Showing papers on "Legislation published in 1968"

Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach

Abstract: Since the turn of the twentieth century, legislation in Western countries has expanded rapidly to reverse the brief dominance of laissez faire during the nineteenth century. The state no longer merely protects against violations of person and property through murder, rape, or burglary but also restricts ‘discrimination’ against certain minorities, collusive business arrangements, ‘jaywalking’, travel, the materials used in construction, and thousands of other activities. The activities restricted not only are numerous but also range widely, affecting persons in very different pursuits and of diverse social backgrounds, education levels, ages, races, etc. Moreover, the likelihood that an offender will be discovered and convicted and the nature and extent of punishments differ greatly from person to person and activity to activity. Yet, in spite of such diversity, some common properties are shared by practically all legislation, and these properties form the subject matter of this essay.

Medical Significance of Laboratory Results

Abstract: Tests performed in clinical laboratories are among the main diagnostic aids available to physicians. The great demand for these tests and the enormous number performed have led to wide public interest in the manner in which they are carried out. In turn, this interest has led to Federal specifications through legislation for clinical laboratories in two areas. One is the Medicare Act, to assure that Medicare beneficiaries receive proper services by setting standards for acceptable laboratories which may be paid under the act. The other is the Clinical Laboratories Improvement Act of 1967, to regulate the laboratories dealing in interstate commerce. Regulations under both acts set basic standards of operation and require participation in a proficiency testing program to help assure accurate laboratory results. Fundamental to consideration of proper accurate test results is the question: how accurate must clinical laboratory work be? There is no simple over-all answer to this question, and any answer that we find will be temporary, depending on the progress of medical knowledge and technology. The Standards Committee* of the College of American Pathologists, which has been the major proficiency surveying body in the United States for a number of years,t has been deeply involved in this question since

The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act: A Model for Reform

Abstract: Few events in recent legal history have as great a potential for beneficial impact on the medical community as the final approval of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act on July 30, 1968, at the most recent National Conference of the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. The Uniform Act, which is appended, received the endorsement of the American Bar Association on Aug 7, 1968. The Act is designed to facilitate the donation and use of human tissues and organs for transplantation and other medical purposes and provides a favorable legal environment for such activities. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws is composed of law professors, lawyers, and judges, representing every state, whose function is to help make state laws more uniform and up to date. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act is the product of three years of intensive study by a special committee of the conference and is particularly

Bureaucracy and Morality: An Organizational Perspective on a Moral Crusade

Abstract: Utilizing an organizational perspective, the impact of the Narcotics Bureau upon the enactment and expansion of narcotics legislation is examined as part of a larger discussion of the importance of bureaucratic and environmental factors in determining the course of moral crusades and social movements. While there is no attempt to refute Becker's “moral entrepreneur” explanation of the Marihuana Tax Act, certain inconsistencies and apparent misinterpretations are pointed out, and an alternative explanation is explored. It is argued that similar to the earlier expansion of narcotics legislation, the Marihuana Tax Act was the result of a bureaucratic response to environmental pressure—that the Narcotics Bureau, faced with a non-supportive environment and a decreasing budgetary appropriation that threatened its survival, generated a crusade against marihuana use which resulted in the passage of the act and the alteration of a societal value.

The Repeal of Fair Housing in California: An Analysis of Referendum Voting*

Abstract: In the summer of 1963 the California legislature passed the Rumford Act, prohibiting racial discrimination by realtors and the owners of apartment houses and homes built with public assistance. California real estate and property management interests, which had fought the Act's passage, then placed on the November 1964 ballot an initiative provision (Proposition 14) that would amend the state constitution to repeal the Rumford Act and prevent the state or any locality within it from adopting any fair housing legislation. During most of 1964 intense and lavishly financed campaigns were fought by supporters and opponents of Proposition 14. Almost 96 per cent of the people who turned out on election day voted on the measure, which passed by a ratio of two to one. In one sense the campaign and balloting were an exercise in futility, for in May of 1967 the United States Supreme Court declared Proposition 14 unconstitutional. Some short-term consequences of its passage were apparent, however. For several years there was a severe weakening of legal sanctions against racial discrimination in housing, resulting in abandonment of many cases that were underway before the 1964 election. For eighteen months the federal government froze $120 million in funds for California urban renewal projects. Less tangibly, it is claimed that the proposition's overwhelming popularity contributed to the Watts riots and other racial violence in California.

