articles+ search results

POLITICAL science, ACTIVISM, PRESIDENTIAL administrations, HISTORICAL analysis, CONTENT analysis, and CHINA-United States relations

The Sino-U.S. relations tumbled during the Trump Administration. The talk of decoupling permeated the decision-making circle in Washington D.C. Many factors have contributed to the free fall. The roles Congress has played are undoubtedly one of them. Based on the new institutionalist approach, this study provides three analyses of recent China-related legislative activities. First, the historical analysis of legislative data illustrates a surge in congressional activism on China-related legislative activities. Second, the content analysis reveals some of the triggers in the deterioration of bilateral relations in recent years. Third, the political analysis of the critical congressional players and the structures and procedures Congress created provides some insight into the domestic and political logic of the congressional crusade against China. Finally, the paper ends with assessing the impact of the surge in Congressional activism on the new Biden Administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CONGRESSIONAL hearings (U.S.), DELIBERATION, SOCIAL groups, WOMEN legislators, and PARTICIPATION

The rising number of women in Congress changes deliberation. Using committee hearing transcripts from 1995 to 2017, we analyze how the gender composition of committees affects group dynamics in committee hearings. While we find limited evidence that increasing proportions of women affects women's participation, we find that discussion norms within committees change significantly in the presence of more women. Namely, interruptions decrease when there are more women on the committee; with higher proportions of women, men are less likely to interrupt others. Furthermore, committee members are more likely to engage and stay on the same topics in the presence of more women, suggesting a shift in norms toward more in-depth exchange. Overall, our results show that increasing the proportion of women changes discussion dynamics within Congress by shifting norms away from interruptions and one-sided talk in committees, thereby shifting group norms that govern decision-making during an important policy-making stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars posit an electoral link between congressional approval and majority party electoral fortunes, it is unclear whether citizens are grounding their assessments of approval on policy or valence grounds, such as retrospective economic evaluations. Whereas it is commonly understood that there is an ideological component to constituents' job approval of their individual members of Congress, in addition to a strong partisan effect, the ideological basis of institutional approval has not been established. Using cross-sectional and panel survey data, which allow for scaling citizens and the congressional parties in the same ideological space, I demonstrate that, distinct from the partisan basis of congressional approval, citizens' ideological distance from the majority party has a separate and distinct effect. These results suggest that the link between congressional approval and majority party fortunes is rooted in the collective ideological representation provided by the legislative majority in an increasingly responsible U.S. Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNITED States legislators, REPRESENTATIVE government, DEMOCRACY, RESPECT, POLITICAL parties, and MEDIATION

Canonical theories of democratic representation envision legislators cultivating familiarity to enhance esteem among their constituents. Some scholars, however, argue that familiarity breeds contempt, which if true would undermine incentives for effective representation. Survey respondents who are unfamiliar with their legislator tend not to provide substantive answers to attitude questions, and so we are missing key evidence necessary to adjudicate this important debate. We solve this problem with a randomized field experiment that gave some constituents an opportunity to gain familiarity with their Member of Congress through an online Deliberative Town Hall. Relative to controls, respondents who interacted with their member reported higher esteem as a result of enhanced familiarity, a mediation effect supporting canonical theories of representation. This effect is statistically significant among constituents who are the same political party as the member but not among those of the opposite party, although in neither case did familiarity breed contempt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PRESIDENTS of the United States, AGGRESSION (International law), NUCLEAR weapons, WAR powers, EXCLUSIVE & concurrent legislative powers, and WAR of 1812

This article argues that Congress can exercise its constitutional war powers to enact a law restricting the President from using nuclear weapons first. The article contends that using a nuclear weapon is qualitatively different from conventional warfare and that the first use of nuclear weapons marks a decision to enter into war. Therefore, nuclear first use is not a battlefield decision within the President's commander in chief power but rather a choice to enter the United States into a new type of conflict that could pose a direct, immediate, and existential threat to the U.S. homeland. Regulating that decision falls under Congress's exclusive war powers. Congress can limit its authorizations of war and prohibit military actions beyond its authorization. Therefore, Congress could stipulate that its war authorizations extend only to conventional hostilities unless Congress expressly authorizes the first use of nuclear weapons. Using its authority to limit authorizations of for the use of military force, Congress can enact a no-first-use law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

