Showing papers on "Legislature published in 1981"

The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics

Abstract: This essay offers a rational political explanation for the notorious inefficiency of pork barrel projects with an optimization model of legislative behavior and legislative institutions. The model emphasizes the (economically arbitrary, from a welfare point of view) importance of the geographic incidence of benefits and costs owing to the geographic basis for political representation. We explore the implications of a legislator's objective function and derive conditions under which a representative legislature will select an omnibus of projects each of which exceeds the efficient scale.

Politicians, Legislation, and the Economy: An Inquiry into the Interest-Group Theory of Government

Abstract: 1 Analyzing Government.- Two Approaches to Analyzing Government.- The Interest-Group Theory of Government.- Plan of the Study.- Notes.- 2 Questions to be Answered.- Wealth Transfers and Organization Costs.- The "Market" for Wealth Transfers.- What This Analysis Is Not About.- What This Analysis Is About.- Summary.- Appendix: Heterogeneity Begets Wealth Redistribution.- Notes.- 3 The Demand and Supply of Wealth Transfers.- Maximizing the Returns from Legislation in a Bicameral.- Vote Market.- Empirical Evidence from State Legislatures.- Summary.- Notes.- 4 Legislatures as Wage Cartels.- Theory and Preliminary Implications.- A Test of Relative Wage Implications.- Wage Pay and Malfeasance.- Summary.- Notes.- 5 The Outside Earnings of Politicians.- The Market for Legislators.- Empirical Evidence from State Legislatures.- Low Wage Pay as an Entry Barrier in Politics.- Summary.- Notes.- 6 The Supply of Majority Leadership.- Competition for Majority Leadership.- Empirical Evidence from State Legislatures.- Summary.- Notes.- 7 The Determinants of Executive Branch Compensation.- Gubernatorial Compensation.- The Question of Malfeasance.- Summary.- Notes.- 8 Summary, Conclusions, and Future Directions.- Notes.- Name Index.

State politics, parties, and policy

Abstract: Chapter 1 State Politics Today Chapter 2 Electoral Foundations of State Political Systems Chapter 3 Interest Groups and Political Power Chapter 4 The Party Outside Government: The Electoral Party Chapter 5 The Governor as Party Leader and Policy Maker Chapter 6 State Legislatures Chapter 7 The Courts Chapter 8 The Budgetary Process: Spending and Taxing Chapter 9 The Politics of Redistribution: Welfare Policy Chapter 10 Educational Policy in the States Chapter 11 Conclusion

Political Culture and Female Political Representation

Abstract: RECENT RESEARCH into the determinants of female representation has emphasized that political structures influence the likelihood that women will be elected to state legislatures and city councils. ' These studies demonstrate that women tend to hold legislative seats in states and communities where legislatures are least professional and legislative service least desirable. Explanations of these phenomena are twofold. First, female office seekers may encounter stiffer male opposition in states and communities where legislative compensation is greater, tenure longer and the prestige of office-holding higher.2 Second, sex roles may dictate that women, many of whom are homemakers or mothers of young children, have less time or opportunity for legislative service, especially when it is the equivalent of a full-time occupation.3

