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Legislation

About: Legislation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 62664 publications have been published within this topic receiving 585188 citations. The topic is also known as: law & act.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The history of abortion law and policy in India since the 1960s and research on abortion service delivery is reviewed, with a view to improving women’s access to safe abortion care.

83 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Sherman Act of 1890 and the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 are closely linked as discussed by the authors, and the link between the economic and political environment in the United States in the late nineteenth century on the one hand, and the legislative histories of the laws on the other, has not been thoroughly explored.
Abstract: The Meat Inspection Act of 1891 and the Sherman Act of 1890 are closely tied. This link makes clearer Congress' intent in enacting the legislation. Both laws were products of economic conditions after 1880 and reflected, in part, widespread concern about the market power of Chicago meat packers. The concerns of local slaughterhouses, which were being displaced by new, low-cost refrigerated beef,, and of farmers, who sold livestock to the large Chicago packers, were echoed elsewhere by other small businesses and farmers, who feared for their livelihood during a time of structural change in the economy. I. INTRODUCTION In the few years between 1887 and 1891, the legislative basis was established for major intervention by the federal government into the American economy: The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, the Sherman Act of 1890, and the Meat Inspection Act of 1891.[1] With these laws the federal government became directly involved in the regulation of railroad rates, antitrust enforcement, and the inspection and certification of food quality for consumers. Representing a significant break from what had previously been considered an appropriate role for the federal government, this legislation provided a new and permanent mandate for government regulation in the market economy. Despite the importance of these laws, the link between the economic and political environment in the United States in the late nineteenth century on the one hand, and the legislative histories of the laws on the other, has not been thoroughly explored. As a result, the motives of Congress for enacting these laws remain both unclear and controversial. Consider meat inspection and antitrust. Although most attention in the literature is focused on the 1906 Meat Inspection Act, made popular by the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, the initial legislation, the Meat Inspection Act of 1891, came fifteen years earlier, and it addressed the production and consumption of fresh beef. But as reported in this paper, there is no evidence of a major health crisis regarding the consumption of beef at the time. Something else appears to have been on the mind of Congress when it passed the legislation in 1891. The objectives of Congress in enacting the Sherman Act are even more controversial because of the prominence of the law. Debate revolves around whether the Sherman Act was designed to promote competition and consumer welfare or to limit competition and protect special interests.2 This paper argues that to gain a better understanding of the origins of this important legislation and its early economic effects, the laws must be placed into the context of the extraordinary changes taking place in the American economy in the late nineteenth century. The linkages among the laws help to identify the underlying political and economic forces behind the legislation. Three broad characteristics of the economy must be kept in mind in analyzing this period: First, the post-Civil War period was a time of general deflation. Between 1864 and 1900 the consumer price index fell by 47 percent (U.S. Department of Commerce [1975, 211]). In general, prices for farm products followed the overall pattern, but prices for cattle fell in real terms after the mid-1880s. Fluctuations in farm prices also appear to have coincided with periods of agrarian unrest.3 Second, as described by Higgs [1971] and Chandler [1977], the period after 1880 was a time of major structural change in the economy. The economy was becoming more industrial, and biased technological change, economies of scale in production, distribution, and marketing, as well as the lowering of transportation costs were fundamentally altering production methods and products. This affected the competitive positions of many firms, creating winners and losers (James [1983]; Burns [1983]; Atack [1985]). Emerging large firms expanded from local to national and international markets, and existing small firms found their local markets threatened by new competitors. …

83 citations

Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider how a legislature's rules of procedure can affect both the process and the outcome of legislation and present evidence that rules do in fact have the suspected effects.
Abstract: In this essay, I consider how a legislature's rules of procedure can affect both the process and the outcome of legislation. I begin by asking whether or not rules of procedure should have any effects at all, given that they can often be changed by simple majorities of legislators. The second part of the essay classifies the effects that rules have. Rules can change the set of bills that plenary sessions of the legislature consider; they can change the menu of amendments to any given bill considered in the plenary; they can affect how members vote; and-putting the first three effects together-they can affect which bills pass. I review evidence that rules do in fact have the suspected effects.

