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.

Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act

Abstract: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred practically all Chinese from American shores for ten years, was the first federal law that banned a group of immigrants solely on the basis of race or nationality. By changing America's traditional policy of open immigration, this landmark legislation set a precedent for future restrictions against Asian immigrants in the early 1900s and against Europeans in the 1920s. Tracing the origins of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Andrew Gyory presents a bold new interpretation of American politics during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. Rather than directly confront such divisive problems as class conflict, economic depression, and rising unemployment, he contends, politicians sought a safe, nonideological solution to the nation's industrial crisis--and latched onto Chinese exclusion. Ignoring workers' demands for an end simply to imported contract labor, they claimed instead that working people would be better off if there were no Chinese immigrants. By playing the race card, Gyory argues, national politicians--not California, not organized labor, and not a general racist atmosphere--provided the motive force behind the era's most racist legislation. |Analyzes the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 from a national perspective. By playing the race card, national politicians--not California, not organized labor, and not a general racist atmosphere--were responsible for this law.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act

Abstract: This report provides a summary and explanation of the provisions in the HITECH Act, which is intended to promote the widespread adoption of health information technology (HIT) for the electronic sharing of clinical data among hospitals, physicians, and other health care stakeholders. It gives an overview of prior actions taken by Congress and the Administrations to promote HIT, and briefly describes efforts by the 109th and 110th Congresses to enact comprehensive HIT legislation.

Fusion of mental health and incapacity legislation

Abstract: The enactment of a single legislative scheme governing nonconsensual treatment of both 'physical' and 'mental' illnesses, based on incapacity principles, has been mooted in recent law reform debates in the UK. We propose a framework for such legislation and consider in more detail the provisions it should contain. The design of legislation that combines the strengths of both incapacity and civil commitment schemes can be readily imagined, based on the criteria for intervention in England and Wales found in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Such legislation would reduce unjustified legal discrimination against mentally disordered persons and apply consistent ethical principles across medical law.

'Voluntary' Approaches to Environmental Regulation: A Survey

Abstract: This article reviews the economic literature on voluntary approaches to environmental regulation In the last few years there has been a rapid growth in the use of voluntary actions and programs to address environmental concerns These approaches can be placed into three general categories: (1) Unilateral commitments by industrial firms, sometimes referred to as business-led corporate environmental programs, (2) Public voluntary schemes, in which participating firms agree to standards that have been developed by public bodies such as environmental agencies, and (3) Negotiated agreements created out of a dialogue between government authorities and industry, typically containing a target and a timetable for reaching that target Negotiated agreements may take on the status of legally binding contracts if legislation empowers executive branches of government to sign them Why do firms voluntarily commit to costly improvements in their environmental performance? Reviewing the small but growing literature on voluntary approaches to environmental problems, we identify three types of motivation: improving corporate productivity, appealing to "green" consumers, and optimizing corporate regulatory strategy We find that while some existing theoretical work supports the so-called "win-win" stories of voluntary environmental behavior (increasing both profits and social welfare) that are prominent in the popular press, other theories point to potential welfare-reducing voluntary actions By comparing the assumptions of the various models, we identify a set of conditions under which welfare-reducing voluntary actions are likely to occur Turning from theory to empirics, we review the existing empirical studies of voluntary approaches to environmental problems Since these voluntary approaches are relatively new, the number of existing studies is small Still, these studies provide some useful insight into the factors which motivate corporations, regulators, and legislators to pursue the voluntary option We identify eight key findings of the existing empirical studies, and discuss cases in which existing empirical results are at odds with one another Finally, we caution that these findings should be regarded as preliminary given the current paucity of corroborative empirical work The concluding section examines the most urgent gaps in both the theoretical and empirical work in the area, and contains suggestions for future research