Money and votes: A simultaneous equation model

Abstract: This paper has specified and estimated a model of the interaction between money and voting in American politics. Convincingly establishing the identification of a system of equations can be difficult even when theory provides a guide. In the study of money in politics, however, no theoretical perspective has been established in the literature. To make the case for identification as unambiguous as possible, this paper has done two things. First, the specification was based, in part, on theory which has formally been developed elsewhere and which satisfactorily describes data at the economic interest group level (Welch, 1980). Second, part of the question of identification revolves around the relationship between party strength and socioeconomic variables. Because there are questions as to the best measurement of party strength, results based on two measures were presented. For a number of reasons, the Presidential vote was the preferred measure. This study draws four conclusions. First, money influenced voting in U.S. House elections in 1972, although its effect was ‘small’. Second, patterns of total contributions to a U.S. House candidate are consistent with the hypothesis that a majority of dollars come from contributors who prefer to support likely winners. Third, the total contributions made to a candidate are a positive function of the district's median years of schooling completed and the Gini coefficient. Total contributions made to a Democratic candidate are also a positive function of the median income. Finally, had House campaigns been financed in the early 1970s, even to the point of giving each major party candidate $150,000 (in 1978 dollars), few elections would have been changed. It is also worth mentioning some of the things about the financing of political campaigns that we still do not know. The above conclusions involve only elections to the U.S. House; there are good reasons for suspecting that money is more influential in U.S. Senate elections. OLS statistics support this belief and the greater visibility of those races help justify it. Although money has little effect on House elections, we do not know whether contributions affect legislative voting in the House. Representatives apparently believe that expenditure influences their reelection chances. Given the complexity of the process, it should be no surprise that this belief conflicts with our findings. Acting on this belief, a Representative's vote may very well be influenced by the sources of his contributions, either directly or indirectly through the giving of access to contributors. Finally, we should be reminded that the above model is static while the electoral process is dynamic. The amount contributed to a candidate is affected by his probability of winning in the previous time period (e.g. week, month) and in turn affects that probability in the following time period. As usual, what we know is overshadowed by what we do not know. The above questions are both interesting in their own right and of interest to policy making.

State Legislation on Smoking and Health: A Comparison of Two Policies

Abstract: The two principal smoking-related state legislative activities stand in sharp contrast to one another. Cigarette excise taxation diffused among the states well before the connection between smoking and illness became a public issue, yet more recent tax increases appear to reflect a response to the national anti-smoking campaign. The growing disparity in cigarette prices between tobacco and other states has created a lucrative market in bootlegged cigarettes and has thereby brought new taxation to a virtual standstill for six years. Laws restricting smoking in public places represent a phenomenon of the 1970's clearly bearing the imprint of the anti-smoking campaign. From 1972 through 1978, the number of states with such laws in effect grew from 5 to 36, and the restrictiveness of the laws also increased. The dramatic correlation between diffusion of the laws and decreases in cigarette consumption rates seems best interpreted as each of these reflecting changes in social attitudes toward smoking.

Legislative Behavior and Legislative Oversight

Abstract: This article explores contrasting approaches to the study of oversight by state legislatures. A focus on individual orientations and behavior, which has dominated such study, reveals attempts by legislators to maximize credit, achieve concrete results, and avoid making additional trouble for themselves. It indicates that little oversight is performed. By contrast, a focus on institutional activity-primarily by special commissions and committees and their staffs-indicates that substantially more oversight is performed. The apparent contradiction is reconciled by taking into account institutional incentives as they influence the motivations of a minority of members. The major problem is an analytical one, in which an unwarranted "aggregative leap" is made from the individual on the one hand to the institution on the other.

Factors Influencing the Adoption of New Methods of Legislative Oversight in the U. S. States

Abstract: This study examines the adoption of two relatively new methods of state legislative oversight-rule and regulation review and sunset. The patterns and differences among the states through 1979 in utilizing these methods are analyzed. An empirical model concentrating on five factors-general legislative capabilities, existing oversight capabilities, administrative structure, executive power, and divided party control-is tested to account for the variation in both the adoption of these techniques and the specific method used. Using discriminant analysis, findings suggest that the adoption of rule and regulation review is associated with greater conflict between the executive and the legislature and greater divided party control, while the adoption of sunset is associated with low legislative professionalism and low existing oversight.

The Legislative Staff of the British House of Commons

Abstract: The major expansion in the volume of parliamentary business in the last 30 years has produced an expansion in the size and duties of the staff of the House of Commons. The official permanent staff is appointed to serve the House as a whole, and is organised into six departments. The professional staffs of the new, departmentallyrelated select committees constitute one of the most interesting new developments, the most recent example of that pragmatic growth of the parliamentary staff which has also given it a somewhat fragmented structure. The House of Commons (Administration) Act of 1978 is the first attempt to create a unified parliamentary service. The principal functions of the parliamentary staff are to give advice on parliamentary procedure, to provide administrative services, and to undertake research. In addition, MPs have personal assistants, and each of the parliamentary parties has a small staff of its own.

