articles+ search results

SOCIOCULTURAL factors, UNITED States presidential election, 2016, POLITICAL campaigns, and UNITED States politics & government, 2017-2021

Objectives: The political discourse surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election highlighted discontent with both Congress and corporations, a reality corroborated in recent scholarship highlighting declines in institutional confidence among U.S. citizens. Here we test theories of institutional confidence to understand the social and cultural determinants of confidence in Congress and corporations prior to the start of the 2016 presidential campaigns. Methods: We draw on data from the Religious Understandings of Science Survey, a nationally representative survey conducted in 2013–2014 (N = 9,416). Results: We find that political ideology largely explained confidence in corporations while social location (particularly racial‐ethnic identity and gender) strongly related to confidence in Congress. Seemingly opposing factors converged to predict trust in both institutions. Conclusions: Institutional confidence is shaped not only by social and cultural factors but also by the symbolic functions of institutions themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ENVIRONMENTAL policy, UNITED States elections, VOTING, and LEGISLATORS

Do elections affect legislators' voting patterns? We investigate this question in the context of environmental policy in the U.S. Congress. We theorize that since the general public is generally in favor of legislation protecting the environment, legislators have an incentive to favor the public over industry and vote for pro‐environment legislation at election time. The argument is supported by analyses of data on environmental roll call votes for the U.S. Congress from 1970 to 2013 where we estimate the likelihood of casting a pro‐environment vote as a function of the time to an election. While Democrats are generally more likely to cast a pro‐environment vote before an election, this effect is much stronger for Republicans when the legislator won the previous election by a thinner margin. The election effect is maximized for candidates receiving substantial campaign contributions from the (anti‐environment) oil and gas industry. Analysis of Twitter data confirms that Congressmembers make pro‐environmental statements and highlight their roll call voting behavior during the election season. These results show that legislators do strategically adjust their voting behavior to favor the public immediate prior to an election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL scientists, POLITICAL scientists, CIVIL service positions, CONGRESSIONAL hearings (U.S.), and RESEARCH institutes

Congressional hearings are a venue in which social scientists present their views and analyses before lawmakers in the United States, however quantitative data on their representation has been lacking. We present new, publicly available, data on the rates at which anthropologists, economists, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists appeared before United States congressional hearings from 1946 through 2016. We show that social scientists were present at some 10,347 hearings and testified 15,506 times. Economists testify before the US Congress far more often than other social scientists, and constitute a larger proportion of the social scientists testifying in industry and government positions. We find that social scientists' testimony is increasingly on behalf of think tanks; political scientists, in particular, have gained much more representation through think tanks. Sociology, and psychology's representation before Congress has declined considerably beginning in the 1980s. Anthropologists were the least represented. These findings show that academics are representing a more diverse set of organizations, but economists continue to be far more represented than other disciplines before the US Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GENDER, WOMEN legislators, WOMEN'S rights, VIOLENCE against women, and ABORTION laws

As critical mass theorists have argued, the number of female legislators is important in the enactment of gender-status laws. Female legislators share strong beliefs on women's rights and have easily coordinated their legislative activities on gender issues. In addition, their strong coordination and consequent political influence have often allowed them to form a legislative majority by influencing male legislators. Gender policies, however, are frequently associated with non-gender policy dimensions on which female legislators tend to have different ideas. Thus, when a gender issue is interpreted in terms of a conspicuous non-gender policy dimension, critical mass theory may not work properly; the heterogeneity of female legislators regarding non-gender policy dimensions can weaken their legislative coordination, thereby hampering gender-status lawmaking. This article examines these propositions by reviewing the legislative histories of violence against women and the legality of abortion in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

QUANTITATIVE research, LEGISLATION, ACTIVISM, GOVERNMENTALITY, and CHINA-United States relations

Through a quantitative analysis of Taiwan–related legislation between 1979 and 2020, the article finds that the degree of Taiwan–related legislation is significantly correlated with the degree of tension in U.S.—China relations. While a deteriorating cross–Taiwan Strait relationship is clearly associated with the increasing legislative activities for the sake of Taiwan, an improving relationship from the state of fair to good cannot guarantee a decrease of such activities. A unified government and the extent of the Taiwan lobby are both helpful in passing pro–Taiwan acts but statistically insignificant. A content analysis of pro–Taiwan bills approved by the Trump administration suggests a creeping movement to "normalize" U.S–Taiwan relations with congressional activism and the less-restrained White House as a co–engine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

YOUNG women, CRITICAL theory, BABY boom generation, and ELECTIONS

Critical mass theories predict that women in government will sponsor and vote for more women and feminist bills as their numbers increase. Using Voteview.com data of roll-call votes measuring left–right ideology from 1977 to 2019 this paper shows that ideological divides among women in the U.S. House of Representatives have deepened rather than veered in a liberal direction. Republican women have moved rightward over time and more conservative ones are winning elections. Belonging to a politicized generation, older Silent Generation and Boomer women are more ideologically extreme than younger women. Parties are also elevating their more ideological female members. As their numbers increase, female House members are expected to remain ideologically diverse in a polarized legislative environment. Critical mass theories are deficient in failing to place female political actors in a dynamic workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PATENT law, MAYO Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, and PATENTABILITY -- Lawsuits & claims

In this article, the author argues that the U.S. Congress should abolish the Supreme Court promulgated, non-statutory exceptions to 35 U.S.C. section 101 of the Patent Act. It mentions about the U.S. Supreme Court case Mayo Collaborative Sers. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc. in which the court held that claims directed to a method of giving a drug to a patient, measuring metabolites of that drug, deciding whether to increase or decrease the dosage of the drug, were not patent-eligible subject matter.