Toward Better Teaching of Home Economics

Abstract: Since all home economists do some teaching, principles of effective teaching of home economics are presented. The role of home economics educators in today's lifestyles, in the environment and the family, in finding solutions to social problems, and in educational movements as a whole is explored. The teaching of specific age groups (children, youth and adults) is also discussed. Other topics consider the learning environment; research; creativity; and values. The concept of professionalism is addressed in chapters on nutrition education, professional preparation and training, public relations, legislation and grant writing. Throughout the text, the latest theories, ideas and issues concerning the teaching of home economics are examined

Women and American Trade Unions

Abstract: Four aspects of women's participation in trade- union life are examined: the attitude of unions today toward protective legislation for women; the effect which the recent federal legislation on "equality" has had on women's opportu nities in the shops and the unions' attitudes toward handling these new kinds of grievances and demands; the degree to which unions include special clauses covering women's wages and conditions in their contracts; and the participation of women in the political life of the unions. Few changes in attitudes or practice are found to characterize the unions in the 1960's as compared with those in the 1940's, when THE ANNALS last carried a report on this subject.

Compliance with Legal Regulations: Observation of Stop Sign Behavior

Abstract: THERE IS AN AGE-OLD CONTROVERSY over the relative importance and feasibility of formal and informal controls of human behavior. One body of theory, most notably the Sumner tradition, has held that control by formal laws is unimportant and dependent compared to controls by other means: "Acts of legislation come out of the mores.... Things which have been in the mores are put under police regulation and later under positive law. . . . The regulations must conform to the mores, so that the public will not think them too lax or too strict."1 Others have argued, that formal law can and does increasingly become an agent of social control. Gunnar Myrdal has voiced "grave scepticism" toward Sumner's approach2 and Edwin Lemert has contrasted Sumner's "passive" social controls with "active" social control.3 There have been, however, relatively few attempts to discover the actual

Congressional Staff and Public Policy-Making: The Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation

Abstract: MZ /[ANY STUDENTS OF Congress have observed that, due to the increased scope and complexity of governmental activity, congressmen need expert staff assistance if they are to legislate in an informed way and retain some independence of the executive branch and its expertise.' Confronted with multifarious demands on their time, the argument goes, legislators have a difficult time mastering the intricacies of substantive policy proposals; partly as a result, many policy-making functions theoretically reserved for the legislative branch have been transferred, in fact if not always in form, to the executive. Carried out to its logical conclusion this development would appear to culminate in the suggestion made by Samuel P. Huntington that Congress give up whatever lawmaking power it still has: "Explicit acceptance of the idea that legislation was not its primary function would, in large part, simply be recognition of the direction which change has already been taking. It would legitimize and expand the functions of constituent service and ad-

The House and the Federal Role: A Computer Simulation of Roll-Call Voting

Abstract: Much of the business of the U.S. Congress in the post war period has involved issues concerning the size and scope of activities of the federal government. The legislation in this area can be traced, for the most part, to measures which originated during the period of the New Deal in response to the Great Depression and to measures enacted during World War II to meet the short-run exigencies attendant to rapid economic and social mobilization. From the point of view of the expansion of the federal role, the Eisenhower years are of some moment. While they marked a lull in the expansionist trend witnessed under the Democratic presidencies of Roosevelt and Truman, their significance lies in the fact that despite the change in adminsitrations, there was no reversal of the policies begun during the Roosevelt years. While most of the Republican legislators were on record in opposition to the expansion of the federal role, the failure of the Republican Party to introduce and enact legislation to reverse the trend of federal expansion resulted in a new plateau of federal activity from which the congressional dialogue was to proceed during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. While the 87th Congress, meeting during Kennedy's first two years in the White House, did not enact the quantity of legislation expanding the federal role that Kennedy had called for in his inaugural, In the 88th Congress both parties supported a larger federal role to a greater extent than they had previously. In fact the first sessions of the 88th Congress as it bears on the federal role has been summed up as follows: “At no time did the majority of both parties reject a larger federal role.” (Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1963, p. 724) With two exceptions, the statement holds true for the second session in 1964.

The Poor, the Schools, and Equal Protection

Abstract: This article is the first in a projected series on Law and Education, which will deal with both legislation and court decisions relevant to education.

The Sources and Nature of Jewish Law and its Application in the State of lsrael, Part II

Abstract: E. Public Participation as a Factor in the Development of Jewish Law An additional important factor in the development of Jewish Law was the participation of the communal leaders and men of affairs in some of the Jewish legal institutions and in particular the major role of the community and its leaders in Jewish legislation. I have already referred at some length to the existence of the lay courts, on a considerable number of which halachic scholars sat alongside the lay leaders, business men and artisans, as well as to the institution of arbitration, in various areas of the Diaspora. Although in certain places and at certain periods these institutions induced limitations upon and even prejudiced the orderly development of the system of Jewish Law—and sometimes a proper juridical regime in general—nevertheless it would appear that when these institutions worked in harmony with the scholars and the courts constituted of qualified judges, this cooperation contributed not a little to the close adaptation of Jewish Law to the problems of everyday life, an event which was accompanied by great and fruitful development. In pre-emancipation Jewish society, which was as a group traditionally-minded, recognizing the higher virtues of and bound by the Halachah, such cooperation largely existed.

