Showing papers on "Legislation published in 1984"

Constituent Interest and Congressional Voting

Abstract: THIS article shows that congressional voting behavior can be analyzed usefully with a simple principal-agent model. This model, in which political competition constrains legislative agents to serve the interests of those who "pay" for their services-with votes and other forms of political currency (for example, campaign funds)-is often the starting point for economic analysis of legislation. But a frequent conclusion has been that political ornithology is at least as important as the interests of constituents in explaining legislative voting behavior. Thus, "liberal democrats," for example, tend to vote alike on many specific issues where the diversity of their constituencies would seem to suggest otherwise. This result has emerged in a number of empirical studies of voting that share a common methodology.' This typically starts with a statistical model such as

The congressional-bureaucratic system: a principal agent perspective (with applications to the SEC)

Abstract: This paper provides the theoretical perspective and empirical support for congressional dominance of agency decisions. My thesis is twofold. First, because much of the previous evidence on this question is not evidence at all, many scholars' intuition and conclusions are based on a logically flawed foundation. Second, I have provided here and in previous work a look at a variety of different agencies, and in each case, have shown how the events can plausibly be interpreted as involving Congress. Agency problems within the congressional-bureaucratic system are real and substantial just as they are within corporations. However, as in the latter, institutional forms develop within the congressional system to partially, if not wholly, mitigate these problems. The logical perspective together with the evidence provide a strong case against the agency-dominance hypothesis (as typified by the early sections of Niskanen 1971 and Wilson 1980). Reelection-minded congressmen have substantial incentives to ensure that agencies provide benefits to their constituents. The congressional-bureaucratic system does just that. Agencies are beholden to a small number of congressmen sitting on the relevant oversight committees. These congressmen evaluate agency performance through the decibel meter, i.e., through listening to their constituents, not through in-depth study. And finally, the congressional-bureaucratic system confronts agencies with powerful incentives to serve congressional — read committee — interests. Political scientist Morris Fiorina sums up this approach as follows: qu]The federal agencies exist in a symbiotic relationship with the congressional committees and subcommittees to which they report. Of course, not everything an agency does is of concern to its set of relevant members. It purchases freedom in such areas by playing ball in the areas that are of concern. So part of the agency may be genuinely out of control, but Congress wants it that way. It is a necessary cost of maintaining a bureaucracy ... permeable to congressional influence. (Fiorina 1982b, p. 337, emphasis in original) Several tentative generalizations for deregulation emerge from this perspective. (1) Policy change requires that congressmen perceive political net benefits from the change. If this involves a change in constitutencies, then members of the relevant committees must be willing to give up their current constitutents. For the SEC, the rise of the institutional investors provided such an opportunity. For the ICC and the CAB, the political credit to be gained from deregulation is less obvious and provides a major unresolved issue in the economic theory of regulation. (2) “Market testing,” as undertaken by the SEC, is probably a regular component of the congressional-bureaucratic system. A congressional committee allows an agency to test the waters and generate information about the political effects of a policy change. If the policy change appears politically successful, then Congress provides a statutory underpinning, perhaps extending significantly the scope of the experiment. If it is unsuccessful, then Congress moves to reinstate the status quo. Clearly, there were significant elements of this in the case of the CAB. Congress allowed deregulation-minded economists and lawyers (e.g., Kahn, Bailey, Levine) to take control of the Board. To their credit, these individuals were able to initiate rate deregulation within existing legislation. This proved so successful that, though the final legislation in 1978 significantly extended the bounds of deregulation, it seemed but icing on the cake. (3) The above perspective points up the role of Congress in maintaining policy equilibrium. As the history of the SEC demonstrates, we must examine events preceding the deregulatory period. The evidence reveals that plausible hypotheses about SEC policy change make little sense when studied in the context of thirty-years worth of Commission activity. Similarly, an explanation of CAB or ICC deregulation must not only explain why it occurred in the late 1970s but also why it failed to occur during the previous thirty years. Every president during this period tested the waters of, or actively sought, transportation reform. Yet, prior to the late 1970s, none was successful because the relevant committees rebuffed these efforts. (4) Finally, while marginal accommodations to changes in group composition (to paraphrase Mackay and Reid, 1979) occur within the congressional system, policy remains stable as long as the relevant groups remain stable. This implies that for the near future, substantial progress toward reform or deregulation is unlikely for most social regulatory agencies. This paper suggests the necessary role of Congress in the regulatory policymaking system. Regulatory change, whether halting FTC activism or deregulation as undertaken by the SEC, constitutes a change within the congressional system. While I have argued an extreme view — namely, that Congress is of supreme importance — the evidence is consistent with it. But this view is used primarily to show that the other extreme — agency dominance — seems clearly inconsistent with the evidence. Whether the congressional-dominance hypothesis or a more moderate “shared-influence hypothesis” is more descriptively accurate is not my concern here. Rather, my fundamental premise is that the assumption that Congress controls regulation will prove as useful in understanding regulatory behavior as the assumption that firms maximize profits has proved to be in economic analysis of market behavior.