FLOOD damage, AMERICAN Civil War, 1861-1865, DYNAMIC loads, and NAVAL architecture

The submarine H. L. Hunley conducted the first successful submarine attack on an enemy vessel, USS Housatonic, during the American Civil War but was lost with all hands because of unknown circumstances. The submarine has been recovered, and recent archeological findings have uncovered that a spar torpedo was used as opposed to a standoff torpedo that was commonly assumed to have been used. As a result, the submarine would have been in close proximity to the weapon when it exploded than previously thought. A multipart investigation has been conducted with the goal of determining if this reduced standoff distance could explain the mysterious loss of the vessel in the minutes or hours after the attack. Here, the results of a bottom-up naval architectural and weapons-effects analysis are reported. Together, the experimental, computational, and analytical results provide new insight to the vessel's stability characteristics, propulsion, and dynamic loading environment during the attack. In addition, a discussion of possible loss scenarios, informed by both calculation results and inspections of vessel's hull, is presented. Although the story of what happened to H. L. Hunley that night remains shrouded in mystery after this work, several important new research questions emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RUNOFF elections, ELECTIONS, PARTISANSHIP, DEMOCRATS (United States), VOTING, PRESIDENTIAL elections, and FEDERAL government

Recent work on American presidential elections suggests that voters engage in anticipatory balancing, which occurs when voters split their ticket in order to moderate collective policy outcomes by forcing agreement among institutions controlled by opposing parties. We use the 2021 Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs, which determined whether Democrats would have unified control of the federal government given preceding November victories by President-elect Biden and House Democrats, to evaluate support for anticipatory balancing. Leveraging an original survey of Georgia voters, we find no evidence of balancing within the general electorate and among partisans across differing model specifications. We use qualitative content analysis of voter electoral runoff intentions to support our findings and contextualize the lack of evidence for balancing withan original analysis showing the unprecedented partisan nature of contemporary Senate elections since direct-election began in 1914. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PARTISANSHIP, ELECTIONS, POLARIZATION (Social sciences), INCUMBENCY (Public officers), and MOTIVATION (Psychology)

Objective: This article explores whether voters evaluate candidates' ideology, partisanship, and quality independently or exhibit behavior consistent with motivating reasoning, rating co‐partisans and candidates ideologically similar to themselves as more competent. Methods: Using a survey of voters and experts from 2010 U.S. House elections, I estimate a model predicting an individual's rating of incumbent candidate competence for office and challenger candidate competence for office. Results: Individuals ideologically distant from a candidate rate the candidate as less competent, yet rate co‐partisan candidates as more competent. For incumbents, opposing partisanship amplifies the negative effect of ideological distance on candidate quality ratings, and shared partisanship mitigates the negative effect of ideological distance. Conclusion: Only incumbents rated as the most competent can overcome the ideological and partisan biases of voters. Consistent with theories of affective polarization, these results imply that polarization runs deeper than partisan or ideological differences–it is personal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BUDGET reconciliation, RECONCILIATION, and CHICKENS

Since its early uses in the early 1980s, the budget reconciliation process has played an important role in how the U.S. Congress legislates. Because the procedures protect certain legislation from a filibuster in the Senate, the reconciliation rules both shape, and are shaped by, the upper chamber in significant ways. After providing a brief overview of the process, I discuss first how partisanship in the Senate has affected the use of the reconciliation procedures. Next, I describe two sets of consequences of the contemporary reconciliation process, on negotiation and on policy design. I conclude with some observations about the relationship of reconciliation to the prospects for broader procedural change in the Senate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNITED States senators, SELF-defense, ARCHIVES, and INTERNATIONAL relations

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of former Arizona senator Dennis DeConcini during the Bosnian War. DeConcini, along with other congressional Bosnia hawks, supported the newly independent country in its self-defense during the 1992–1995 war. DeConcini's activism was mainly through the U.S. Helsinki Commission but he also undertook a number of steps with a view to legislative American foreign policy towards Bosnia in the early 1990s. Based on the congressional archive and DeConcini's papers at the University of Arizona, this article will piece together the story of how an Arizona senator became a champion of Bosnia on Capitol Hill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLARIZATION (Social sciences), POLICY sciences, RUNOFF elections, ELECTIONS, MAJORITIES, PARTISANSHIP, and PRESIDENTIAL candidates

The dramatic Democratic victories in the 2021 Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs handed Democrats their first majority since 2015 and, with this, unified Democratic control of Washington for the first time since 2011. While Democratic Leaders and President Joe Biden crafted their agenda, any hope of policy passage rested on complete unity in a 50–50 Senate and a narrow majority in the U.S. House. Against this backdrop, the 117th Senate is the most polarized since direct-election began in 1914 and, by popular accounts, the least deliberative in a generation. In this article, we examine the implications of partisan polarization for policymaking in the U.S. Senate throughout the direct-election era. First, we show that greater polarization coincides with more partisan Senate election outcomes, congruent with recent trends in the House. Today, over 90% of Senators represent states carried by their party's presidential nominee. Secondly, we show that polarization coincides with higher levels of observable obstruction, conflict, partisan unity, and narrower majorities. Lastly, we show that this polarization coincides with lower levels of deliberation in the form of consideration of floor amendments and committee meetings. Taken together, we paint a picture of a polarized Senate that is more partisan, more obstructionist, and less deliberative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INCOME distribution, PARTISANSHIP, and UNITED States legislators

Over the past twenty years, there has been much discussion about two of the most important recent trends in American politics: the increase in income inequality in the United States and the increase in ideological and partisan polarization, particularly in the U.S. House. These two national-level trends are commonly thought to be positively related. But, there are few tested theoretical connections between them, and it is potentially problematic to infer individual-level behavior from these aggregate-level trends. In fact, an examination of the literature reveals, at least, three different theoretical outcomes for district-level income inequality on voter and congressional ideological positions. I explore these district-level theoretical and empirical possibilities as well as test them over decades with three different measures of income inequality. I argue and demonstrate that higher district levels of income inequality are related to higher levels of ideological liberalism in the U.S. House. This stands in contrast to the national-level trends, but it tracks closely to traditional understandings of congressional behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ELECTION law, CLAUSES (Law), CYBERTERRORISM, INTERNET security, and VOTING Rights Act of 1975 (U.S.)

