Showing papers on "Legislature published in 1977"

Collective Choice, Separation of Issues and Vote Trading

Abstract: In legislatures and committees, a number of issues are voted on separately, leading to an outcome consisting of positions on each of these issues. I investigate the effects this separation of issues has on collective choices, assuming a very abstract collective choice model, whose assumptions are presupposed by many less abstract models, notably spatial models. Assuming the model, if there exists an undominated outcome (one to which no winning coalition prefers any other feasible outcome), it must be chosen in the absence of vote trading, although vote trading can (perversely) lead to a very different outcome. But vote trading does not necessarily lead to a “voting paradox” situation, contrary to several recent papers. The model enables us to define a natural solution concept for the case where every feasible outcome is dominated. Variations on this concept are explored. The effects of weakening the model are investigated.

Federalism in the Progressive Era: A Structural Interpretation of Reform

Abstract: T HE Progressive era has long been recognized as one of substantial contribution to social legislation. Working through state and national legislatures, reformers rewrote child labor laws and safety and factory inspection statutes. They cast the society's response to industrial accident and death into the new form of workmen's compensation. They limited working hours for some women and, in a few cases, for men. In some states night work became illegal. By 1915 several states had passed minimum wage legislation. Of the major reform goals of the period, only compulsory health insurance failed to win enactment. The history of this avalanche of social legislation has been described as a struggle between social justice progressives and conservative state and national court systems;' as a conflict between ideas of voluntarism and compulsion and individual and collective responsibility;2 and as a political process involving interest groups, particularly business and labor.3 A structural approach, emerging from the work of historians of child labor reform, is as yet neither fully articulated nor tested. According to this model, legislative social reform suffered from a temporary incongruity between economic and political systems. While business increasingly operated in both national and regional markets, the political

Litigation‐produced pain, disease and suffering: An experience with congenital malformation lawsuits

Abstract: The exponential rise in malpractice litigation is due to attitudes and happenings in the medical, legal and lay sectors of our society. Evaluation of congenital malformation lawsuits provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the process of litigation. Because the cases are rarely meritorious, the litigation process is detrimental to the plaintiff, society and frequently unfair to the defendant. There is no area of our legal system with such a high percentage of innocent defendants. When the family of a malformed infant becomes orchestrated by an attorney into a position of devoting their energy to winning a lawsuit, many high priority family responsibilities may be ignored and important ethical standards are distorted. To win at all costs may be appropriate for a football team but it can be detrimental to a family. The family enters the litigation arena unaware of the lengthiness of the litigation process and ignorant of the fact that only a small portion of the malpractice premium dollar ever reaches the patient. The plaintiffs are not the only participants who lose their objectivity and lower their ethical standards. The quality and veracity of the testimony of expert witnesses has deteriorated to the point that drastic corrective measures have to be instituted. It is believed that recommendations for solving the malpractice crisis, which are based on the experience with congenital malformation lawsuits, should have applicability to the overall malpractice problem and must involve changes in the medical, legal and lay sectors of our society. These recommendations are discussed in detail. It must be recognized that it is difficult to alter the laws and procedures that are not of benefit to the legal profession because so many legislatures are dominated by elected officials who happen to be attorneys. But it is emphasized that of all the recommendations put forth, the one having the greatest beneficial effect on the present malpractice crisis would be the elimination of the contingency fee system and replacing it with no-fault compensation or legal-fee insurance. The contingency fee system provokes and promotes malpractice litigation. The process of litigation rarely solves the patient's problems and frequently develops into a disease all its own.

Law, Politics, and Equal Educational Opportunity: The Limits of Judicial Involvement

Abstract: The influence of courts upon educational policy increased markedly in the years following the Brown decision. Recently, however, the judicial role has changed. As policy attention has focused on increasingly subtle questions of distributive justice and some aggrieved groups have obtained through legislation what they sought through litigation, courts in the 1970s have been more restrained than those of the previous decade. David Kirp analyzes how major educational questions are now being addressed by courts and legislatures; he focuses more on institutional dynamics than doctrinal developments. Noting the different procedures and standards of each branch of government, Kirp examines the interplay between these branches and suggests how questions of equal opportunity are best fit for joint resolution.