U. S. Marijuana Legislation and the Creation of a Social Problem

Abstract: (1968). U. S. Marijuana Legislation and the Creation of a Social Problem. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs: Vol. 2, Current Marijuana Issues, pp. 93-104.

A Preface to Government Support of Research and Development: Research Legislation and the National Bureau of Standards, 1935-41

Abstract: While addressing the American Engineering Council in the fall of 1938, Lyman J. Briggs, director of the National Bureau of Standards, asked the rhetorical question: "Is there not an essential place in Government for basic research in physics and chemistry in order to provide the foundations for new industries?" Not surprisingly, he had already formulated an answer. Between the pure research carried on in the universities of the nation and the applied research carried on by industries seeking solutions to their immediate problems lay a neglected need for research "which must be quite fundamental in character, but has some distant practical objective."' Between 1935 and 1941 Briggs attempted to convince Congress that his bureau should provide this basic research for American industry-that it should act as a major transmission belt between science and technology. Brigg's failure to win congressional support for his program was due, in part, to the fact that not everyone was convinced that such a major change in the relationship between the federal government and American science would be for the better: there were worries about the cost and consequences of new programs. More important, however, his failure was due to the opposition of other organizations, within and without the government, who sought administrative control of any new program for federal subvention. The struggle sometimes pitted basic against applied research and scientists against engineers. The funda-

The law of private imprisonment: fifty dark years for the mentally ill in Japan.

Abstract: In Japan from 1900 to 1950 the so-called law of private imprisonment provided for the confinement of the mentally ill in private cells. The authors describe the conditions to which the mentally ill were subjected during this time, with special reference to the political and social origins of the legislation.

Agency Problems in Planning for Community Health Needs

Abstract: UNDER THE STIMULUS of recent legislation,: efforts are now underway throughout the nation to start planning for more rational allocation of health resources. If effective planning is to be achieved, the many interests of the consumers of services, the distributors of services, and the general public will have to be woven into the fabric of the plans. If a more rational allocation of health resources is to be

The iron hand in the velvet glove: administration and enforcement of human rights legislation in canada

Abstract: In this article the author examines the history of human rights legislation in Canada. In doing so, the author pays particular attention to the Ontario Human Rights Code, as well as the Human Rights Acts of Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. First, the author discusses provisions dealing with the laying of complaints, including those dealing with the investigation and conciliation stages. Next, the author examines the hearings provided for in Canadian human rights codes and discusses procedural requirements, the power of the board of inquiry, and the right of appeal and review. The author then examines the enforcement of human rights legislation in Canada, and argues that certain forms of enforcement should be changed. In concluding his article, the author argues that human rights legislation must be promoted and suggests new methods for doing so in Canada.

The Courts and the Legislative Supremacy of the Knesset

Abstract: Israel, unlike most modern States, does not have a Constitution embodied in a formal document which lays down the basic political assumptions on which the system of government is founded, and which is considered the “supreme law of the land”. The student of Israel's Constitution must, as in the case of the British Constitution, collate his country's Constitution, including its unarticulated “major premises”, from a close study of the practical workings of the system of government and from a number of diverse sources of varying legal force.From a study of the workings of the system of government, Knesset (Parliament) legislation and the decisions of the courts, it would appear that Israel's courts, lawyers and others have asserted, almost without demur, the doctrine of the legislative supremacy of the Knesset as the underlying unarticulated major premise of Israel's Constitution. In accepting that assumption they seem to have chosen to follow the constitutional trail blazed by their British forerunners. This article is intended to test that assumption and to establish its exact application in the legal system.

A Guide to the Air Quality Act of 1967

Abstract: On November 21, 1967 the President signed into law the Air Quality Act of I967,1 the most important step to date in organizing government's response to the nation's growing air pollution problems. The new law builds on earlier legislation going back as far as 1955 and is in form an amendment of the Clean Air Act of I963.2 Nevertheless, it sets forth a better defined approach to air pollution control than had yet emerged in either federal, state, or local legislation and begins to indicate the shape of the coordinated federal-state-local regulatory effort that air pollution control requires. For the first time the federal government has decreed that regulation shall be undertaken by the states and has prescribed both a broad timetable for its coming into being and a basis for measuring the adequacy of that regulation. By recognizing health requirements, economic and technological realities, and the necessity for a flexible approach, the Air Quality Act provides a framework for an active government-industry partnership directed toward achieving the goal of clean air. This article attempts to delineate the act's scope and ultimate effects in controlling air pollution attributable to stationary sources of contaminants. The act's provisions on automotive vehicle emissions are outside of the scope we have elected to adopt.3