While foreign adversaries continue to launch cyberattacks aimed at disrupting elections in the United States, Congress has been reluctant to take action. After Russia interfered in the 2016 election, cybersecurity experts articulated clear measures that must be taken to secure U.S. election systems against foreign interference. Yet the federal government has failed to act. Congress's reticence is based on a misguided notion that greater federal involvement in the conduct of elections unconstitutionally infringes on states' rights. Both state election officials and certain congressional leaders operate under the assumption that federalism principles grant states primacy in conducting federal elections. This Comment dispels the myth that Congress must defer to states to regulate federal elections. The text of the Elections Clause in Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution confers to Congress final authority in determining the "Times, Places and Manner" of federal elections. Therefore, the system of administering federal elections is based on decentralization rather than federalism. The risk of foreign interference in U.S. elections was a precise reason the founders bestowed on Congress ultimate control over federal elections. States and municipalities lack the capacity to effectively combat foreign cyber invasion. This Comment makes the case that Congress has a responsibility to exercise its power under the Elections Clause to create a federal plan to secure voter registration databases and voting mechanisms against cyberattacks in order to protect the integrity of American democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ACTIONS & defenses (Law), INTELLIGENCE service, NATIONAL security, and UNITED States. National Security Act of 1947

This Note explores how Congress can respond to a president who withholds non-covert intelligence operations from the congressional intelligence committees in violation of the National Security Act. This Note proposes a novel solution for Congress: the elevation of the Gang of Eight into a joint permanent select committee that is authorized to file suit on behalf of Congress. Congressional lawsuits are likely to be challenged on the basis of standing. Gang of Eight lawsuits could empower congressionalleaders to meet a court's standing analysis, allowing Congress to reassert its role in overseeing the intelligence community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CONSTITUTIONAL law, PUBLIC administration, ARMED Forces, and UNITED States armed forces

Although scholars have explored at length the constitutional law of office-holding with respect to civil and administrative offices, parallel questions regarding military office-holding have received insufficient attention. Even scholars who defend broad congressional authority to structure civil administration typically presume that the President, as Commander in Chief, holds greater authority over the military. For its part, the executive branch has claimed plenary authority over assignment of military duties and control of military officers. This pro-presidential consensus is mistaken. Although the President, as Commander in Chief, must have some form of directive authority over U.S. military forces in the field, the constitutional text and structure, read in light of longstanding historical practice, give Congress extensive power to structure the offices, chains of command, and disciplinary mechanisms through which the President's authority is exercised. In particular, much as in the administrative context. Congress may vest particular powers and duties--authority to launch nuclear weapons or a cyber operation, for example, or command over particular units--in particular statutorily created offices. In addition, although the Constitution affords presidents removal authority as a default means of command discipline. Congress may supplant and limit this authority by replacing it with alternative disciplinary mechanisms, such as criminal penalties for disobeying lawful orders. By defining duties, command relationships, and disciplinary mechanisms in this way. Congress may establish structures of executive branch accountability that promote key values, protect military professionalism, and even encourage or discourage particular results, all without infringing upon the President's ultimate authority to direct the nation's armed forces. These conclusions bear directly on recent legislative proposals to vest authority over cyber weapons, force withdrawals, or nuclear weapons in officers other than the President. They also enable a potent critique of the Supreme Court's recent insistence on a "unitary" executive branch in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and they shed new light on broader separation-of-powers debates over executive-branch structure, conventions of governmental behavior, the civil service's constitutionality, and Reconstruction's historical importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PUBLIC officers, ACTIONS & defenses (Law), PROBLEM solving, and MENTAL representation

This article examines the relationship between demand for expert information from members of the US Congress and increased issue salience in the public. As problems become salient, policymakers should seek out expert information to define problems and identify effective policy solutions to address those problems. Previous work on elite mass public representation and government problem solving has relied on public actions by elected officials to evaluate this relationship. We rely instead on new data on the policy content of privately requested reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) from 1997 to 2017. We find strong evidence that members consult experts when issues become salient, even when controlling for legislative agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GAY rights, EQUALITY, POLARIZATION (Social sciences), DEMOCRATS' attitudes, REPUBLICANS, and LGBTQ+ people

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent application of employment protections to gays and lesbians in Bostock v. Clayton County highlights the striking absence of policy produced by the U.S. Congress despite two decades of increased public support for gay rights. With the notable exceptions of allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military, and passing hate crimes legislation, every other federal policy advancing gay rights over the last three decades has been the product of a Supreme Court ruling or Executive Order. To better understand the reasons for this inaction, we examine the changing preferences of members of Congress on LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) issues. Examining scores from the Human Rights Campaign from 1989 to 2019, we find a striking polarization by the parties on LGBTQ issues, as Democrats have become much more supportive and Republicans even more opposed to gay rights. This change has been driven not by gerrymandering, mass opinion polarization, or elite backlash, but among Republicans by a mix of both conversion and replacement, and among Democrats primarily of replacement of more moderate members. The result is a striking lack of collective representation that leaves members of the LGBTQ community at risk to the whims of presidents and jurists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CORRUPT practices in elections, POLITICAL leadership, VOTE buying, POLITICAL campaigns, and HUMAN beings

The Republic faces three existential threats: domestic White nationalism, global tyranny, and global warming. Threat #1: Trump-Inspired White Nationalism In 2020, as his reelection campaign faltered due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a cratering economy, Trump responded by proactively undermining confidence in the election. MAGA Republicans think that if they retain the filibuster, block Senate approval of the Voting Rights Act, and retake the Senate in 2022, the U.S. will remain a White nationalist state rather than continuing to evolve as a multi-cultural democracy (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/06/republican-party-donald-trump-american-democracy-elections). [Extracted from the article]

PRESIDENTIAL candidates, PANEL analysis, ELECTIONS, POLITICAL knowledge, POLITICAL campaigns, and SEASONS

How do citizens' preferences for candidates change during a campaign season? For the first time, this panel study examines how citizens' preferences for candidates change during the general election campaign season for House, Senate, and presidential elections, which vary widely in their salience and contestedness. House races exhibit the greatest mean change in candidate evaluations and presidential races exhibit the least. At the individual level, there is considerable variation across the three types of contest in the presence of a candidate preference and in change over the campaign season. We investigate differences across the three types of races in initial familiarity with candidates and estimate transition models to evaluate the effect of race contestedness, partisanship, presidential approval, political sophistication and knowledge on change in candidate preferences in each type of race. Change in knowledge of the candidates during the campaign season has the greatest effect in House contests, where initial familiarity with the candidates is the most limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TAX credits, CORPORATE taxes, UNITED States tax laws, and TAX Cuts & Jobs Act (U.S.)

The article discusses two major legislative acts passed by Congress to change tax law in the U.S., including the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and the 2018 Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA). Topics covered include BBA's elimination of the production tax credit and the investment tax credit, and TCJA's creation of the base erosion anti-abuse tax (BEAT) and its elimination of the corporate alternative minimum tax.