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]

POLITICAL development, BUREAUCRACY, DEMOCRACY, and POLITICAL systems

The institutional history of the United States Congress has lagged in recent decades as historians of American political development have focused on the history of administration and defined the state in terms of the autonomy of bureaucratic government institutions. In this article, I argue that the history of both Congress and the American state would benefit from analyzing Congress as an institution of the democratic state—an ongoing historical project in which the American people and their representatives in Congress have shaped American democracy and the creation, evolution, and administration of the American state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PRIVATE sector, OPPORTUNITY costs, LEGISLATORS, LOBBYISTS, and UNITED States senators

Does the potential for a successful private sector career induce legislators to leave office? How does this affect the representation voters receive? I show that when former US senators—who now work as lobbyists—become more successful, currently serving senators with similar characteristics are more likely to take private sector employment. I replicate all results on data from the House. A number of tests suggest that senators react to the opportunity costs of holding office. Investigating selection effects, I find that legislative specialists are attracted the most in the Senate. Preliminary evidence suggests that the least wealthy respond most strongly in the House. This suggests that the revolving door shapes the skill set of legislators and the representation voters receive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WAR, AERIAL bombing, PRESIDENTIAL administrations, WAR powers, ACTIVISM, DRONE warfare, and UNITED States presidential election, 2020

During his four years in office, Congress made historic challenges to President Donald Trump's authority as Commander in Chief, twice invoking the 1973 War Powers Resolution. The first resolution, passed in 2019, expressed disapproval of the U.S.' logistical and material support for Saudi Arabia's campaign against the Houthi rebel movement in Yemen. The second challenge occurred in 2020 after Trump authorized a drone strike that killed Iranian Major General Qassam Soleimani. In response, Congress passed a WPR that stipulated that any future military action against the regime would require express legislative authorization. Using a case study approach, this essay examines why Congress chose to employ the WPR as a policy tool after decades of dormancy. Ultimately, I argue that a confluence of factors compelled majorities in both chambers of Congress to use the War Powers Resolution to make a powerful rebuke of the administration's policy. Drawing on a wealth of existing literature about the factors that impede or compel Congressional activism in use-of-force debates, I find that in both cases, members of Congress faced strong moral, legal, and strategic incentives to act, with few attendant political risks. As such, while the passage of two wars powers resolutions represented an important milestone in interbranch relations, it likely does not presage a new era of Congressional assertiveness in war powers. Keywords: U.S. foreign policy; Donald Trump; Congress [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

HIGHER education, EDUCATION policy, LEADERSHIP, and NEGOTIATION

It has become increasingly difficult for the two major parties in Congress to reach agreement on major higher education legislation. As a result, the Higher Education Act is long overdue for reauthorization. Congressional stalemates on higher education legislation are not conducive to effective and productive governance in this important area of federal policy. The purpose of this comparative case study is to understand why some federal higher education legislative bills are successfully enacted while others, including some with bipartisan support, are not. Through the lens of negotiation theory, this study examines six federal higher education bills in order to understand the common characteristics of successfully enacted legislation and the common characteristics of unenacted legislation. Data sources include interviews with 28 policy actors and analysis of documents relevant to each case-study bill. [End Page 1] Findings from this study illuminate factors that make the passage of federal higher education bills more likely, including leadership and presidential priorities, cost savings, noncontroversial issues involving sympathetic policy beneficiaries, urgency, favorable congressional rules, support from the higher education lobby, and avoidance of political victories for the opposing party. Understanding how and why Congress members reach agreements on legislation may help forge a pathway toward more effective legislating in the higher education policy arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INCOME inequality, 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]

PARTISANSHIP, WAR, DEMOCRATS (United States), PRESIDENTIAL administrations, WAR crimes, SOCIAL media, and ASSASSINATION