A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920

Abstract: "This is an important book. In the latter nineteenth century, diverse and influential elements in white America combined forces to settle the 'Indian question' through assimilation...The results were the essentially treaty-breaking Dawes Act of 1887, related legislation, and dubious court decisions. Schoolteachers and missionaries were dispatched to the reservations en masse. Eventual 'citizenship' without functional rights was given Native Americans; the Indians lost two-thirds of reservation land as it had existed before the assimilationist campaign...With insight and skill that go well beyond craft, Hoxie has admirably defined issues and motives, placed economic/political/social interaction into cogent perspective, brought numerous Anglo and Indian individuals and organizations to life, and set forth important lessons."-Choice. "This significant study of Indian-white relations during a complex time in national politics deserves close attention."-American Indian Quarterly. "Important and intellectually challenging ...This volume goes far to fill a large gap in the history of United States Indian policy."-Journal of American History. Frederick E.Hoxie is director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library. He coedited (with Joan Mark) E. Jane Gay's With the Nez Perces: Alice Fletcher in the Field, 1889-92 (Nebraska 1981).

Decisions Rules and Conduct Rules: On Acoustic Separation in Criminal Law

Abstract: One strain in legal philosophy, tracing its roots to Bentham, suggests the possibility of distinguishing between two sorts of legal rules: conduct rules, which are addressed to the general public and are designed to guide its behavior, and decision rules, which are directed to the officials who apply conduct rules. In this Article, Professor Dan-Cohen employs the distinction to create an imaginary world in which only officials know the content of the decision rules and only the general public knows the content of the conduct rules a condition he terms \"acoustic separation.\" Through \"selective transmission\" of legal rules, he contends, our legal system approximates this imaginary world. Professor Dan-Cohen then demonstrates that by relying on acoustic separation society accommodates competing values at stake in criminal law. Finally, Professor Dan-Cohen raises the issue of the legitimacy of selective transmission. He concludes that it is compatible with the requirements of the rule of law, but argues that this compatibility -far from establishing the legitimacy of selective transmission only highlights some inescapable moral dilemmas that inhere in the law as much as in other spheres of public life.

Law and administration

Abstract: This definitive textbook explores the field of law which allows government and its agencies to practically apply its laws. The subject, affected by policy and political factors, can challenge even the more advanced student. In response, this title looks at both the law and the factors informing it, laying down the foundations of the subject. This contextualised approach also allows the student to develop the broadest possible perspective. Case law and legislation are set out and discussed, and the authors have built in a range of case studies to give a practical emphasis to the study. It is, however, the distinctive theoretical framework for administrative law that the authors develop that distinguishes this title from others and allows for real understanding of the subject. This updated edition will cement the title's seminal status.