SPENDING power (Constitutional law), STATE laws, and STATE power

Congress's spending power allows the federal government to spend money to provide for the general welfare of the United States. While this "general welfare" language was initially understood as barring Congress from apportioning money for local purposes, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the spending power has treated this limitation as effectively nonjusticiable. Consequently, the spending power has provided Congress with an attractive carrot to coax states into enacting regulations that Congress could not achieve through its other powers. This Note challenges the notion that the general welfare limitation of the Spending Clause should be considered nonjusticiable. Instead, it calls for a return to the original understanding that the spending power could not be exercised to promote purely local purposes, an understanding that the Court adopted in its earlier spending cases. Relying on principles of collective action federalism and the "substantial effects" test from United States v. Lopez, this Note proposes distinguishing between general and local spending by looking at the anticipated effects of the spending beyond the recipient of the funds itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GENDER, POLITICAL accountability, WOMEN legislators, IDEOLOGY, and GOVERNMENT policy

We study how officeholder gender affects issue accountability and examine whether constituents evaluate women and men legislators differently on the basis of their policy records. Data from 2008 through 2018 show that constituents' approval ratings and vote choices in US House elections are more responsive to the policy records of women legislators than of men legislators. These patterns are concentrated among politically aware constituents, but we find no evidence that the results are driven disproportionately by either women or men constituents or by issues that are gendered in stereotypical ways. Additional analyses suggest that while constituents penalize women and men legislators at similar rates for policy incongruence, women legislators are rewarded more than men as they are increasingly aligned with their constituents. Our results show that accountability standards are applied differently across legislator gender and suggest a link between the quality of policy representation and the gender composition of American legislatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PARTISANSHIP, CAMPAIGN funds, POLITICAL campaigns, CAMPAIGN promises, PRESIDENTIAL candidates, and INAUGURATION

On the campaign trail and at his inauguration, Joe Biden pledged, above all else, to be a uniter to restore the soul of America. At the end of his first year in office, many campaign promises have been met, but unity has not been one. Far from transcending partisanship as promised, Biden has embraced the levers of presidential discretion and power inherent within the modern executive office to advance partisan objectives. He is not just a victim of polarization, but actively contributes to it. This is not unexpected. Rather it is the culmination of a decades-long reorientation within both major parties: the rise of an executive-centered party-system, with Democrats and Republicans alike relying on presidents and presidential candidates to pronounce party doctrine, raise campaign funds, campaign on behalf of their partisan brethren, mobilize grass roots support, and advance party programs. Like Barack Obama and Donald Trump before him, Biden has aggressively used executive power to cut the Gordian knot of partisan gridlock in Congress. Even pandemic politics is not immune to presidential partisanship; in fact, it has accentuated the United States' presidency-centered democracy, which weakens the public resolve to confront and solve national problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNITED States legislators, PRIMARIES, VOTING research, and UNITED States Congressional elections

Effective lawmakers are the workhorses of the US Congress, yet we know little about the electoral payoffs of their efforts. Are effective lawmakers better at warding off challengers in the next election? Do they win at a greater rate? To answer these questions, we draw on original data on congressional primary elections from 1980 to 2016, allowing us to focus on elections that lack partisan cues and where voters tend to be highly knowledgeable about politics. We find that incumbents receive an electoral boost in congressional primaries from their legislative work in Congress. Ineffective lawmakers are more likely to face quality challengers, and they lose their primaries at a greater rate than do more effective lawmakers. These differences diminish in the complex informational environment of a primary with multiple challengers. These findings provide important insights into the conditions under which voters hold their elected representatives accountable for their legislative successes and failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MILITARY intelligence, RESEARCH & development, HISTORY, WAR reparations, and UNITED States. Air Force

This article explains how exploitation of research and development (R&D) configured into the post–World War II policies of the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) and U.S. Air Force (USAF). The narrative follows the coordination of operations LUSTY, OVERCAST, and PAPERCLIP and the Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) in the AAF’s exploitation of intelligence and reparations for postwar policies and politics. The history of the SAG’s efforts from 1944 to 1947 reveals the intensity with which the AAF and its consultants in the aeronautical sciences pursued Nazi R&D. The article helps explain the place of intelligence and reparations in AAF and USAF policies for postwar R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GENETIC carriers, GENETIC variation, MEDICAL genetics, THROMBOTIC microangiopathies, and MEDICAL genomics

Background: Upshaw–Schulman syndrome (USS) is an autosomal recessive disease characterized by thrombotic microangiopathies caused by pathogenic variants in ADAMTS13. We aimed to (1) curate the ADAMTS13 gene pathogenic variant dataset and (2) estimate the carrier frequency and genetic prevalence of USS using Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD) data. Methods: Studies were comprehensively retrieved. All previously reported pathogenic ADAMTS13 variants were compiled and annotated with gnomAD allele frequencies. The pooled global and population-specific carrier frequencies and genetic prevalence of USS were calculated using the Hardy-Weinberg equation. Results: We mined reported disease-causing variants that were present in the gnomAD v2.1.1, filtered by allele frequency. The pathogenicity of variants was classified according to the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics criteria. The genetic prevalence and carrier frequency of USS were 0.43 per 1 million (95% CI: [0.36, 0.55]) and 1.31 per 1 thousand population, respectively. When the novel pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants were included, the genetic prevalence and carrier frequency were 1.1 per 1 million (95% CI: [0.89, 1.37]) and 2.1 per 1 thousand population, respectively. Conclusions: The genetic prevalence and carrier frequency of USS were within the ranges of previous estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ELECTIONS, PRIMARIES, IDEOLOGY, SEX discrimination, GENDER, HOUSING, and UNITED States Congressional elections

Studies of gender-ideology stereotypes suggest that voters evaluate male and female candidates in different ways, yet data limitations have hindered an analysis of candidate ideology, sex, and actual election outcomes. This article draws on a new dataset of male and female primary and general election candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives from 1980 to 2012. I find little evidence that the relationship between ideology and victory patterns differs for male and female candidates. Neither Republican nor Democratic women experience distinct electoral fates than ideologically similar men. Candidate sex and ideology do interact in other ways, however; Democratic women are more liberal than their male counterparts, and they are advantaged in primaries over Republican women as well as Democratic men. The findings have important implications for contemporary patterns of women's representation, and they extend our understanding of gender bias and neutrality in American elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VOTER turnout, PARTISANSHIP, ELECTIONS, and GERRYMANDERING