Since March 2015, a coalition of states led by Saudi Arabia has been engaged in an armed conflict in Yemen. By the end of September 2018, and prior to the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the conflict had been ongoing for an equal 21 months under the Obama and Trump administrations. During this 42-month period, US support for the Coalition was largely consistent in terms of the material and logistical aid provided, despite well-documented war crimes and a humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Nonetheless, Congressional Democratic positions on US support for the Coalition shifted following the political transition from Obama to Trump. Through an analysis of congressional resolutions and social media engagement, it is argued that political interests rather than ideological preferences were the primary source of Democratic positions on US support for the Coalition in Yemen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EXECUTIVE orders, PRESIDENTS of the United States, MASS media & politics, GOVERNMENT policy, and DIVIDED government

Do politicians tend to adopt unpopular policies when the media and the public are distracted by other events? We examine this question by analyzing the timing of executive orders signed by U.S. presidents over the past four decades. We find robust evidence that executive orders are more likely to be signed on the eve of days when the news is dominated by other important stories that can crowd out coverage of executive orders. This relationship only holds in periods of divided government when unilateral presidential actions are more likely to be criticized by Congress. The effect is driven by executive orders that are more likely to make the news and to attract negative publicity, particularly those on topics on which president and Congress disagree. Finally, the timing of executive orders appears to be related to predictable news but not unpredictable ones, which suggests it results from a deliberate and forward‐looking PR strategy. [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]

PARTISANSHIP, EXPRESS highways, PUBLIC works, BANK loans, INFRASTRUCTURE (Economics), and UNITED States history

In the mid-1950s, the Eisenhower administration and Congress erupted in a sharp partisan debate over how to pay for the novel National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, slated to become the most expensive and expansive public works project in United States history. Republicans advocated for interest-bearing bonded debt borrowed from banks, while Democrats preferred to avoid debt service costs and apply a direct tax-and-pave approach to the enormous state building project. The chosen fiduciary practices promised to be as permanent as the physical infrastructure they paid to construct and maintain. Consequently, the fraught episode saw the two parties contest not only transportation infrastructure and the capital supply upon which it depended, but indeed the very nature and future of American political economy. When the tax-and-pave approach prevailed, it saved taxpayers interest costs, but came with its own perilous consequences as it set near-limitless development in motion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BIPARTISANSHIP and GENDER

This paper uses data on bill co-sponsorship in the U.S. House of Representatives to estimate gender differences in cooperative behaviour. We find that among Democrats there is no significant gender gap in the number of co-sponsors recruited, but women-sponsored bills tend to have fewer co-sponsors from the opposite party. On the other hand, we find robust evidence that Republican women recruit more co-sponsors and attract more bipartisan support on the bills that they sponsor. We interpret these results as evidence that cooperation is mostly driven by a commonality of interest, rather than gender per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SEPTEMBER 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001, UNITED States legislators, COUPS d'etat, INTELLIGENCE service, ASSASSINATION, and BLACK feminism

Copyright of Przeglad Sejmowy is the property of Kancelaria Sejmu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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

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.

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]

ENVIRONMENTAL policy, UNITED States elections, VOTING, and LEGISLATORS

Copyright of Review of Policy Research is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

UNITED States presidential election, 2020 and FOR-profit universities & colleges

RIGHT of privacy, PRIVACY, CONGRESSIONAL hearings (U.S.), FORUMS, GOVERNMENT corporations, DISCOURSE analysis, and PUBLIC spaces