Why Are Congressional Committees Dominated by "High-Demand" Legislators?: A Comment on Niskanen's View of Bureaucrats and Politicans

Abstract: William Niskanen argued that the characteristics of the legislative review process imply that bureaus are allowed to produce an output which is less efficient than the "representative" legislator would allow [4; 5]. The main points Niskanen raised in this regard centered on the facts that: (i) "A committee, not the whole legislature conducts the review process for each bureau;" and (ii) "More important, at least in the United States, most committees are dominated by legislators who have higher demands for the services reviewed than the median demand in the whole legislature and the committee decisions are very seldom amended or reversed by the whole legislature" [5, 624-25]. Niskanen observed that the review committee prefers a greater output than that preferred by a "representative" legislator [5, 625-26]. Since bureaucratic output is inefficiently large in the Niskanen model of bureaucratic production, the implication is that "high demand" committee review allows relatively more inefficiency than the representative legislator would condone. Niskanen assumed that all legislators wish to maximize their political support (votes). Such legislators would not allow an increase in inefficiency without some offsetting benefit, since some voters have a negative reaction to this inefficiency (non-consuming taxpayers). Yet, in the Niskanen model the bureau captures all the consumer surplus associated with the increase in output allowed by high demand committee review. Consumers of the bureau's output may appear to benefit since they consume more. However, they gain no additional surplus so there is no increase in consumer (voter) welfare. There appears to be nothing positive to offset the loss in votes resulting from inefficient production. Under majority rule decision making, it is often argued that the desires of the median voter will be met. The "representative" legislator is the median voter in a legislative assembly. Therefore, it seems that this median legislator's perception of marginal political returns and marginal political costs should dictate the allocation of resources in the public sector.

Centralization and Government Budget Size

Abstract: Since the government budget size is inherently a political decision, the assertions about overspending or underspending, which are associated with centralization, are usually based upon some inadequacy of the decision-making processes such as, the problems created by coalition formation in legislative bodies, or the distortion of the appropriate benefit and cost figures in the decision calculus.' Opinion is divided, however, as to whether the centralization of activities in a system of governments is likely to increase or decrease the overall level of spending.

One-Party Dominance in Legislatures

Abstract: Democratic party domination of the U.S. House of Representatives coupled with competitive presidential elections is mildly paradoxical. The same voters participate in elections in both constituencies, yet the partisan distribution of voters across constituencies is such that the U.S. House was consistently Democratic in the modern era. The consequences of the particular distribution of votes which exists in a given epoch are explored with an elementary dynamic mathematical model. It is shown that a number of significant consequences for partisan control of a legislature are logically entailed by the inevitably unequal distribution of safe seats between two parties especially under conditions of high levels of institutionalization.

Political Corruption in the United States

Abstract: Corruption and scandal have long been regular and conspicuous features of American politics and government. From the land, oil and railroad scandals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the presidential, congressional and electoral scandals of the late twentieth century, the United States has rarely enjoyed a reputation for political probity or institutional integrity. Some American states are less corrupt than others and the federal judiciary experiences fewer scandals than do the executive and legislative branches but, overall, corruption is not confined geographically or institutionally. The way in which corruption is understood in the United States is a product of legal, social, economic and political cultures and contexts. Rules regulating political conduct were conspicuous by their absence in the nineteenth century and, what may appear as conspicuously corrupt by modern standards, was then perceived as ‘politics as usual’.

Reapportionment Politics: The History of Redistricting in the 50 States

Abstract: A history of re-apportionment in the United States. Fifty eight distinguished contributors show in a state-by-state format how re-apportionment has shaped the politics of the states, and how it continues to do so after a recent federal census. The balance of parties in both state and federal legislatures, the voice of minority groups, even the role of local governments can be manipulated by redistricting.