Objective: Partisan bias occurs when votes are distributed across districts in such a way that even if the vote between two parties were equal, one party would win more seats than the other. Gerrymandering is a well‐established cause of partisan bias, but it is not the only one. In this article, we ask whether the decline of voter turnout can also influence partisan bias. Methods: We modified the Gelman–King partisan symmetry measure to make it sensitive to turnout differences across U.S. House elections from 1972 to 2018. Results: We found that turnout variation has caused partisan bias in U.S. House elections in the Democratic Party's favor since at least 1972, though turnout bias has gotten weaker in recent elections. Conclusion: While turnout bias can buffer the impact of turnout reductions, it has the potential to dramatically increase the number of seats a party loses when its supporters fail to vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AMERICAN women in politics, COMMUNICATION styles, POLITICAL communication, REPRESENTATIVE government, and GENDER stereotypes

Legislators approach each election as if they might lose. Electoral insecurity coupled with gender stereotypes held by voters and lawmakers alike may lead female legislators to communicate more voting decisions to voters as a signal of their policy-driven efforts. Using an original data-set of over 40,000 official e-newsletters and Real Simple Syndication feeds sent by members of Congress, I show that women reveal more roll call votes to constituents than their male counterparts. Significant differences exist between male and female incumbents in the frequency of vote revelation despite the fact that male and female legislators use these communication techniques to reach constituents at the same rates and call attention to similar bills. These differences persist after accounting for the effects of party, seniority, district fit, and other potential confounds. Women highlight their ability to fulfill the roles expected of lawmakers by explicitly signaling involvement in lawmaking activities more frequently than men. In a second test, I analyze the types of bills legislators reveal votes on and find no differences between men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

CORRUPTION laws, POLITICAL corruption, POLITICAL corruption -- Law & legislation, and UNITED States politics & government

Ninety three of the 1,818 people who served in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1972 and 2012 were investigated for corruption by the Ethics Committee. Eighteen were acquitted and 75 suffered consequences (reprimand/payback/resignation/conviction). Detailed analysis of the data shows that the longer one is in Congress, the more likely is the chance of corruption. In addition, the more powerful one is in Congress, the more likely is the chance of corruption. This article concludes that corruption follows opportunity. In general, the more opportunity members of Congress have to engage in corruption, the more they will ultimately succumb to corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AMICI curiae, LEGISLATIVE bills, and PARTIES to actions

The article focuses on the viability of the U.S. Congress in filing amicus curiae briefs during the Rehnquist Court that was conducted before the U.S. Supreme Court. Topics discussed include the connections between the U.S. Congress and the Supreme has been associated with former interpreting or rejecting bills and the reaction of the latter to those decisions, and the congressional influence towards the Supreme Court during the Rehnquist Court through amicus curiae briefs.

BUREAUCRACY, POLICY sciences, SEPARATION of powers, GOVERNMENT policy, GOVERNMENT agencies, and POLARIZATION (Social sciences)

Increasing ideological polarization and dysfunction in Congress raise questions about whether and how Congress remains capable of constraining the activities of other actors in the separation of powers system. In this article, I argue Congress uses nonstatutory policymaking tools to overcome the burdens of legislative gridlock in an increasingly polarized time to constrain executive branch actors. I leverage a new data set of committee reports issued by the House and Senate appropriations committees from fiscal years 1923 through 2019 to empirically explore these dynamics and evaluate my argument. Traditionally, these reports are a primary vehicle through which Congress directs agency policymaking in the appropriations process. Committees increasingly turn to them when passing legislation is most difficult and interbranch agency problems are most pronounced. In this way, nonstatutory mechanisms may help maintain the balance of power across branches, even when Congress faces gridlock‐induced incapacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RACIAL minorities, LEGAL status of voters, and UNITED States Congressional elections

The author comments on the single-member district mandate for U.S. House of Representatives elections that was enacted by the Congress in 1967. Topics covered include the Congress' intentions for enacting the law including the representation of racial minority communities in the House, the law's unintended consequences on the political process, and the implications for the First Amendment political association rights of voters.

UNITED States senators, CONSTITUENTS (Persons), POLICY sciences, DOMESTIC travel, REPRESENTATIVE government, ELECTION districts, and ATTENTION

Is local attention a substitute for policy representation? Fenno (1978) famously described how legislators develop personal ties with their constituents through periodic visits to their districts and carefully crafted communications. Existing work suggests that such interactions insulate incumbents electorally, creating less need to represent constituents' policy preferences. Surprisingly, this important argument has never been tested systematically. In this paper, I use data on senator travel and staffing behavior along with survey data from the 2011–2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to investigate this claim. In addition to showing that areas with important campaign donors are significantly more likely to receive resources, I find that local visits may decrease approval among ideologically opposed constituents. Furthermore, I find inconsistent evidence regarding the effectiveness of local staff. These results suggest that local attention does not always cultivate goodwill in the district. Under polarized politics, home style does not effectively substitute for policy representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RESOURCE allocation, INDIVIDUALISM, and TIME series analysis

Funding for legislative staff represents a valuable commodity to legislators. However it is a resource distributed to separate internal organizations. Previous studies show strong correlations between a legislator's available institutional power and the benefits of having access to more staffing resources. Therefore, all individual legislators, committee chairs, and party leaders face incentives to direct a larger share of the Senate's budget. However, we argue the Senate approaches staff allocations for each organization by giving attention to the previous workload of the chamber and resources allocated to other offices in the same bill. Using newly collected data on staff resource allocations between 1885 and 2018, we observe that the Senate's internal organizations do not undermine each other, and that allocation decisions benefit each area separately. Results of a time series model show that increasing allocations for a staff area actually promotes greater allocations for other areas rather than undermining them, and that changes in membership and eras shape how senators collectively choose to allocate staff resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AGENDA setting theory (Communication) and LEGISLATIVE voting

The study of agenda power has largely been the study of negative agenda power. But standard measures of negative agenda power are insufficient to measure the majority's agenda choices: they only consider a small proportion of bills, only detail how often negative agenda power fails (rather than succeeds), and cannot help us understand positive agenda power. To understand the incentives and strategies of agenda decision-making, then, we must know about members' preferences on all bills. I develop an approach to estimate members' preferences on all bills, by generating quantitative characterizations of the policy content in each bill. I use the resulting estimates to examine both positive and negative agenda power using all bills and to directly compare levels of agenda power between chambers of the US Congress. While I find similarly strong negative agenda control in both chambers, I find substantially stronger positive agenda control in the House than the Senate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNDOCUMENTED immigrants, COMMITTEES, SUBJECT headings, LIBRARIANS, and UNITED States. Congress