The Ties That Bind : Law, Marriage and the Reproduction of Patriarchal Relations

Abstract: List of tables List of abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Theoretical issues 1. Legal regulation or male control Part II: Historical issues 2. Marriage, divorce and the family in the 1950s 3. Family legislation and social change in the 1960s 4. Judge-made law in the 1960s 5. Family law after the decade of reform 6. Progress and regress in the 1970s Part III: Practical issues 7. Doing the research: practices and dilemmas 8. Solicitors and the legal management of marital breakdown 9. Magistrates and marriage 10. Law, policy and feminism Postscript Appendices Notes

Basic Needs versus Distributional Weights in Social Cost-Benefit Analysis*

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast two alternative ways of bringing what we might loosely call "distributional considerations" into the machinery of social cost-benefit analysis. The first of these ways is an outgrowth of the utilitarian tradition that has been a part of economics at least since the times of Bentham and Mill. It holds that the marginal utility of an extra dollar to a rich man is lower than that of the same dollar to a poor man. Alternatively, this same notion can be thought of as applying "distributional weights" to the changes in welfare of different people that occur as a consequence of a particular project, policy, or program. The second approach does not rely on differential weighting of the welfare of different individuals. Rather, it imputes to some individuals external benefits connected with the improvement in the circumstances of others. Most people genuinely feel it is "good" for the sick to be healed, the hungry fed, the illiterate taught, the homeless sheltered, and so on. They have demonstrated these feelings over the centuries through charitable acts in which their own money has been spent to bring about one or more of these objectives. Similar motivations may also lie behind legislation in which societies have accepted a collective responsibility for meeting the medical, educational, nutritional, and housing needs of their less fortunate citizens. I use the term "distributional weights" to characterize the first of these approaches and "basic needs" to describe the second. In what follows I shall try to show that these two ways of introducing distributional considerations into social cost-benefit analysis (or into applied welfare economics more generally) are really conceptually quite distinct, and have very different implications for public policy and social choice. While they are not in principle inconsistent with one another,

Restraining Orders for Battered Women: Issues of Access and Efficacy

Abstract: Since the passage of the Pennsylvania Protection from Abuse Act in 1976, many states have enacted legislation to provide civil restraining orders for battered women. These orders, which offer a civil court alternative to criminal sanctions, are court-issued temporary or permanent orders which direct an assailant to refrain from further abusive conduct. Interviews with recipients of restraining orders suggest that the orders are generally ineffective in reducing the rate of abuse of violence. However, they were effective in reducing abuse for women with less serious histories of family violence or where the assailant was less violent in general. They were ineffective in stopping physical violence. Measures to improve restraining order mechanisms should: more clearly codify abuse and violence, improve access for those not married or cohabitating, streamline procedures and shorten waiting periods, address a full range of child-related concerns, strengthen sanctions, and mandate official responses to violatio...

Environmental planning and decision making

Abstract: A multidisciplinary up-to-date survey of environmental planning, policies, and programs, emphasizing the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act and federal legislation controlling air and water pollution. Designed for undergraduates in the social sciences, physical sciences, and engineering. Integrates environmental considerations in public sector planning and decision making relative to land use and infrastructure development.

American Law: An Introduction

Abstract: This is a comprehensive introduction to the American legal system for students and general readers. The book uses anecdotes, historical detail and scholarship to describe the variety of American laws, from antitrust to tort law, and explains how these laws are made and how they are administered. Taking account of important cases and legislation, the book explores the way changes in American law mirror and sometimes prompt changes in American society.

Measuring Degrees of Successful Implementation: Achieving Policy Versus Statutory Goals

Abstract: The Oregon Community Corrections Act was passed in 1977, partly due to the need to relieve overcrowding in the state's prisons. Our research was undertaken to determine whether degrees of successful achievement of the goals of the Act are due to the way in which community corrections legislation is being implemented-and, specifically, to determine if the roles of street-level bureaucrats and modifications of the program during implementation are the keys to successful achievement of goals. In Oregon, we found that there is wide variation from county to county in the way the legislation is being imple mented and the degree to which goals are being achieved. Even though not all specific statutory goals are being achieved, the general policy goals are being met. The more successful counties have reached a higher level of implementation in individual and county efforts than the least successful counties. In addition, the former are more likely to have a "fixer" active in getting the program established and ma...