83 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: The United States is a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) as discussed by the authors, and is bound by its provisions and obligated to ensure its fulfillment.
Abstract: Since the mid-1980s, the United States has pursued aggressive law enforcement strategies to curtail the use and distribution of illegal drugs. The costs and benefits of this national "war on drugs" remain fiercely debated. (1) What is not debatable, however, is that this ostensibly race-neutral effort has been waged primarily against black Americans. Relative to their numbers in the general population and among drug offenders, black Americans are disproportionately arrested, convicted, and incarcerated on drug charges. Public officials have been relatively untroubled by the disproportionate arrest and incarceration of blacks for drug offenses. Their relative indifference--and that of the public at large--no doubt reflects, to varying degrees, partisan politics, "tough on crime" punitive philosophies, misinformation about drugs, an uncritical embrace of drug war logic, and misguided notions about the needs of poor urban communities. But to some extent it also reflects conscious and unconscious views about race. Indeed, those views have been woven into the very fabric of American anti-drug efforts, influencing the definition of the "drug problem" and the nature of the response to it. Although whites are relatively untouched by anti-drug efforts compared to blacks, (2) supporters of the drug war may not see a problem of race discrimination because they do not believe the purpose of drug law enforcement is to harm blacks--if anything, drug law enforcement is seen as protecting minority communities from addiction, harassment, and violence. Perhaps without realizing it, they have accepted the same definition of discrimination that the courts use in constitutional equal protection cases--absent ill-intent, there is no discrimination. The requirements of a malign intent as well as a racially disparate effect for a finding of racial discrimination in United States constitutional jurisprudence differ from those in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which the United States has ratified. (3) In defining discrimination, the treaty decouples intent from impact. Prohibited discrimination occurs where there is an unjustifiable disparate impact on a racial or ethnic group, regardless of whether there is any intent to discriminate against that group. Where official policies or practices are racially discriminatory, the State party to the treaty must act affirmatively to prevent or end them. Indeed, full compliance requires elimination of racial inequalities resulting from structural racism. (4) As a party to ICERD, the United States is bound by its provisions and obligated to ensure its fulfillment. (5) It must "condemn racial discrimination and undertake to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms." (6) It must not engage in any act or practice "of racial discrimination against person, groups of persons or institutions and ... [it must] ensure that all public authorities and public institutions, national and local, shall act in conformity with this obligation." (7) In addition, it must "review governmental, national and local policies, and ... amend, rescind or nullify any laws and regulations which have the effect of creating or perpetuating racial discrimination wherever it exists." (8) The United States has claimed that "the framework of legal prohibitions and enforcement mechanisms [existing in the United States] not only satisfies the requirements of [ICERD], but serves as an example to the world, of which the United States should be very proud." (9) It is true that many of the provisions of ICERD are similar to those already contained in federal and state constitutions and legislation. But ICERD is more protective than those laws. If it is to satisfy its treaty obligations, the United States must "take greater responsibility for the role it plays--and has played--in creating and perpetuating racial discrimination and inequality. …

83 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article showed that employers were able to pass a significant part of the added costs of higher postaccident compensation on to some workers in the form of reductions in wages, however, the size of the wage offsets was smaller for union workers.
Abstract: Market responses to legislative reforms often mitigate the expected gains that reformers promise in legislation. Contemporaries hailed workers' compensation as a boon to workers because it raised the amount of postaccident compensation paid to injured workers. Despite the large gains to workers, employers often supported the legislation. Analysis of several wage samples from the early 1900s shows that employers were able to pass a significant part of the added costs of higher postaccident compensation on to some workers in the form of reductions in wages. The size of the wage offsets, however, was smaller for union workers.

83 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202410
20235,313
202212,046
20211,728
20202,190
20192,226