In 2014, the Library of Congress (LC) rejected a proposal to change headings in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) that refer to undocumented immigrants as "Illegal aliens." Two years later, a Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) working group submitted recommendations regarding how and why LC should change the LCSH "Illegal aliens."1 That same year, LC decided to cancel the "Illegal aliens" subject heading, which Congress subsequently sought to block.2 Congress eventually required LC "to make publicly available its process for changing or adding subject headings . . . [and use] a process to change or add subject headings that are clearly defined, transparent, and allows input from stakeholders including those in the congressional community."3 In response, LC paused their plan to change "Illegal aliens." In June 2019, a new SAC Working Group on Alternatives to LCSH "Illegal aliens" was convened to survey local institutions implementing changes to the subject heading and to chart a path for librarians to address the subject heading at the organizational level. At the 2020 ALA Annual Conference, the working group presented their report. This paper builds upon that report and details next steps both for the working group and library professionals who plan to implement changes at their own organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTERNATIONAL relations -- Congresses, CONFERENCES & conventions, MIDDLE East-United States relations, and FOREIGN relations of the United States -- 21st century

The following is an edited transcript of the 103rd in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The event took place on January 29, 2021, via Zoom, with Council Vice‐Chair Gina Abercrombie‐Winstanley moderating, Council President Richard J. Schmierer contributing, and Council Executive Director Bassima Alghussein serving as discussant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ECONOMIC sanctions, PRESIDENTS, and INTERNATIONAL relations

This article explores whether party polarisation in the American Congress affects the length of legislated sanctions. While Congress can enact sanctions, it usually authorises the president to waive, suspend or terminate them. However, Congress can prevent the president from ending a sanction if both parties can cooperate to block the presidential proposal or pass a sanction bill challenging the presidential preference. Borrowing from moderate polarisation argument that both parties can cooperate only when they are moderately polarised, I argue that the probability of sanction termination declines if Congress is moderately polarised but increases when Congress is either least or extremely polarised. This is because only under moderately polarised Congress can both parties cooperate to stop the sanction termination. I test this argument using TIES data (1945–2005) and find support for this expectation. This research contributes to our knowledge on the role of congressional dynamics in shaping American foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

REPUTATION, WOMEN legislators, GENDER stereotypes, UNITED States senators, SOCIAL media, GOVERNMENT policy, and STEREOTYPES

Women running for Congress make different choices than men about how to connect with constituents on social media, but few studies investigate how these variable strategies shape in-office messaging, particularly those of U.S. senators. This article extends research on gendered congressional communication by looking at how women in the Senate build reputations on Twitter, specifically assessing whether they set themselves apart with the policy agendas they promote online. Senators take advantage of Twitter's low-cost and user-driven messaging to cultivate a reputation with their legislative expertise, and this research shows that women are curating a more comprehensive and broad agenda than gender stereotypes would otherwise suggest. Senators' legislative communication on Twitter shows that women on both sides of the aisle are expanding their policy agenda to reach beyond "female issues." Women are often stereotyped as less policy-oriented and only capable in gender-specific policy areas, but women in the Senate are actively communicating about contested policy issues and articulating diverse agendas. By adopting a comprehensive policy agenda for their public image, women in the Senate are both meeting and defying expectations about the policy topics they are willing and ready to act on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GUBERNATORIAL elections, AFRICAN Americans, WORKING class white people, STATISTICAL matching, VOTING, VOTERS, GOVERNORS, and SET design

Despite making notable gains at the local level, very few African Americans have been elected to the high-profile statewide offices of governor or U.S. senator. Previous research offers little systematic evidence on the role of racial prejudice in the campaigns of African Americans trying to reach these offices for the first time. In this paper, I introduce a new data set designed to test whether African American candidates for these offices are penalized due to their race. Comparing all 24 African American challengers (non-incumbents) from 2000 to 2014 to white challengers from the same party running in the same state for the same office around the same time, I find that white challengers are about three times more likely to win and receive about 13 percentage points more support among white voters. These estimates hold when controlling for a number of potential confounding factors and when employing several statistical matching estimators. The results conflict with earlier studies that focus on a single gubernatorial contest or elections at the U.S. House level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ADMINISTRATIVE law, PUBLIC spending -- Law & legislation, and PRESIDENTS of the United States

Appropriations lie at the core of the administrative state and are becoming increasingly important as deep partisan divides have stymied substantive legislation. Both Congress and the President exploit appropriations to control government and advance their policy agendas, with the border wall battle being just one of several recent high-profile examples. Yet in public law doctrine, appropriations are ignored, pulled out for special legal treatment, or subjected to legal frameworks ill-suited for appropriations realities. This Article documents how appropriations are marginalized in a variety of public law contexts and assesses the reasons for this unjustified treatment. Appropriations' doctrinal marginalization does not affect the political branches equally, but instead enhances executive branch and presidential power over appropriations at the expense of Congress. Yet legal doctrines governing appropriations should have the opposite effect because constitutional text, structure, and history make clear the central importance of Congress's appropriations power. Appropriations' doctrinal marginalization undermines the separation of powers even further by undercutting political accountability through Congress and creating de facto presidential spending authority, with the executive branch able to violate governing statutes on appropriations with minimal legal consequences. This Article then turns to the question of what taking appropriations seriously might mean for public law doctrine. It concludes that appropriations exceptionalism is not problematic if it reflects the realities of the appropriations process and does not downplay appropriations' significance. Doctrines should attend to the separation of powers dynamics raised by appropriations and reinforce Congress's power of the purse. Among other consequences, this leads to jurisdictional doctrines that put primacy on congressional enforcement of appropriations limits in court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TIME series analysis, POLARIZATION (Social sciences), TREND analysis, CORPORA, and PROBABILITY theory

This study investigates least delicate patterns of appraisal in two diachronic corpora of UK Parliament and U.S. Congress speeches over the last two centuries, focusing on diachronic changes and trends of systemic probabilities of least delicate engagement and attitude polarity. Based on computational algorithms that automatically extract appraisal instances and intersections from the two corpora, the comparative analysis carried out in this paper incorporates several statistical methods, including homogeneity or 'change-point' tests, Mann-Kendall trend analysis, and time-series Correspondence Analysis. The results indicate that, in both corpora, probabilities of monoglossic as well as attitudinal patterns (as opposed to neutral ones) follow statistically significant upward trends. In addition, positive polarity is increasing steadily, especially in the U.S. Congress. appraisal intersections are also dynamically changing depending on changes in sociopolitical circumstances. More specifically, in the formative and early years during which party conflicts were intensified, heteroglossic patterns are favored. In war and post-war periods, monoglossic patterns are more associated with neutral polarity. In recent decades, during which political polarization hit a peak, monoglossic patterns begin to favor attitudinal polarity. These findings are discussed in terms of possible causal and correlational interpretations, limitations and directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DELEGATION of powers, UNITED States senators, and LEGISLATIVE bills