Medical consequences of motorcycle helmet nonusage.

Abstract: Thirty-five states repealed or altered mandatory motorcycle helmet legislation since May 1976 In-depth evaluation of the impact of the change has been reported from four states The results reveal significant decreases in helmet usage and significant increases in head injury and deaths In one state (Kansas) there was also an increase in the accident rate Evaluation of the financial impact reveals up to 200% increase in medical costs and a significant increase in days of disability Repeal of mandatory helmet legislation is extremely costly in any parameter measured

Louis D. Brandeis : justice for the people

Abstract: Traces the life and career of the great Supreme Court justice and discusses his involvement with labor unions, trust busting, women's suffrage, unemployment legislation, and Zionism.

Current concepts. Electroconvulsive therapy--a current perspective.

Abstract: ELECTROCONVULSIVE therapy has become a national issue. Attacks on it have appeared in movies and television documentaries, as well as in the popular and professional press.1 , 2 These criticisms have resulted in legislation restricting its use in several states and, more recently, in an attempt to ban its use altogether in Berkeley, California. Because of growing public concern, physicians are likely to be consulted by the public about the treatment; thus, it is surprising that a current review of the subject is not available in a major general medical journal. A considerable body of research has been carried out on electroconvulsive . . .

The Wounded Soldiers of Industry: Industrial Compensation Policy, 1833-1897

Abstract: This book traces the process whereby Britain moved from being a society without industrial safety legislation to one in which a multitude of laws sought to protect the worker at the workplace. Ranging from the beginning of the reform movement to the passing of the Workmen's Compensation Act, the authors look at the legal and financial position of workers in the 1830s and before; the 19th-century statistics on work injury in mines, railways, and factories; and the significance of the new industrial law.

Winners and Losers under the Robinson-Patman Act

Abstract: THE 1936 Robinson-Patman Amendments to the Clayton Antitrust Act prohibit differences in price that might be injurious to competition. They also restrict certain practices (for example, brokerage payments, unequal advertising allowances, etc.) that could be used to give hidden discounts to favored buyers. The Robinson-Patman (R-P) Act has the distinction of being almost universally unpopular among antitrust scholars.' This is probably because it looks less like an antitrust measure than like legislated relief for small business.2 That the law wears an antitrust cloak is probably a measure of the cunning of its original proponents. The statute's poor reputation owes more to theory than to evidence, however. There has been very little empirical work on the effects of the act, and what there is has been largely concerned with the effects of individual prosecutions. The purpose of this essay is to begin a broader empirical study. I start by reviewing the act's history. The impetus for the legislation came from the distributive (wholesale and retail) trades, where a struggle had developed between the old wholesale-retail order and the