This study explores how emerging US data privacy regulations are discussed at state and federal levels, examining Twitter discourse around Senate public hearings on data privacy and public forums on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The recent legal steps reflect growing public outcry over corporate data misuses and lack of appropriate legislation. The findings suggest that the issue public of Twitter users in this study largely considered corporations and the government as untrustworthy actors for privacy legislation. The political distrust was raising doubts over regulatory capture and if a future US federal privacy law will be weaker than state laws (e.g., CCPA) while overriding them. The study explores implications of the findings on the current deadlock over the state preemption clause in developing a comprehensive federal privacy law. I argue that the emerging regulatory efforts on data privacy may not be effective unless the public trust in institutions is regained in the US and that the continuing absence of a federal law amid the political distrust can leave people with limited individual privacy strategies as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTERNAL revenue law, TAX reform, TAX deductions, DRUG control, CANNABIS (Genus), and MARIJUANA legalization

Historically, the Internal Revenue Code ("Code") and U.S. courts applied a taxpayer-friendly approach to determine the deductibility of business expenses. As long as the taxpayer paid taxes, the Code and U.S. courts allowed her to deduct certain business expenses, even if the source of her income was illegal. But, with the rise of President Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs" and the enforcement of "no tolerance" drug policies in the 1970s, Congress restricted the taxpayer-friendly approach. In 1981, Congress enacted Section 280E, which forbids businesses who traffic Schedule I or II substances from deducting ordinary business expenses when filing their federal taxes. Today, with thirty-three states and the District of Columbia allowing the sale of medical or adult-use cannabis--defying the plant's Schedule I status--state-legal cannabis business owners must pay taxes on gross receipts, instead of net income. Section 280E does not satisfy any War on Drugs policy goals and cripples the development of the legal cannabis industry. To remedy these shortcomings, Congress must reform Section 280E by enacting the STATES Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

LEGISLATORS, SOCIAL influence, and POLITICAL attitudes

Legislators often rely on cues from colleagues to inform their actions. Several studies identify the boardinghouse effect, cue-taking among U.S. legislators who lived together in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, there remains reason for skepticism, as legislators likely selected residences for reasons including political similarity. We analyze U.S. House members' residences from 1801 to 1861, decades more than previously studied, and show not only that legislators tended to live with similar colleagues but also that coresidents with divergent politics were more likely to move apart. Therefore, we deploy improved identification strategies. First, using weighting, we estimate that coresidence increased voting agreement, but at only half of previously reported levels. Consistent with theoretical expectations, we find larger effects for weaker ties and those involving new members. Second, we study legislators who died in office, estimating that deaths increased ideological distance between survivors and deceased coresidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

SOCIAL Security (United States), COST-of-living adjustments, RETIREMENT age, FINANCIAL security, and RIGHT & wrong

Congress has a long menu of ways to reduce the growth of Social Security's future benefit costs. These include increasing the full retirement age, means testing benefits, reducing cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), and modifying the benefit formula. Choosing from that long menu is totally a political matter, without obvious right and wrong answers. Something must be done before too long to solve Social Security's financial problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

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]

ISLANDS, TYPE 1 diabetes, and ISLANDS of Langerhans

Clinical islet allotransplantation has been successfully regulated as tissue/organ for transplantation in number of countries and is recognized as a safe and efficacious therapy for selected patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus. However, in the United States, the FDA considers pancreatic islets as a biologic drug, and islet transplantation has not yet shifted from the experimental to the clinical arena for last 20 years. In order to transplant islets, the FDA requires a valid Biological License Application (BLA) in place. The BLA process is costly and lengthy. However, despite the application of drug manufacturing technology and regulations, the final islet product sterility and potency cannot be confirmed, even when islets meet all the predetermined release criteria. Therefore, further regulation of islets as drugs is obsolete and will continue to hinder clinical application of islet transplantation in the US. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network together with the United Network for Organ Sharing have developed separately from the FDA and BLA regulatory framework for human organs under the Human Resources & Services Administration to assure safety and efficacy of transplantation. Based on similar biologic characteristics of islets and human organs, we propose inclusion of islets into the existing regulatory framework for organs for transplantation, along with continued FDA oversight for islet processing, as it is for other cell/tissue products exempt from BLA. This approach would reassure islet quality, efficacy and access for Americans with diabetes to this effective procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLITICAL systems, CONGRESSIONAL hearings (U.S.), IMPEACHMENTS, IMPEACHMENT of presidents, BALANCE of power, INCUMBENCY (Public officers), and CONSTITUTIONAL history