The coordinated behavior of members of a state delegation to the U.S. Senate can provide constituents in a state greater representation in Congress. Despite this potentially improved level of representation through coordination, popular and scholarly accounts of the U.S. Senate often feature senators from the same state at odds with one another on a variety of policy issues. In this research, we investigate competing expectations regarding the frequency (across topics) of collaborations between members of a state delegation to the Senate. We then test our expectations using patterns in bill cosponsorship in the 103rd–110th U.S. Senates. We find that senators from the same state work together often on the development of legislation, and that this coordinated activity is consistent across a variety of bill topics across many sessions of congressional activity. Notably, same-state status is an even stronger predictor of support via cosponsorship than is same-party status, raising possible avenues of breaking through partisan gridlock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CAMPAIGN funds, ELECTIONS, POPULAR vote, VOTING, LATENT variables, and FINANCE

• The paper rests on a new and more comprehensive dataset built from government sources. • It uses the data to show that the relations between money and popular votes for major parties in all elections from 1980 to 2018 for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are well approximated by straight lines. • It considers potential challenges to this "linear model" of money and elections on statistical grounds, notably those arising from possible reciprocal causation between money and votes ("endogeneity"). • The paper builds a spatial latent instrumental variable model to tackle this much discussed problem and checks its results by studying relations between changes in gambling odds and contributions in key elections. Both approaches suggest that reciprocal causation may happen to some degree, but that money's independent influence on elections remains powerful. This paper analyzes whether money influences election outcomes. Using a new and more comprehensive dataset built from government sources, the paper shows that the relations between money and votes cast for major parties in elections for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives from 1980 to 2018 are well approximated by straight lines. It then considers possible challenges to this "linear model" of money and elections on statistical grounds, resting on possible endogeneity arising from reciprocal causation between, for example, popularity and votes. The paper develops a spatial Bayesian latent instrumental variable model to tackle this much discussed problem. It checks its results by studying relations between changes in gambling odds and contributions in key elections. Both approaches suggest that reciprocal causation may happen to some degree, but that money's independent influence on elections remains powerful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CLIMATE change & politics, CLIMATE change skepticism, POLARIZATION (Social sciences), PARTISANSHIP, ENVIRONMENTAL policy, UNITED States climate change policy, and UNITED States politics & government

Scholars who study the failure of climate change policy in the United States tend to focus on the mechanics of denial and the coordinated efforts of political operatives, conservative think tanks, and partisan news outlets to cast doubt on what has become overwhelming scientific consensus. In contrast, we address a factor that has been understudied until now – the role of climate change advocacy in the U.S. Congress. Using quantitative text analysis on a corpus of floor speeches published in the Congressional Record between 1996 and 2015, we find notable differences in the language partisans use. Democrats communicate in ways that are message-based, emphasizing the weight of scientific evidence, while Republicans tend towards a softer, cue-based narrative based on anecdotes and storytelling. We end with a discussion of what climate change advocates can hope to accomplish through the 'politics of talk,' especially in an age of heightened polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DAYLIGHT saving, VOTING, HISTORY, REPUBLICANS -- Political activity, ENERGY consumption, AMERICAN law -- History, UNITED States. Congress, and 20TH century

Objective: Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a government policy regulating the timing of daylight during the summer months. While DST's existence is taken for granted in modern American life, the adoption and expansion of the policy was heavily debated, with strong opposition that persists to the present day—a full century after its inception as a World War I energy‐efficiency program. After reviewing the history of DST, we analyze the political economy of congressional vote choice on DST policy. Method: We analyze votes of members of Congress on all DST‐specific roll calls between 1918 and 1985, assessing whether members voted to expand or reduce DST. Results: We find that ideology, party, geographic location, and the portion of a constituency made up by farmers all strongly predict member support for adopting and expanding DST—and that each of these effects is durable over time. Digging deeper, we find significant evidence for local representation on DST votes, as constituency‐specific factors are more strongly associated with congressional vote choice than partisanship or general ideological preferences. Conclusion: Overall, our results provide an original empirical assessment of the factors that drove the adoption and revision of a contentious and significant government policy that endures today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

STATUTORY interpretation, RULE of law, SEPARATION of powers, and LEGISLATIVE power

A promising new school of statutory interpretation has emerged that tries to wed the work of Congress with that of the courts by tying interpretation to congressional process. The primary challenge to this process-based interpretive approach is the difficulty in reconstructing the legislative process. Scholars have proposed leveraging Congress's procedural frameworks and rules as reliable heuristics to that end. This Article starts from that premise but will add wrinkles to it. The complications stem from the fact that each rule is adopted for distinct reasons and is applied differently across contexts. As investigation into these particularities proceeds, it becomes apparent that the complications are also rooted in something deeper--that Congress's procedures are often hollow, even fraudulent. Congress, it turns out, breaks its own rules with impunity. Which brings us to a deeper riddle: What is the significance of the rules to an interpreter when Congress routinely flouts them? If one's goal is to accurately depict the lawmaking process in hopes of deriving rules of construction that have democratic roots, then surely the interpreter must discard the rules as hopelessly unreliable guideposts. Then again, if the interpreter's ultimate aim is to serve democratic ends, then shouldn't we strive toward rule of law values, ensuring that Congress acts in an honorable way? Ultimately, I resolve the question by first asking what the rules are meant to do. Only then can we understand what it means to interpret by them. Through examination of many procedural contexts, I set forth an innocuous account of congressional defiance of the rules. Rather than a symptom of branch dysfunction, we should see the rules as guidelines that attempt to order congressional business but that ultimately must give way to politics. Nonetheless, some rules can help the interpreter paint a more faithful picture of congressional procedure in spite of their not being followed. More broadly, I conclude that interpretive presumptions deriving from the general efficacy of legislative rules, rather than their precise enforcement, are more successful in mirroring congressional reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COMMITTEES, SCHOLARS, REGRESSION analysis, LEGISLATION, UNITED States. Congress, and SENIORITY system