Industrial resistance to occupational safety and health legislation: 1971-1981*

Abstract: Federal government intervention in the U.S. economy dramatically increased in 1970 with the creation of a series of "social" regulations to protect the public from the unintended health consequences of industrial production. By the early 1980s, a mere decade later, these same regulations had come under sustained attack and were being systematically curtailed by the government. This paper explores the role played by industry in the evolution of one of these new regulations, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. I find that industry initially reacted defensively and developed containment strategies to minimize the impact of the new agency. They took the initiative in mid-decade, when growing economic malaise altered the political and ideological climate in their favor. Rapid industrialization in the 19th century transformed the United States into an economic powerhouse, but the change was not without social costs. Industrial workers were largely unprotected against health and safety hazards on the job, and thousands died or suffered from injuries and illnesses. The toll continues to be very high. The National Safety Council and the Public Health Service have estimated that in the 1970s 14,000 workers died of industrial injuries and perhaps 100,000 more died of occupationally caused illnesses every year. In addition, there were over two million disabling injuries and 400,000 new occupational illnesses every year (Ashford, 1976:84,92). This direct and ongoing cost in illness, injury, and premature death was neglected by government, industry, and labor until the late 1960s, when a combination of events created sufficient pressure for federal action. In 1970 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was born. OSHA was one of a number of agencies created by the federal government in 1970 to protect citizens from the unintended health consequences of industrial production; others included the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration (MESA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These new "social" regulations differed from the more traditional form of "economic" regulations, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which govern competitive relations between firms (Lilley and Miller, 1977). Economic regulations have been studied extensively by political scientists and economists (Bernstein, 1955; Mitnick, 1980; Owen and Braeutigam, 1978; Stigler, 1975). These studies have consistently shown that the political strategies of regulated industries have molded the evolution of these policies. This paper examines the role which industry has played in the evolution of one of the newer, social regulations, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Berman (1978), Brodeur (1973), Davidson (1970), and Page and O'Brien (1973) have written extensively about the history of health and safety prior to the formation of OSHA. Ashford (1976), Donnelly (1982), Mendeloff (1978), Page and O'Brien (1973), and Rothstein (1978) have analyzed the period leading up to the enactment of OSHA in 1970. The fate of OSHA after the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980 has been examined by Calavita (1983), Grozuczak (1982), and Simon

The physician's responsibility under the new Medicare reimbursement for hospice care.

Abstract: New legislation to provide Medicare reimbursement for hospice care1 has created problems for physicians who are involved in the treatment of the terminally ill. Under current proposals,2 hospice services will be reimbursed by a certain amount per patient day, according to four categories of level of care, and for a maximum of 210 days. At 210 days, reimbursement will cease, but the hospice program will not be allowed to discharge the patient. The Medicare hospice benefit requires physicians to certify that their patients have six months or less to live before the patients are considered candidates for hospice care; under . . .

Childhood as a Social Problem: A Survey of the History of Legal Regulation

Abstract: The state's regulation of parents' care of their children is currently a subject of some controversy in England. Drafters and enforcers of statutes are caught between contradictory demands: for the extension of intervention in the interests of children mistreated by their parents and for the deregulation of family life in the interests of parental liberty. As we have argued elsewhere, this is, in certain respects, a false antithesis.' Nevertheless, there are clearly grounds for dissatisfaction with present procedures for child care intervention which, we have proposed, result from the use of statutory provisions designed for one set of purposes to achieve different objectives.2 To be specific, English child care legislation is designed to protect adults from the threat represented by children who have not received an appropriate moral socialization. It is asked to deal also with children who are the victims of adult cruelty, indifference, incompetence or sexual attention.

Computer matching is a serious threat to individual rights

Abstract: L'adaptation informatique est une technique d'etude attractive. Les agences du gouvernement emploient cette technique d'adaptation de fichiers sans rapport d'individuels pour identifier les violateurs de loi suspectes

History of Agricultural Price-Support and Adjustment Programs, 1933-84

Abstract: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s concern with price-support and adjustment legislation is carried out under a series of interrelated laws passed by Congress from 1933 to 1984. Beginning with the major proposals of the 1920s for handling and marketing farm surpluses, this history records the establishment of price-support and adjustment programs with the Federal Farm Board in 1929 and the Agricultural Adjustment Acts of 1933 and 1938, and then traces their evolution through 1984. This half century of development is important because it forms the foundation for implementing current and future farm legislation.