Copyright of Przeglad Sejmowy is the property of Kancelaria Sejmu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

BIPARTISANSHIP, LOGISTIC regression analysis, ARTS endowments, PARTISANSHIP, REGRESSION analysis, FORTUNE, and DEMOCRATS (United States)

Objective: We examine the relationship between the Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), from the agency's inception in the mid‐1960s to the present. The NEA has seen its fortunes rise and fall over time, as congressional appropriations and scrutiny have fluctuated with ideological and partisan change in the House and Senate. Methods: We use Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and logistic regression models to examine the politics of the NEA systematically. Results: We find that while the NEA has enjoyed some bipartisan support throughout its tenure, assistance for the agency has been more likely to come from more liberal members and Democrats, respectively. We also uncover some evidence that particular states and districts benefit more of less from NEA grants. Conclusion: Overall, states and districts represented by Democrats do better in terms of both grants and grant dollars than states and districts represented by Republicans, with the most liberal Democratic House members doing especially well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VETO, BICAMERALISM, PRESIDENTS of the United States, POLITICAL parties, and POWER (Social sciences)

According to the conventional view, presidents are largely bereft of influence with an opposition-controlled Congress. Congress sends them legislation with a "take it or leave it" choice that maximizes the preferences of the opposition majority while minimizing presidents' preferences. To extricate themselves from this bind, presidents threaten vetoes. Past research suggests that their efforts largely fail, however, for two model-driven reasons: first, veto threats amount to minimally informative "cheap talk," and second, Congress is a unitary actor with firm control over its agenda. We relax both assumptions, bringing veto rhetoric into a setting more closely resembling real-world conditions. Presidents transmit credible veto threats to a heterogeneous, bicameral Congress where chamber rules enable the minority party to wield some influence over legislation. Examining the legislative histories of all veto-threatened bills passed between 1985 and 2016, we confirm that veto threats ward off about half of veto-targeted legislative provisions—a far greater share than for comparable unthreatened provisions. The House of Representatives is more likely to introduce and pass legislation objectionable to presidents and the Senate is more likely to accommodate presidents, findings consistent with the textbook description of the modern bicameral Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

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]

CHURCH schools, NINETEENTH century, COMMUNITY life, LOCAL history, CATHOLICS, TELEVISED sports, and SCHOOL building design & construction

When studying the history of our emigration, memorials of Slovak associations, organizations, and settlements, issued on the occasion of important anniversaries, jubilees, or on the occasion of building a new church or school or even their consecration are highly valued sources. There are hundreds of such memorials available in the libraries in the USA, which show a real picture of the life of the Slovak community in the USA without an ideological assessment coming from Slovakia. The first of such memorials originated in the early 1930s when the first Slovak associations established at the end of the 19th century began to celebrate their jubilees. Such an important memorial that shows a probe into the history of the Slovak community to the USA is the memorial of the XIII. congress and X. festival (Pamätnica XIII. Sjazdu a X. Sletu) of the Slovak Catholic Sokol in 1936. The Slovak Catholic Sokol was and still is one of the largest Slovak Catholic organizations ever, having branches in all US states where Slovaks settled down. It focused not only on social and organizational aspects but also on the sport being an important part of its programme. The memorial of the XIII. congress and the X. festival (Pamätnica XIII. Sjazdu a X. Sletu) of the Slovak Catholic Sokol describes the events which happened on August 21 - 26, 1936, when members of the Slovak Catholic Sokol met in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since some of the contributions to this Memorial are so interesting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NORTH American Free Trade Agreement, INTERNATIONAL relations, and STATE power

Copyright of Mural Internacional is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

UNITED States legislators, MICROBLOGS, POLITICAL communication, MASS media policy, and RHETORIC