Objective: Despite the formal seniority system's demise, long‐serving members of the U.S. House of Representatives continue to demonstrate disproportionate legislative effectiveness in what scholars universally consider a strong‐party era. I test a bonding model of the continued utility of legislative seniority in an effort to understand the causal mechanism. Methods: I use regression and multilevel mixed effects analyses of roll‐call and co‐sponsorship data in the U.S. House from the 1990s and early 2000s to test hypotheses derived from the model. Results: The results are consistent with a process in which senior members attract support for their legislation through relationships cultivated over time. Seniority does not act like a commodity. Conclusion: Seniority continues to provide value to its holders in the House by providing them opportunities to strengthen bonds with colleagues used to build coalitions for their legislative proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POWER (Social sciences) and UNITED States politics & government

In this article, we use legislative correspondence to determine who gains access to key staffers in a congressional office. To evaluate our theory of the office power hierarchy, we test hypotheses using an original dataset of more than 3,000 correspondence records from the office of former member of Congress James R. Jones. Our empirical analysis is supplemented by an e-mail interview with Representative Jones. We find that key senior staffers are more likely to pay attention to powerful individuals and nonroutine matters. Letters from women and families and those dealing with routine legislation are more likely to be answered by lower-ranked staffers. These results are important because they reveal that even something as simple as constituent correspondence enters a type of power hierarchy within the legislative branch where some individuals are advantaged over others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LAW -- Sources, FORENSIC psychology, HUMAN behavior, RESEARCH, and UNITED States politics & government

The number of new laws produced by the United States Congress has declined in recent years, with the 2013 Congress yielding the fewest new laws ever. A formerly reliable pattern, in which law production was concentrated near the end of an annual session, appears to be vanishing. Drawing upon archival data sources and political commentary, we examine some possible shifts in reinforcement contingencies that may contribute to these changes. Our analysis suggests that the two types of changes in law production began at different points in time and may have different origins. We conclude with comments on the value of conducting empirically informed behavioral analyses of complex, everyday phenomena for which no experiments are possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNITED States senators, SOCIAL media, REPUTATION, COLLECTIVE representation, and LOCAL government

Twitter is changing strategic messaging in the U.S. Senate. Senators are using Twitter to frame their political brand for constituents, fostering a new digital dialog with constituents. I propose a constituent-driven theory of strategic messaging where senators curate a reputation on Twitter that matches their perceived expectations of their primary constituency. Representation on social media challenges what we know about senators' institutionally and politically constrained behavior by analyzing them in a new media climate where individual discretion is high and the costs are low. Using a unique dataset of more than 180,000 hand-coded tweets by senators, I show that senators develop two types of digital constituent relationships – an issue-oriented, national reputation versus traditional outreach to geographic constituents. Senators with issue-based constituencies prioritize policy, conveying an issue-driven style of representation; however, senators with tepid electoral futures pair their policy rhetoric with state-based issues or local concerns. These findings expand the scope of existing theories on congressional communication and link the technological shifts in Congress to information senators use to build relationships with voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ELECTION of legislators, ELECTION districts, POLITICAL candidates -- Attitudes, PERSONALITY, VOTERS -- Attitudes, and UNITED States. Congress. House

This article addresses the question of appearance-based effects by looking at the U.S. House of Representatives election 2016. We broaden the focus beyond existing studies by offering a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the three traits attractiveness, competence, and likability while simultaneously taking into account confounding third variables and possible interactions. Corresponding to the comparative character of electoral competition in the districts, we developed a relative measure of the three traits which we apply in an online survey. This measure also takes into account the raters' latency times, that is, their clicking speed, as a weighting factor for their ambiguity in the ratings. With these data we test whether appearance matters for the electoral outcome. We find that attractiveness positively affects the vote share, whereas perceived likability and competence play no role. The study also tests to what extent the found appearance effects are conditioned by incumbency status, age, and gender of the contestants. Furthermore, it gives hints which aspects of their appearance candidates could change to perform better at the ballot box. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WOMEN legislators, WOMEN scholars, EMPLOYMENT portfolios, GENDER stereotypes, and INTERNATIONAL relations

Scholars find that women who run for Congress are just as likely to win as men are, yet women face considerable challenges related to their sex on the campaign trail. Women are more likely to face challengers than men are, the challengers they face are typically more qualified, and gender stereotypes paint women as less able to handle important issues like defense and foreign affairs. We examine how women succeed in the face of these obstacle, arguing that women are successful, in part, because they craft large, diverse legislative agendas that include bills on a mix of topics. These topics include district interests, women's interests, and the masculine issues on which women are disadvantaged. We believe this balancing strategy allows women to develop reputations for competence on a wide range of issues, which in turn, helps them deter electoral challengers. We test our hypotheses by analyzing a comprehensive database of all bills introduced in the U.S. House between 1963 and 2009. We find that female MCs propose more bills, spread across more issues, than do men. Further, the topics of the bills women sponsor span a range of women's issues, masculine issues, and gender-neutral topics—giving support to the idea that women balance their legislative portfolios. Finally, we examine the electoral benefits to women of this strategy by analyzing rates of challenger emergence in Congressional races. We find that women must introduce twice as much legislation as men to see the probability of challenger emergence decrease to a level that is indistinguishable from that of men. The added effort and staff hours female MCs typically devote to crafting legislation, vis-à-vis male MCs, only serves to put them on equal footing with men. It does not give them an advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PARTISANSHIP, POLITICAL parties, DEMOCRACY, and UNITED States politics & government

The article discusses the extent to which the U.S. House of Representatives is beset by polarization and reduced to partisan gridlock, deeply compromising the effectiveness of democratic decision-making. Topics discussed include Senate's own rules that slow consideration of legislation to a standstill; solutions to congressional dysfunction; and ways in which congressional breakdown causes a crisis for democracy.

CANADA-United States relations, BILATERAL treaties, COVID-19 pandemic, INCOME tax, and SALES tax

The article informs on the 2020 Canada-U.S. Law Institute Symposium on 117th Congress. It mentions importance of Canada-U.S. relations and the importance of Congress in shaping some of bilateral relations. It also mentions that because of COVID, they not only had an increase in health care costs and expenditures, but more substantially, took a complete drop in revenue income taxes, sales taxes, business taxes, and gas taxes.