Resistance to the One-Child Family

Abstract: Chinas one-child family campaign has met with considerable success yet it has not gone unopposed. This comes as no surprise because a country of one-child families means that about half the couples will have no sons a fact that is bound to lead to problems given the immense symbolic and practical importance of male offspring within Chinese society. the number of articles recently printed in the Chinese press criticizing the continuing desire particularly among peasants to have at least 1 son suggests that opposition to current population policy is great. Reports of female infanticide abuse of women who give birth to daughters and other manifestations of this continuing preference for sons show clearly that such opposition is often translated into active forms of resistance. This resistance is highly significant because the continuing preference for sons which is its root cause challenges many common assumptions regarding male-female equity in contemporary China. It also raises the more general question of the level of success of the partys efforts to reshape the traditional attitudes and beliefs of the Chinese peasantry. The discussion offers an overview of the problem of resistance to the one-child family by examining the forms this resistance takes the ways the Chinese authorities try to curtail it and certain problematic features of the interpretation of the situation that underlie the measures the government is taking. The reality surrounding female infanticide the most disturbing and tragic form of resistance is this: infanticide is not a coercive measure used by authorities to limit population growth but a negative reaction to population directives; Chinas demographic situation is critical; and female infanticide is seldom if ever simply an expression of senseless cruelty. Contemporary female infanticide like that of earlier times results from a combination of idealogical and material factors. In addition to changes in the style of propaganda the kinds of incentives offered to promote the 1-child family differ from those used in past family planning campaigns. Incentives under the post 1978 program are comparatively elaborate. Despite the various incentives and disincentives there has been resistance to the current family planning drive. The main evidence of resistance comes from the Chinese press itself. Rarely has the Chinese press dealt so openly with deviant behavior and social unreast. Although female infanticide and wife beating are the most reprehensible forms of resistance some people simply refuse to stop at 1 child and others illicitly remove IUDs. Another form of resistance is sabotage of family planning work and personnel. The "official interpretation" of the problem of resistance stresses ideological factors above all others. Nearly every analysis of resistance to the 1 child family found in the Chinese media claims that the primary cause is lingering "feudal ideas." Next to increased ideological work the method most favored for ending resistance is intensification of legal pressure. Wife beaters have been publicly rebuked and fined for their acts and prison terms often are meted out to those who commit infanticide. Also encouraging is the fact that a fight against son preference is being waged.

Resolving Development Disputes Through Negotiations

Abstract: In the last decade, disputes between developers and local commu nities over proposed construction projects have led to increasing litiga tion. Environmental legislation, in particular, has greatly enhanced the rights and powers of organized groups that desire to participate in local development decisions. These powers have allowed citizen groups to block undesired and socially unacceptable projects, such as highways through urban areas and sprawling suburban developments. At the same time, these powers have produced a collective inability to construct many needed projects that produce adverse local impacts. Prisons, airports, hos pitals, waste treatment plants, and energy facilities all face years of liti gation before a final decision. At times, prolonged litigation has pro duced especially high costs to all participants. Despite these new powers, citizen action has often been limited to participation in public hearings or adjudicatory proceedings. Typically, this occurs so late in the decision process that citizen input has very little affect in shaping a project's design. Those who dislike some element of a project often have little choice other than to oppose the entire project through litigation."

Classification of Students with Handicaps

Abstract: Classification is more than the assignment of objects or people to certain classes (in this paper class, category, and taxon are used synonymously) because of shared characteristics. Insofar as people are concerned, classification is a social act which, at the extremes, can cast them in the positions of deviates who must be removed from community life or can legitimize extraordinary supportive interventions in their behalf. The current classification system that is used to provide handicapped or disabled children with special services and education in the schools is anomalous: In the past the categories were used to keep children with special needs out of the mainstream of education and society, but now, under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142), such children are to be included in the mainstream of education whenever feasible. Whether they need to be labeled is very much in controversy. This is not to say that no classification system is necessary, but rather that the current practices, because they represent a hodge podge of approaches and purposes, should be carefully examined and revised as necessary. As a starting point, I suggest Robbins' (1966) acute perception that the choice of categories in a classification system "implies that the category chosen is good for something" (p. 5). It is essential, therefore, that we consider the purposes of classifying children. The importance of classification in the lives of children can hardly be overemphasized. In his report of the study of classification, which he led, Hobbs (1975) warned that "nothing less than the futures of children is at stake" (p. 1) in the formation of categories. Subsequently, he characterized the current system for classifying handicapped children as "a major barrier to the efficient and effective delivery of services to them and their families and thereby impedes efforts to help them" (1980, p. 274). Categories and labels may be essential, nevertheless, because they "open up opportunities for exceptional children, facilitate the passage of legislation in their interest,