Social media incentivizes members of Congress to routinely advertise their policy agenda for the public; however, it is unclear whether those expressed policy priorities are linked to their legislative behaviour. The incongruous nature of unlimited, online messages with constrained policy agendas necessitates assessing the association between what politicians say and their institutional actions. Using a dataset of senators' tweets from the 114th Congress, we analyse policy rhetoric on Twitter and bill sponsorship across a variety of issues in the Senate to show that senators' policy priorities on Twitter are representative of congressional activity. These results broaden the application of social media as a tool for policy agendas – extending theories of limited attention to lawmakers' political communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LEGISLATIVE bills, CONGRESSIONAL hearings (U.S.), LEGISLATIVE histories, and LEGISLATIVE bodies

The U.S. House and Senate were designed to have an adversarial relationship. Yet, House members and senators often collaborate on the introduction of “companion” bills. We develop a theory of these cross-chamber collaborations, which asserts that companion bill introductions are driven by legislators’ desire to increase the probability of bill passage and the relational difficulties in developing companion bill partnerships. To test the expectations emerging from our theory, we develop a novel data set of every companion bill introduction in the 111th and 112th U.S. Congress. Then, using social networking techniques, we develop an empirical model of partner selection in companion bill introduction. Our results are supportive of our expectations, and suggest that companion bills are more likely to survive chamber deliberation and are typically introduced by senior members with secure electoral margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NEW START Treaty, 2010, CONGRESSIONAL hearings (U.S.), FACTIONALISM (Politics), RATIFICATION of treaties, and BALLISTIC missile defenses

The United States Senate voted to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia in 2010 by 74-26, all 26 voting against being Republicans. The change in the voting outcome compared to the 95-0 result in the 2003 SORT vote was dramatic. Using inductive frame analysis, this article analyzes committee hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations and the Armed Services committees in order to identify competing narratives defining individual senators’ positions on the ratification of the New START. Building on conceptual framework introduced by Walter Russel Mead (2002), it distinguishes four schools of thought: Jacksonian, Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, and Wilsonian. The argumentation used in the hearings is deconstructed in order to understand the increase in opposition to the traditionally bipartisan nuclear arms control regime. The results reveal a factionalism in the Republican Party. The argumentation in opposition to ratification traces back to the Jacksonian school, whereas argumentation supporting the ratification traces back to Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian and Wilsonian traditions. According to opposition, the Obama administration was pursuing its idealistic goal of a world-without-nuclear-weapons and its misguided Russia reset policy by any means necessary – most importantly by compromising with Russia on U.S. European-based missile defense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WOMEN in politics, UNITED States elections, and REPUBLICANS

Using a new data set of state political party bylaws and demographics of state party chairs, I evaluate whether women were more likely to run for Congress during the 2018 midterm elections from parties with higher levels of gender diversity. I construct three measures of gender diversity, whether each party was chaired by a woman, granted committee membership to an allied women's group, and required gender parity among their committee members. Democratic parties are more likely to be chaired by a woman and to require gender parity among their members, but Republican parties are more likely to grant membership to allied women's groups. Considering the implications of these rules, I find Democratic women were more likely to run for Congress representing parties that grant membership to an allied women's group and parties chaired by a woman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EXECUTIVE power, PRESIDENTS of the United States, SEPARATION of powers, UNILATERAL acts (International law), and POLICY sciences

Though the US presidency literature widely examines how Congress limits executive power, recent discourse argues the public is the more effective restraint. This paper develops a theory explaining when inter-institutional relations and public constraints influence the alteration of unilateral directives. Both are important for curbing substantial policy changes that likely provoke congressional and public response. Using data on when executive orders are amended and revoked between 1955 and 2013 to measure policy shifts, I find orders are less likely to be altered under presidents facing oppositional or cohesive congresses and high public disapproval. Both types of constraints are strongest for large policy changes, that is, revocations or targeting ideologically distant orders. This study advances the unilateralism literature by examining interactions between multiple constraints and degrees of policy change, while also contributing to studies of policy duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLITICAL parties, FEDERAL legislation, and TWENTY-first century