Measuring Legislative Potential for Policy Change

Abstract: Major changes in the policy posture of the Congress are rare political events. In this century, only Wilson's first Congress (63rd), Roosevelt's first three Congresses (73rd, 74th, and 75th) and Johnson's 89th Congress clearly stand out as innovative (Ripley, 1969; Burns, 1956; Sundquist, 1968). Given the rarity of such events, it is not surprising that political scientists have not systematically examined the conditions which facilitate or are associated with innovative Congresses.1 In this paper we seek to partially fill this vacuum by devising a measure which taps the conditions necessary for major shifts in the policy posture of the U. S. House of Representatives. We then turn to the question of which variables are related to or can be said to account for the conditions necessary for major policy innovations, One of the major functions of the House of Representatives in the policy process is legitimation or adoption of policies (Anderson, 1975). Ultimately, legitimating policies requires that a supportive majority be formed for the specific policy. Building majorities in the U. S. House of Representatives is a more complex process than it is in most parliamentary bodies because the American congressional parties are not as unified as others; thus majority building is contingent upon the size of the majority party as well as its cohesiveness. In addition, given the shifting nature of majority coalitions in the House, the minority party's size and cohesiveness can also affect the ability of the majority party to legislate. Any measure

Early Day Motions as Unobtrusive Measures of Backbench Opinion in Britain

Abstract: One of the major unexplored areas in the literature of political science in Britain is the relationship between the attitudes of individual legislators in policy areas and their behaviour in the House of Commons. In the United States, the study of legislative behaviour has benefited from the fact that the unobtrusive measurement of the attitudes of legislators has been possible through the aggregation of roll-call votes. This procedure has provided the foundation for a body of literature upon which a theoretical framework has been constructed for further research.

On Industrial Education

Abstract: The habitual American attitude towards public education is, to say the least, paradoxical. Belief in publicly supported education is the most vital article of the average citizen's creed. Money devoted to educational purposes makes the largest item in the budget, and payment of taxes for school purposes is accompanied with the least amount of grumbling. The man who ridicules his legislature, who is suspicious of his judiciary and openly flouts his police system, is enthusiastic about public education. But the connection of the public with its schools ends for the most part with their support. There is next to no provision for public control, and that little is generally felt to be a nuisance when it extends its activities beyond the financial support of the schools under its nominal charge. The direction of educational policy is no part of statesmanship; the divorce of school from politics-which presumably means matters of public policy-is thought to represent the ideal state of things. Educators have reciprocated by taking an astonishingly slight interest in the public functions attached to their own work. Social settlements, amateur philanthropists and voluntary associations, rather than professional educators, have agitated the questions of child labor and juvenile crime, of adequate recreative facilities and the wider use of the school plant, and even of preparation for making a livelihood. That our laissez passer methods have worked as well as they have indicates a certain soundness in our social life, as well as at least a temporary adaptation to our needs. That these methods will work as well in the future may be doubted. The formation by Congress of a Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education, composed of two Senators, two

The Politics of Budget Execution Financial Manipulation in State and Local Government

Abstract: Until recently, political scientists focused on the approval of budget requests and ignored budget execution. This study counters the budgeting literature's almost single-minded concentration on legislative action. Existing studies which touch on budget execution in state and local governments are reviewed and five major techniques of budgetary adjustment are identified: (1) conservative special fund revenue estimates, (2) accounting legerdemain, (3) transfers, (4) reprogramming, and (5) juggling of special funds. The study concludes that additional research on budget execution is necessary before developing more effective theories about the "steering" of governmental institutions.

Legislative role performance of female legislators

Abstract: Women members of the United States House of Representatives for the 91st and 93rd Congresses are compared with male members to test whether there is a significant difference in their legislative behavior in the following areas: liberalism-conservatism, dependency-independence, specialization, and effectiveness. Only in the area of specialization is there reasonable statistical support for the hypothesis of significant difference. Women did introduce legislation relating to health, education, welfare and other social concerns at a slightly higher rate than males, but this still represented only about one-fourth of their legislation.

