articles+ search results

Environmental policy -- United States, United States elections, Voting -- United States, 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]

Federal Reserve monetary policy, Federal Reserve banks, and United States -- Politics & government -- 20th century

Applying an array of quasi-experimental designs, proponents of causal inference approaches to studying American politics are setting their sights on the study of Congress. In many ways, that focus makes sense: improved research design allows us to draw stronger analytical inferences from observational data, bolstering our understanding of legislative politics. But are the pursuit and methods of causal inference equally well suited to the study of Congress and history? In this article, I consider the application of causal inference methods in historically oriented studies of Congress. Drawing from my coauthored work on the interdependence of Congress and the Federal Reserve over the Fed's first century and earlier work on the institutional evolution of Congress, I point to the tradeoffs between knowledge and certainty that are endemic in causal inference approaches—and arguably especially so in the study of Congress and history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public welfare, Welfare state, Commerce, Network effect, and Forecasting

We compare the drivers of U.S. congressmen's votes on trade and migration reforms since the 1970s. Standard trade theory suggests that trade reforms that lower barriers to goods from less skilled‐labor abundant countries and migration reforms that lower barriers to low‐skilled migrants should have similar distributional effects, hurting low‐skilled U.S. workers while benefiting high‐skilled workers. In line with this prediction, we find that House members representing more skilled‐labor abundant districts are more likely to support trade and migration reforms that benefit high‐skilled workers. Still, important differences exist: Democrats are less supportive of trade reforms than Republicans, while the opposite is true for migration reforms; welfare state considerations and network effects shape votes on migration, but not on trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congressional Review Act, 1996 (U.S.)

The article offers information that how U.S. houses of Congress embracing the U.S. Congressional Review Act(CRA). It mentions that U.S. President, Donald Trump and G.O.P. or Republican Party lawmakers worked on controversial rules regarding the CRA. It discusses that Federal Communications Commission issued rules retracting Obama-era net neutrality rules, Public Citizen performed an about-face on the CRA.

Computer algorithms, Computer simulation, Computer engineering, and Set design

Recent research has leveraged computer simulations to identify the effect of gerrymandering on partisan bias in U.S. legislatures. As a result of this method, researchers are able to distinguish between the intentional partisan bias caused by gerrymandering and the natural partisan bias that stems from the geographic sorting of partisan voters. However, this research has yet to explore the effect of gerrymandering on other biases like reduced electoral competition and incumbency protection. Using a computer algorithm to design a set of districts without political intent, I measure the extent to which the current districts have been gerrymandered to produce safer seats in Congress. I find that gerrymandering only has a minor effect on the average district, but does produce a number of safe seats for both Democrats and Republicans. Moreover, these safe seats tend to be located in states where a single party controls the districting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bounded rationality, Government policy, Forecasting, Political parties, and Parties

Since the 1960s, Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress have taken increas- ingly polarized positions, while the public's policy positions have remained centrist and moderate. We explain this apparent contradiction by developing a dynamical model that predicts ideological positions of political parties. Our approach tackles the challenge of incorporating bounded rationality into mathematical models and integrates the empirical finding of satisficing decision making|voters settle for candidates who are \good enough" when deciding for whom to vote. We test the model using data from the U.S. Congress over the past 150 years and find that our predictions are consistent with the two major political parties' historical trajectories. In particular, the model explains how polariza- tion between the Democrats and Republicans since the 1960s could be a consequence of increasing ideological homogeneity within the parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public finance, Federal government, Practical politics, and Federal budgets

In recent years, Congress has recurrently failed to meet its minimum responsibilities in federal budgeting. This article analyzes whether it is possible to repair this problem, using concepts popularized by Allen Schick in his influential article 'The Road to PPB.' His article compared the PPB reform effort to the history of budget process reforms that started with the design of the executive budget. It publicized a logical sequence of budget process improvements that started with control and then advanced through management and planning. The article did not substantially address the role of Congress, but eight years after it was published, Congress reasserted its constitutional role in the budget process. Its record of performance since then has ranged from mixed to dysfunctional. The Congress has been criticized for budgetary delays, micromanagement, myopia, procrastination, indiscipline, and an inability to prioritize intelligently. If these faults are set in stone, then an integrated system of budgeting, as described in 'The Road to PPB' and related work, is unattainable. On the other hand, if reform of Congressional budgeting is politically feasible, improvements to that system can utilize the unique contributions that a legislature can make to a good system of budgeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COMMITTEES, Regression analysis, Legislation, United States. Congress, SENIORITY system, and Scholars

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]