U.S. federal environmental legislation has followed a significant logistic growth curve from 1862 through 2012, as determined by the cumulative number of acts per Congress. Growth of federal environmental legislation reached an asymptote around 2003; the number of environmental regulatory acts passed per year has sharply declined since 2002. Republican presidential years generally resulted in more federal environmental acts than Democratic presidential years, with the greatest total number of acts passed occurring during the eight occurrences of a Republican president and Democratic control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Statistically, however, the number of acts is evenly distributed among presidential political parties. The significant decline in U.S. federal environmental legislation since 2003 is presumably due to the second anti-environmental regulation backlash in the U.S. Congress that began in 1995, and an apparent, recent reversal by the Republican Party of its historically strong support of pro-environmental legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLITICAL elites, ECONOMIC elites, COMMERCIAL policy, LABOR market, PUBLIC housing, PARTISANSHIP, and LOCAL elections

Driven by concerns over American jobs, factions within both the Democrat and Republican parties have appealed for greater trade protection. Does the legislative record reflect this rhetoric and have protectionist demands impacted the direction of trade policy in recent decades? Our answers are yes and no, respectively. We investigate the content of all 3356 trade bills introduced in Congress, 2005–2016, and classify them as liberalizing and protectionist. Analyzing legislator decisions to sponsor or cosponsor bills, we show that legislators who represent districts hardest hit by trade competition promote protectionism at a higher rate. We find strong evidence that district economic conditions reinforce the party position for Democrats and reveal intra-party cleavages among Republicans. Yet, these local interests are quickly sidelined in the legislative process. The few trade bills that become public law advance liberalization. The attrition process reflects the positions of party leadership who exercise gatekeeping powers to promote legislation that aligns with productive firms and the broader national interest. Thus we show how local economic conditions, partisan politics, and Congressional elite jointly shape the direction of trade policy, reinforcing U.S. engagement in the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ENTREPRENEURSHIP, PROBLEM solving, LEGISLATORS, MALES, and FEMALES

Research indicates that congresswomen are more effective at moving bills through the lawmaking process than their male counterparts. To investigate why, we discuss what legislative entrepreneurship involves and explain why it can serve as the basis for problem-solving and effective lawmaking in the U.S. Congress. We also examine the entrepreneurial work that members of Congress did on behalf of bills that they sponsored from 1973 to 2008. Among other findings, we observe that congresswomen, especially those in the minority party, are more entrepreneurial than their male colleagues. This finding enhances our understanding of why female lawmakers are more effective lawmakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most climate change actions take place in the international context in terms of multilateral negotiations and accords or in bilateral agreements between heads of the state. Parliaments or legislatures such as the United States Congress are in a crucial position when it comes to converting agreements or aims to action in domestic politics. The United States has played a volatile role in international negotiations on climate change. From categorically rejecting the Kyoto protocol during the George W. Bush administration, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would join the Paris Climate Accord prior to President Donald J. Trump's announcement of the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Accord. In domestic politics, too, efforts to address climate change have likewise varied. This article explores the complexity of climate change as a political question in the United States and considers the problematic issue that explains why the United States Congress has not have similar momentum to address climate change since the House of Representatives passed cap and trade legislation in 2009. The focus will be on theoretical discussions on congressional inaction and the United States Congress members' views on how and to what extent that institution should play a role in addressing climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EXECUTIVE-legislative relations, POLITICAL agenda, LEGISLATION, and UNITED States Congressional elections, 2018

Donald Trump came to the presidency claiming a unique proficiency in negotiating deals. Once in office, however, he floundered. He adopted a passive approach to agenda setting, putting him in a reactive mode. Although he received high levels of support from Republicans in both chambers of Congress and although their leaders kept votes that he might lose off the agenda, Congress passed little significant legislation at his behest. The president received historically low levels of support from Democratic senators and representatives and could not win congressional assent for new healthcare policy, immigration reform, or infrastructure spending. Government shutdowns and symbolic slaps at his foreign policies characterized his tenure, even with his party in control of the legislature. He was even less successful after Democrats gained control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]