Helping shape legislative policy

Abstract: We came to Congress in the plateau of the energy crisis. The initial crunch of the oil embargo, with its resulting gasoline lines, was already past by the time we became APS Congressional Fellows, but Project Independence was still very much on people's lips. Energy was only one of many subjects the Congress addressed during our year on Capitol Hill, 1974–75, but it was one of the most important ones and one that is of continuing interest to physicists and the community at large.

Policy Analysis for the Congress

Abstract: Congress and the Executive Branch are the nation's most important consumers of policy analysis. In recent years the Congress has created a number of innovative policy analysis institutions and expanded others. As a result, and to the surprise of some observers, the rate of legislative use of policy analysis is beginning to approach that of the Executive Office of the President. The information and analysis capabilities available to the Congress are a development of fundamental importance to the conduct of the nation's business. Not only have they strengthened the analytical phases of oversight, investigations, and appropriations some major phases of congressional decision making but they also have enlarged the opportunities for public participation in decision making. The purposes of this presentation are to: 1. Examine the main policy analysis institutions available to the Congress; 2. Identify factors that affect the use of policy analysis by the Congress; and 3. Describe some current reform proposals aimed at strengthening the policy analysis capability of the Congress.

Executive Leadership Versus Budgetary Beha vior

Abstract: Existing studies underestimate the barriers to using the budgetary process as a mechanism for "steering" public organizations. This analysis describes the apparently infinite adaptability of public administrators to changes in executive priori ties by examining budgeting under two successive, sharply contrasting chief executives in Delaware. The study also looks at how budget examiners respond to changing executive priorities and at how this may, in fact, undermine executive leadership. It also identifies alterations in legislative behavior which follow shifts in executive priorities and agency actions. Two very different patterns of budgetary behavior are identified and important limitations on "steering" and executive leadership are outlined.

Death and Dying: The Legislative Options

Abstract: A combination of several factors has apparently led to this recent round of legislative effort. Many of the state legislators who have introduced bills say they were motivated by unnecessarily tragic deaths in their own families. Underlying these personal experiences, however, is a shift in the cultural mood, a reaction against the excessive technologizing of the dying process and its control by the professional rather than the family. I have examined eighty-five pieces of draft legislation which address this problem. In 1977 alone bills have been introduced into forty state legislatures; eight states have passed legislation: Arkansas, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and Texas. The others are at various stages in the legislative process.* Some of the bills

Legislative Role Orientations and Support for Party and Chief Executive in the Indiana House

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between role orientations and roll-call voting behavior in the 1969 session of the Indiana House of Representatives. Role orientations toward party, separation of powers, style and areal focus of representation are correlated (Pearson's r) with Republican and Democratic legislators' support for party and gubernatorial positions on contested bills. Role orientations are also entered into multiple regression analysis of party and gubernatorial support. Role orientations are found to relate rather weakly, if at all, to the roll-call voting measures. Majorityminority status affects the relationships, with roles appearing to be more important among the minority Democratic legislators. Variables more useful to an explanation of roll-call support for party and governor include length of legislative service, the legislators' perceptions of the primary competition in the legislative district, district interparty competition, and strength or importance of local party organizations to election. Roles appear to be important only at the margins in explanations of party and gubernatorial support in roll-call voting.

Public Administration and the Military

Abstract: A new student of public administration trying to relate his/her academic studies to the practical field of public administration soon finds that the practical focus is narrow; with few exceptions, it is tranditionally concerned with the executive branches of national, state, and local governments and their efforts to carry out public policy. Indeed, one "standard" text specifically excludes the judicial and legislative agencies within government even though they are also clearly involved in the administration of public policy.1 The student discovers that the focus narrows even further, however, as he/she becomes aware that within the Executive Branch, public administration concern lies with the administration and carrying out of domestic public policy; almost conspicuous by its exclusion from the "traditional" field is concern with the administration of public foreign or international policy. Hence, it is not surprising to the student that the field of public administration also excludes concern with military administration and its effects on public policy, since the military is an instrument of "foreign" policy. Likewise, the student of military administration soon finds the military neither readily nor easily