Daylight saving, Republicans -- Political activity, Energy consumption -- United States, and American law -- History

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]

Codification of law and Statutory interpretation

Where does lawgo afterCongress enacts it, but before courts interpret it and the public reads it? This seemingly simple question is in fact very complicated, without a single, predictable answer. This Article provides the first in-depth scholarly examination of the process by which enacted laws are organized and presented for public consumption, known as codification, a process that has mostly escaped the notice of judges and scholars of legislation, and is not explained in textbooks meant to introduce lawyers to the creation and interpretation of law. It argues that the failure to account for this process has left gaps in our understanding of what law is and how it should be interpreted. Law often undergoes significant change between enactment and the time it is organized within the U.S. Code, which is a compilation of Congress's individual enactments. The decision of how to organize these individual enactments within the Code, or whether to leave them out of the Code altogether, is made by a nonpartisan group of lawyers within Congress known as the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. These technical organizers have significant power over how (and in some cases, whether) courts, litigants, and the public see an enacted law, although their power differs depending on the type of Code title. This Article's descriptive and normative claims have realworld application because organization and context are central to interpretation, but interpreters have failed to grapple with how codification affects organization and context. This Article argues that interpreters must understand the full complexity of how law is organized and presented before they can make confident pronouncements about congressional bargains and legislative intent. Understanding the codification process provides a more accurate, albeit more complicated, path forward for statutory interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socioeconomics, Debt, Countervailing power, and Subordinationism

For the last fifty years, Congress has valorized the act of borrowing money as a catalyst for equality, embracing the proposition that equality can be bought with a loan. In a series of bedrock statutes aimed at democratizing access to loans and purchase money for marginalized groups, Congress has evinced a "borrowing-as-equality" policy that has largely focused on the capacity of "credit," while acoustically separating its treatment of "debt" as though one can meaningfully exist without the other. In taking this approach, Congress has proffered credit as a means of equality without expressly accounting for the countervailing force of debt relative to social subordination. Yet, debt has itself functioned as a mechanism of the very subordination that Congress's invocation of "credit" aspires to address. This Article argues that because in articulating a borrowing-asequality policy Congress is implicitly encouraging debt among marginalized communities, Congress should develop policies that recognize both the potential upside value of borrowing and the particular vulnerabilities that debt creates for socioeconomically marginalized groups. More broadly, any policy that invokes borrowing as a social good must engage more deeply with how credit and debt work in a social context. In other words, credit cannot meaningfully function as a social good without due attention to and a solution for the work of debt as a social ill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taxpayer advocates, Information technology, and Computers

As the Service's technological infrastructure continues to show its age, both the Service and Congress appear to be recognizing the importance of the Service having technological infrastructure that allows it to take advantage of the capabilities of modern computing systems to improve both its enforcement and service efforts. The National Taxpayer Advocate has entered this conversation as well, encouraging Congress and the Service to prioritize improvements to the Service's technological infrastructure but simultaneously raising legitimate concerns about the impact that an overreliance on technology might have on taxpayer rights, particularly rights of vulnerable population groups who may not be able to utilize technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COMMITTEES, United States. Congress. House, United States -- Politics & government, Democrats -- Political activity, and United States political parties

The article informs that discusses how the U.S. House committee assignment has long been a widely-discussed topic in academic research due to its strategic legislative importance. Topics discussed include relationships between party loyalty and committee assignment; use of members' loyalty score as the degree of similarity between a member's roll-call voting record and that of the party's majority; and difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Electoral college, Popular vote, Presidential elections, and Direct democracy

Objectives: We offer a typology of possible reforms to the Electoral College (EC) in terms of changes to its two most important structural features: seat allocations that are not directly proportional to population and winner‐take‐all outcomes at the state level. This typology allows us to classify four major variants of "reform" to the present EC in a parsimonious fashion. Many of the proposals we consider have been suggested by well‐known figures, some debated in Congress, and they include what we view as most likely to be taken seriously. We evaluate these proposals solely in terms of one simple criterion: "Would they be expected to reduce the likelihood of inversions between EC and popular vote outcomes?" Methods: We answer this question by looking at the data on actual presidential election outcomes at the state level over the entire period 1868–2016, and at the congressional‐district level over the period 1956–2016. We consider the implications for presidential outcomes of these different alternative mechanisms, in comparison to the actual electoral outcome and the popular vote outcome. In addition, we consider the implications of a proposal to increase the size of the U.S. House (Ladewig and Jasinski, 2008). Results: Our results show that inversions from the popular vote happen under all proposed alternatives at nearly the same rate as under the current EC rules, with some proposals actually making inversions more frequent. Conclusions: The major difference between the present EC rule and alternative rules is not in frequency of inversions, but is in which particular years the inversions occur. As for the proposal to increase the size of the House, we show that any realistic increase in House size would have made no difference for the 2016 outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational socialization, Social learning, Influence, and Socialization

