About Shirin Ali
Shirin Ali is a staff writer at Slate, where she writes about news, politics and the law. Her recent work concentrates on the courts and the Trump administration: the Supreme Court, immigration enforcement, voting rights, elections and the legal fights over executive power. She regularly writes editions of Executive Dysfunction, a weekly Slate newsletter that highlights one under-the-radar story about how Trump is changing the law, or how the law is pushing back.
Ali is a graduate of Northwestern University. She began her career as a news associate at CNN, where she wrote for the trends team and covered daily stories ranging from human-interest topics to breaking political news. She then became a staff writer at The Hill. In October 2022 she joined Slate as an associate writer for news and politics, and she is now a staff writer there. According to Slate's masthead, she lives in Chicago.
Her Slate pieces mix quick news analysis with longer reported features. In December 2024 she wrote "It's Elon's World and We're Just Living in It" for The Slatest, about how Elon Musk's posts on X helped sink a bipartisan bill to keep the federal government funded. In 2026 she wrote "Their Loved Ones Died to Give Us the Voting Rights Act. They Have a Message for the Supreme Court." for Slate and Amicus's By the People series, which opens with the stories of civil rights workers killed in the 1960s, and "The IRS Gave ICE Some Information It Really Shouldn't Have," on an appeals court ruling that the IRS broke federal law by sharing taxpayer addresses with immigration enforcement.
Across these pieces she tends to explain how a law, a vote or a court ruling actually works, walk through events in order, put the key numbers in the sentence, and end by asking what happens next.
What Shirin Ali is known for
- Staff writer covering news, politics and the law at Slate
- Writing editions of Slate's Executive Dysfunction newsletter
- Explaining court rulings and legal fights over executive power
- Earlier reporting at The Hill and CNN
Notable works by Shirin Ali
A Slatest piece on how Elon Musk's posts on X helped kill a bipartisan stopgap funding bill in December 2024.
Article · 2026
Part of Amicus and Slate's By the People series; it opens with the stories of Viola Liuzzo, Vernon Dahmer and Andrew Goodman.
An Executive Dysfunction edition on an appeals court ruling that the IRS violated federal law by handing taxpayer addresses to immigration enforcement.
The Lindsay Clancy Case Has Ended In a Mistrial. What Happens Now? (opens in a new tab)
Article · 2026
A quick explainer on the mistrial in a closely watched Massachusetts murder case and the options left for prosecutors.
Shirin Ali’s writing style
- Events told in order
- She often reconstructs a story hour by hour; her piece on the December 2024 funding fight tracks Musk's posts from 4:15 a.m. through late afternoon as the bill collapsed.
- The legal mechanism, explained
- In her IRS piece she lays out the tax-privacy rule, its narrow exceptions and the agreement used to get around it before turning to the court's ruling.
- Numbers that correct the record
- She puts figures directly in the prose, for example setting a claimed $69,000 congressional pay raise against the bill's actual 3.8 percent, or $6,600.
- Plain, conversational asides
- Phrases such as "Musk entered the chat" and "has been wild" keep the tone informal while the explanation stays precise.
- Ending on what comes next
- Many pieces close by asking "What happens now?" and setting out the realistic options for courts, Congress or prosecutors.
Practice Shirin Ali’s essays
1 essay
How to write like Shirin Ali
Pick a news event that confuses people and tell it in the order it happened, with times and dates, so the reader can follow cause and effect. Then stop and explain the rule underneath it: the statute, the court standard or the legislative maneuver that made the outcome possible, in plain words.
Keep the tone conversational, but let facts carry the argument. Put the key numbers straight into your sentences, correct false claims with the real figure, and quote the court or the official directly where it matters. Finish by asking what happens now, and answer it with the realistic options rather than a prediction.
The quickest way to absorb these habits is to retype one of Shirin Ali’s essays above, word for word, then write a paragraph of your own in the same voice. New to this? Read what copywork is and how to do it.
Frequently asked questions about Shirin Ali
- Who is Shirin Ali?
- Shirin Ali is a staff writer at Slate who covers news, politics and the law, with a focus on the courts, immigration enforcement, voting rights and the Trump administration. She joined Slate in October 2022 as an associate writer after working as a staff writer at The Hill and, before that, as a news associate at CNN. She is a Northwestern University graduate.
- What is Executive Dysfunction?
- Executive Dysfunction is a weekly Slate newsletter that, in Slate's words, highlights one under-the-radar story about how Trump is changing the law, or how the law is pushing back, and keeps readers posted on the latest from Slate's Jurisprudence team. Shirin Ali writes many of its editions, including pieces on the IRS sharing taxpayer data with ICE and on family separation.
- What is "It's Elon's World and We're Just Living in It" about?
- Published in Slate's The Slatest on December 21, 2024, the piece describes how Elon Musk's posts on X helped turn Republicans against a bipartisan stopgap bill to avoid a government shutdown. Ali walks through the day hour by hour, corrects Musk's claim about a congressional pay raise, and raises conflict-of-interest questions about his planned advisory role in government.
- What is Shirin Ali's writing style?
- Ali writes clear, conversational news analysis. She tends to tell events in the order they happened, explain the legal or political mechanism behind them in plain language, and put specific numbers and direct quotes into her sentences. Informal asides keep the tone light, and her pieces often end by asking what happens next and setting out the realistic options.