The Legal Aspect of Religious Education in the Soviet Union

Abstract: ACCORDING to Marxist theory a legal system serves the needs of the ruling classes, whoever they happen to be at a particular period. Accordingly, the whole legal system of the Soviet Union was devised to be one of the "tools" serving the "needs" of the ruling proletarian class, as it is defined by the Soviet regime. Thus, Soviet legislation regulating religious life in the country is devised, too, to be an expression of the "needs" of the Soviet regime. This legislation is based largely on Marx, Engels, and Lenin's ideological conception of religion and its "social function." "Religion is the opiate of the people" has become one of the most quoted sentences from Marx and is the battle cry of Soviet antireligious propaganda. Lenin expressed the same view in more colloquial terms: "Religion is a kind of spiritual booze [sivukha] in which the slaves of capitalism are drowning their humane image and their demands for some measure of dignified life."' Marxist and Soviet theoreticians have insisted that the Soviet regime, by withdrawing the state's support of religion, assures true "neutrality" and genuine religious freedom. However the right to transmit the tenets of faith from parent to child is one of the basic aspects of religious freedom. Without it, the perpetuation of religious cults is hardly possible. The Soviet regime, in its over-all aim to eradicate religious beliefs among its people, has given high priority to opposing the religious education of the young. Yet much confusion and uncertainty exists respecting both the present state and the legal status of religion in the Soviet Union and of religious education in particular. Is it legal in the Soviet Union to teach religion, to teach the Bible? And if so, what are the limitations prescribed by Soviet law? An examination of existing Soviet law can answer these questions. Early Soviet leaders considered separation of school from church important enough that Lenin incorporated this principle in the title of the basic Decree regulating the position of religion in the country.2 The ninth paragraph of the Decree deals with schools and religious education. It states briefly that "school is separated from church" and that "instruction of religious doctrines is not allowed in any state or public schools, or in private educational institutions where general subjects are taught. Citizens may teach and study religion in a private

Sins and Crimes

Abstract: A law, say, prohibits homosexual conduct or punishes the prostitute for plying her trade. According to some it is a bad law, according to others a necessary one. Those who argue that it is a bad law do so on a variety of grounds—that it is sheer folly to try to change human nature by law, that such legislation can only be effective at the price of the right to privacy, that the punishment of acts arising from compelling desires is cruel and excessive, that the law has no business meddling in what people do to others with their consent. Those who argue that it is a necessary law do so on one ground, that the act in question is immoral, and that what is wrong must be punished, lest the law itself fall into disrepute by failing to carry out a consistent campaign against wrong-doing.

Highway safety act of 1966

Abstract: MAJOR ASPECTS OF THE HIGHWAY SAFETY ACT OF 1966, ALONG WITH THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO ITS PASSAGE AND ITS EFFECT ON SAFETY PLANNING AND LEGISLATION IN THE STATES, ARE REVIEWED. SPECIAL ATTENTION IS GIVEN TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARDS IN SPECIFIC SAFETY AREAS AND TO THE RELATION BETWEEN THE FEDERAL AND STATE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE REQUIREMENTS EMBODIED IN THE ACT AND IN SUBSEQUENTLY ISSUED STANDARDS.

The British Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration

Abstract: Discussion of the "redress of grievances" in Britain has not, until recently, distinguished between the control of maladministration in a narrow sense and the review of allegedly unjust or unreasonable decisions which do not result from faulty operation of decision procedures by officials. A distinction of this kind was made by the Whyatt Committee in 1961 and, despite criticism, was embodied in the Labour Government's legislation. The Parliamentary Commissioner Act has been in operation since April 1, 1967. It relates only to injustice caused by maladministration in central government departments, and all complaints must be submitted through the agency of members of the House of Commons. These limitations of scope and purpose remain open to debate. They raise the general question whether Ombudsman machinery should bring scrutiny to bear on complaints which arise from policy and legislative decisions.

ABC's for the American Enlisted Man: The Army Post School System, 1866-1898

Abstract: THE ARMY AND NAVY JOURNAL was considerably understating the situation when it commented in 1873 that "our Army is not, as a whole, alive to the subject of education...." (x) Although a significant minority of army officers managed to keep themselves intellectually alive on the frontier, most officers were opposed to any elaborate scheme of formal education because it detracted from the enlisted man's regular duties and because they believed the "school of hard knocks" to be the best educational force. They also commonly assumed, with a great deal of justice in many cases, that enlisted men were not favorably disposed toward classroom instruction and were too dense to benefit by it. Before the Civil War the only legislation providing for the education of the enlisted man was an 1838 statute permitting the administrative council at each army post to hire a chaplain who would also act as a schoolmaster. (2) The law was aimed more at spiritual than educational uplift, however, and chaplains understandably interpreted it that way. During the Civil War years a surprisingly large number of educational activities were carried on, especially for the benefit of the Negro enlisted man, (3) but after the end of the war, education, like most other army activities, suffered from undernourishment.