Legislatures and Divided Societies: The Malaysian Parliament and Multi-Ethnicity

Abstract: The applicability of the consociational democracy model to ethnically-divided Malaysia is examined by an analysis of the backgrounds, attitudes, and behavior of a sample of Members of Parliament. Though there is an irreducible minimum of intercommunal conflict in Malaysia, many important issues are found to cross communal boundaries. Interelite bargaining among communal parties, characteristic of consociational democracy, is increasingly challenged by intracommunal party rivalry which frequently centers on development policies. Parliament provides a forum for this challenge through electoral competition and the constituency linkage activities of MPs.

Partisan Cues and Decision Loci in U. S. State Legislatures

Abstract: This study examines American state legislator orientations toward political parties and how these orientations relate to the legislators' cue-seeking behavior and their perceptions about the major decision-making arenas for state legislative policymaking. Using data from a fifty state sample of state legislators, several hypotheses are evaluated about the relationship of legislative party system support to partisan cue-seeking and legislator perceptions about the party caucus as a decision-making arena. The expectation that legislators who exhibit strong support for the legislative party system would be more likely to look to legislative party leaders for cues is confirmed by the data analyses. A control for district typicality enhances this relationship. Strong support by the legislators for the legislative party system also is moderately related to their perception of partisan arenas as the locus of decision-making in state legislatures.

Did Democracy Work? Prohibition in Late Nineteenth-Century Iowa: A Test Case

Abstract: Did Democracy Work? Prohibition in Late Nineteenth-Century Iowa: A Test Case Democracy is one of the pillars on which the American polity has rested. As the idea of popular government matured in the United States during the late nineteenth century, democracy increasingly meant the right of citizens to select the men and philosophies that would guide and govern their communities. Historians customarily have looked back at past politics to assess the correspondence between democratic theory and political practice. Critics have found fault with politics in the United States in all eras, but the distribution of indictments peak for the late nineteenth century. During the last third of the I8oos, in the orthodox view, the system was not working according to its theoretical precept. The indictment thesis of late nineteenth-century politics couples several motifs. This was a time when "immorality" clouded the political atmosphere, when bribery, boondoggles, and "buncombe" held sway over honesty and integrity. Political bosses and avaricious corporations sought patronage and profit, not resolution of pressing public concerns. In an era of reputed citizen indifference to a politics devoid of substantive issues, political parties eschewed alternative policy proposals and engaged in a selfinterested gamesmanship for political power. The state legislature symbolized the alleged political irresponsibility of the age. Over the decades since Bryce concluded that "the State legislatures are not high-toned bodies," few historians have seen reason to redeem their reputation. Beyond customary recitations of their corruption and inefficiency, domination by "unscrupulous" political managers, and frequent "purchase" by "captains of industry," historians have had little more to say about past American state legislatures.1

Inter-House Differences in American State Legislatures

Abstract: DIERENCES BETWEEN the U. S. House of Representatives and the Senate have been documented by students of legislative behavior.' They include formal differences such as the powers of the leadership, the size of the staff, and the number and size of committees, as well as more subtle distinctions such as the importance of certain norms and the prestige generally accorded members. There has been far less study of inter-house differences in state legislatures, with the exception of the literature on unicameralism.2 One argument in favor of unicameralism is that the maintenance of a bicameral legislature in a state is unnecessary from a representational standpoint, particularly since the reapportionment decisions, and results in wasteful delays in the state legislative process.3 This