Organizations have idiosyncratic norms and practices that govern the exercise of power. Newcomers learn these unwritten rules through organizational socialization. In organizations with dominant and subordinate groups, structural power can shift between groups as the resources they control ebb and flow. We examine how entering the organization in a dominant group affects (1) the ability to exert influence following subsequent structural shifts in power and (2) the rate at which people learn to wield influence. On one hand, entering in a dominant group may boost self-efficacy and catalyze social learning about effective influence tactics. On the other hand, entering in a dominant group may make people susceptible to the adverse psychological consequences of experiencing power, which inhibit social learning. We examine these dynamics in the context of the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2005. We find partial support for both accounts: (1) senators who entered in the political majority were less effective than their counterparts who entered in the minority at converting subsequent structural shifts of power into influence; however, (2) majority entrants learned how to wield influence following such shifts at a faster rate than did minority entrants. We discuss implications for research on power, learning, and socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RESEARCH, Law -- Sources, United States -- Politics & government, Forensic psychology, and Human behavior

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]

Price maintenance, Securities fraud -- Lawsuits & claims, and Class actions (Civil procedure) -- United States

The article discusses America's Congress in relation to an increase in securities-fraud (SF) class action lawsuits in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's (Court's) ruling in the 1988 SF case Basic Inc. v. Levinson. According to the article, class action litigation is ineffective at deterring SF and compensating victims. The SF case Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc. is assessed, along with a price-maintenance theory and the Court's effort to limit SF class actions.

Legislative bodies -- Presiding officers, Logistic regression analysis, Partisanship, and Political participation

Objectives: Scholarship on the U.S. Senate has demonstrated the pivotal role the presiding officer can play when asked to interpret the chamber's rules and precedents. Therefore, our objective is to broadly evaluate how questions of order are arbitrated in the U.S. Senate. Methods: Using a multinomial logistic regression, we estimate the effect of partisanship on adjudicating questions of order in the Senate before and after the institutionalization of the parliamentarian. Results: Our results indicate that while short‐term partisan interests play an important role in determining how presiding officers interpret rules and precedents, the emergence of the Senate parliamentarian in the 1920s served to reduce uncertainty regarding procedural matters in the chamber. Conclusions: This change has led to fewer instances of partisan rulings on questions of order and raised the costs of executing a drastic change in Senate procedure via unorthodox procedures. However, the introduction of the parliamentarian has not reduced the likelihood a ruling is overturned. As such, more narrow procedural changes have been used to support majorities over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constitutional law, Constitutional history, and Mcculloch v. Maryland (Supreme Court case)

The idea that Congress can legislate only on the basis of its enumerated powers is an orthodox proposition of constitutional law, one that is generally supposed to have been recognized as essential ever since the Founding. Conventional understandings of several episodes in constitutional history reinforce this proposition. But the reality of many of those events is more complicated. Consider the 1791 debate over creating the Bank of the United States, in which Madison famously argued against the Bank on enumerated-powers grounds. The conventional memory of the Bank episode reinforces the sense that the orthodox view of enumerated powers has been fundamental, and agreed upon, from the beginning. But in 1791, Members of the First Congress disagreed about whether Congress needed to point to some specific enumerated power in order to create the Bank. Moreover, Madison's enumeratedpowers argument against the Bank seems to have involved two rethinkings of Congress's enumerated powers, one about the importance of enumeration in general and one about the enumeration's specific application to the Bank. At the general level, Madison in the Bank debate elevated the supposed importance of the enumerated-powers framework: in 1787 he had been skeptical that enumerating congressional powers could be valuable, but in the Bank debate he described the enumerated-powers framework as essential to the Constitution. At the particular level, Madison's enumerated-powers argument against the Bank seems to have been an act of last-minute creativity in which he took constitutional objections that sounded naturally in the register of affirmative prohibitions, but which the Constitution's text did not clearly support, and gave them a textual home by translating them into the register of enumerated powers. Madison's move may have set a paradigm for enumerated-powers arguments at later moments in constitutional history: subsequent enumerated-powers arguments down to those against the Affordable Care Act might be best understood as translations of constitutional objections best expressed in terms of affirmative prohibitions, forced into the register of enumerated powers because the relevant prohibitions are not found in the Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]