary of state’s formal certification of Grijalva, a Democrat, as the winner of that election, Rep.-elect Grijalva has not been sworn into office.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who by law is responsible for making that happen, claims the government shutdown means Grijalva must wait until the federal government resumes normal operations.

In response, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit on Oct. 21 alleging that Johnson has denied the state its representation in Congress.

No one disputes that Grijalva is the next member of the House of Representatives for the 7th District of Arizona. And the House hasn’t conducted business since Sept. 19, when Johnson gaveled it out of session.

So why does it matter whether Grijalva is sworn in now or later?

The lawsuit filed by Mayes claims Johnson is using his power to “strengthen his hand” in the ongoing budget battle that has shut down the federal government. Additionally, Grijalva has pledged to provide the last necessary signature to force a vote on a bipartisan measure demanding that the Trump administration release government files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

But as a law scholar who analyzes government institutions, I recognize that the speaker historically has had power to determine when the oath is administered. And courts have been reluctant to weigh in the speaker’s use of that power.

The speaker’s historical power

The framers of the Constitution were divided on whether to require members of Congress to take an oath of office. Representing a political compromise on the issue, the Constitution requires all Senate and House members to take an oath to support the Constitution before assuming office. But the framers left the substance and administration of the oath up to Congress.

Congress put the speaker of the House in charge of administering the oath to incoming House members and first specified its text in 1789. The Oath Act required members of Congress to “solemnly swear or affirm” support of the Constitution.

Historically, the speaker administered the oath to new House members state by state. This meant that each state’s newly elected representatives stood alone in front of Congress. However, in 1929, House Speaker Nicolas Longworth changed tradition so that all new members were sworn in at the same time.

A woman speaks in front of a podium. — Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., speaks at the Capitol in Washington on Oct. 15, 2025.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Longworth did so after Oscar DePriest – the first African American to serve in Congress in the 20th century – won an election in Illinois to replace Rep. Martin B. Madden, who had died of a heart attack. Longworth acted in response to speculation that Southern Democrats would attempt to prevent a Black lawmaker from joining the House. Rather than swearing in members state by state, Longworth swore in all members at once so DePriest was not stopped from taking the oath of office.

Since that time, the speaker has administered the oath of office to all newly elected members of the House as a collective unit.

How things work now

Under current law, the speaker must administer the oath of office to all House members prior to them taking their seats.

Here’s how this has worked over the past few decades:

After the House elects a speaker, the member with the longest continuous service in the House – called the dean of the House – administers the oath to the speaker. Then the speaker administers the oath to the rest of the members all together as a mark of a new Congress.

The idea is that despite partisan differences, every legislator commits in front of the others to uphold the Constitution.

But occasionally, either because of illness, a special election or other circumstances, a newly elected member of Congress can’t take the oath with everyone else. When that happens, that person is sworn in at a later date.

On Sept. 9, 2025, for example, Democrat James Walkinshaw won a special election to succeed the late Gerry Connolly, who died in office while representing Virginia’s 11th congressional district. Johnson swore Walkinshaw in the next day.

While the speaker has the responsibility for administering the oath, the House may adopt a resolution to designate a judge or House member selected by the speaker to do the job for him.

In 1999, for example, Speaker Dennis Hastert designated retired California Judge Ellen Sickles James to administer the oath to Rep.-elect George Miller.

Regardless of who swears into office a member of Congress who could not attend the collective ceremony, the administration of the oath has traditionally occurred on days in which the House is session. But it does not have to be that way.

The law is ambiguous on when the oath is administered.

And House speakers have not always acted swiftly. In spring 2021, for instance, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi waited 25 days before administering the oath to Republican Rep.-elect Julia Letlow. That’s because the House did not have a session scheduled immediately following Letlow’s election.

Johnson has referred to this particular delay as the “Pelosi precedent,” setting a standard practice of the speaker waiting to administer the oath until Congress is in session.

A woman hugs another woman in a room full of people. — Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva greets supporters on Nov. 1, 2025, in Tucson, Ariz.
Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

Why does it matter?

The delay in administering Grijalva the oath is the longest in modern history.

While Grijalva waits, she does not have access to the resources typically provided to members of the House to help them perform their jobs, including an operating budget for her offices or even the ability to log in to key databases.

This means Grijalva is limited in her ability to represent her over 800,000 constituents.

She describes her current situation as “having the title but none of the job.”

Grijalva, Arizona Attorney General Mayes and congressional Democrats accuse the speaker of playing politics. But history and the law suggest that may be Johnson’s prerogative until the government reopens.

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

– ref. House speaker’s refusal to seat Arizona representative is supported by history and law – https://theconversation.com/house-speakers-refusal-to-seat-arizona-representative-is-supported-by-history-and-law-268455