Territorialism and Canadian Political Institutions

Abstract: A paper on political institutions may perhaps best begin with an assertion that institutions do matter. By 'matter' in this context I mean that political institutions are important independent variables in determining first, the allocative outputs of political systems and second, the capacities of political systems to persist over time. Richard Simeon has put it this way, '... (political) institutions are not simply the outgrowth or products of the environment and they are not just dependent variables in the political system. They can be seen as independent forces, which have some effects of their own: once established they themselves come to shape and influence the environment' (Simeon, 1975:504).1 There are really two propositions here. The first is that what Ralph Miliband has called the 'state system' the complex of legislatures and cabinets and bureaucracies and courts and so on is decisive rather than a dependent superstructure of economy or society. The other is that within this state system the way that power is structured is of considerable significance. This paper is focussed on the second proposition. Turning away from institutions to the Canadian political environment for a moment, we can affirm that Canada is in the most elemental way a federal country in the sense that some of the most politically salient dimensions of human differentiation are territorially grouped.2 The provinces and regions differ greatly in their economic structures and their levels of social and economic development. The bulk of the French-speaking community is confined to Quebec and areas of Ontario and New Brunswick contiguous to Quebec and there is a secular trend toward the increasing territorial demarcation of the two linguistic communities (Joy, 1972). In several respects which are of consequence for the political system there are significant regional variations in popular attitudes. Yet we must interpret these latter differences with some caution. I am not convinced by Mildred Schwartz's analysis of the

Constitutional Conflict in France: Deputies' Attitudes toward Executive-Legislative Relations

Abstract: The primary purpose of a constitution in a liberal democratic system is to impose restraint on the arbitrary use of power. The favored means of insuring this principle of constitutionalism is a judicious application of the doctrine of separation of powers: a separation which usually includes the functions of government, its agencies, and the individuals who occupy legitimate roles in the government.l Modifications to the constitution are normally evaluated in terms of how they effect the integrity of these divisions. The power which is distributed comes from the consent of the community, and once divided, power is understood as something which can be possessed, redivided, or transferred.2 Political scientists have directed most of their energy toward describing the realities of constitutional development. The present academic consensus is that legislatures have lost most of their constitutional powers. The executive, it is argued, has become the main source of legislative initiative and retains the recognized role of implementing laws. This evaluation is seldom neutral and antiseptic. It normally includes, at least implicitly, the demand that either an old balance be restored or a new one created. This is hardly surprising since the concentration of power is the very antithesis of constitutionalism. Our purpose in this paper is to examine the constitutional preferences of the members of one legislature, the National Assembly of the Fifth French Republic. In France, conflict over the Constitution continues to be endemic to political life. There is the ever-present possibility of a constitutional confrontation between the Assembly and the president that would challenge the legitimacy of the entire Constitution. An appreciation of deputies' attitudes towards the desirability of constitutional change and its direction begins with an understanding of constitutional reality in France and the recent course of executive-

Attitudes and Perceptions of the Louisiana Legislature (1977) Concerning the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service.

Abstract: ........................................................xiii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ........................................ 1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.................................... 2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY........................................ 5 OBJECTIVES OF THE S T U D Y .......... 5 THE DELIMITATIONS .......................................... 7 DEFINITIONS OF TERMS........................................ 7 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE............................... 9 THE COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE ......................... 9 THE LOUISIANA LEGISLATURE ................................. 17 CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................. 23 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY.......................................... 23 ASSUMPTIONS...................................................23 POPULATION..................................................... 23 DATA COLLECTION...............................................24 SURVEY INSTRUMENT .......................................... 25 RESPONSE....................................................... 26 DATA ANALYSIS.................................................26

The Cost of Educating Handicapped Pupils in New York City.

Abstract: a postscript to the forces launched by Brown v. Board of Education over twenty years ago, interest in "special education" has intensified during the last decade. The concept of equal educational opportunity has now been expanded to prohibit discrimination based not only on racial and ethnic differences, but also on economic status, sex, school performance, and handicapping conditions. As a result of this mandate, school systems throughout the country are now required to provide educational programs for all handicapped children, even those previously considered "uneducable." Major changes have occurred as a result of new statutes passed by the Congress and many state legislatures, as well as through the prodigious number of court cases filed on behalf of handicapped children. For example, the federal government's "Education for All Handicapped Children Act" (P.L. 94-142, 1975) specifies a new set of standards and requirements which may prove to be the most effective tool yet in compelling public school systems to provide handicapped students with equal educational opportunities. At the same time, P.L. 94-142 will mean enormous new cost burdens for local education agencies unless existing service delivery systems undergo major reorganization. Controversies in special education often center on budget issues. In turn, these issues provide a forum in which major conflicts are played out between the state commissioner of education and the