Media of mass communication and the third republican constitution of ghana

Abstract: MOST CONSTITUTIONS establish the principal institutions of a state. Usually such political institutions include the houses of legislature, electoral organs, the executive and the courts of law. In addition the broad principles which are to govern them and regulate their relationships are also laid down.1 Seldom, if ever, do framers of constitutions concern themselves with such institutions as the media of mass communication. Institutions such as these are normally established by the ordinary law of the land. Also the composition of such institutions as well as those of the 'more important' set of institutions is left to the legislature to deal with. Thus the main line of distinction normally drawn by constitutional experts is between the institutions which are directly set up by the Constitution, and those established by the ordinary law of the land. This line of distinction in relation to the media of mass communication was recognised by the framers of the First and Second Republican Constitutions of Ghana.2

Mathematical Models of Juror and Jury Decision-Making

Abstract: The jury is a remarkable example of the use of groups to make decisions. A jury is composed of untrained citizens, drawn randomly from the eligible population, convened briefly for a particular trial, entrusted with great official powers, permitted to deliberate in secret, to render a verdict without explanation, and without any accountability then or ever, to return to private life. In that such a firm institution is composed of such fluid members, and that these ordinary citizens judge criminal responsibility in place of professional agents of the state, the jury is a unique political institution. More than representative legislatures and popularly elected executives, it is the jury that characterizes democratic political systems. (Saks, 1977, p. 6)

The National Consultative Council of Jordan: A Study in Legislative Development

Abstract: Studies of legislatures in developing countries have to contend with a great deal of cynicism owing, in part, to a political controversy concerning the role of the legislative institution in the Third World. The executive branch, which is generally dominant in developing nations, often uses the legislature to legitimize executive actions. Legislators who agree to serve the executive in this fashion often exaggerate or misrepresent the importance of the legislature in their political system. Conversely, opposition groups, who are frequently excluded from the political process in Third World countries, denigrate the role of legislatures and often exaggerate their ineffectiveness. Scholars have mostly ingnored the role of legislatures in the process of development.

Cameroon and its foreign relations

Abstract: THE FOREIGN policy making processes in Cameroon is a highly personalized thing and has been dominated by the style and personality of President Ahmadou Ahidjo. To appreciate the extent to which all other traditional foreign policy making structures (such as the cabinet, legislature, and so on) have been subordinated to the will of one man, one must examine the nature of presidential power in Cameroon. An unusually perceptive student of Cameroon politics, Professor Le Vine, has observed that Cameroon's presidency is a hybrid which 'combines the attributes of a British-style Governor-General, a Fifth Republic President and an American Chief executive. This new type of presidency,' Le Vine goes on, 'does not appear to have parallels in present or past constitutional practice.'3 This assessment is shared by the Cameroonian legal scholar, Owona, who states without equivocation that in Cameroon 'Le Chef de l'Etat demeure le chef incontestable du gouvernement'4 as well as the leader of the ruling and only party, the Cameroon National Union. The Cameroon constitution establishes the paramountcy of the president in the executive field,5 conferring upon him wide and commanding powers among which is the right to negotiate and ratify agreements and treaties (Art. 9.4). Although the constitution provides that certain kinds of treaties shall be submitted before ratification for approval by the National Assembly (Art. 9.4) or through a national referendum (Art. 30.2b), this provision is effectively neutralized by Art. 21 which empowers the President to legislate by way of ordinance. The constitution imposes no obligation on the President to accept or act on the advice of his cabinet or parliament. He in fact enjoys with the latter

Legislative Education Staffing in the States.

Abstract: Fifteen years ago a typical state legislator, when asked about the legislative role in elementary and secondary education, replied quizzically: "Education is a local thing; we don't have anything to do with that; there's a formula." There was little recognition then, among legislators and among others, that state legislatures had the power not only to revise funding formulas, but to shape education policies. Today, by contrast, legislatures are up to their ears, or over their heads, in education. Most are in the thick of policymaking, while some even have wrested the initia-

Taiwan's Recent Election: Progress toward a Democratic System

Abstract: ON DECEMBER 6, 1980, the electorate of Taiwan went to the polls to vote in what was regarded by most observers as the most important election in recent years. In a sense it was the first national election in Taiwan. Previous "national" elections had been held only to fill vacant seats in the Legislative Yuan (branch of government) and the National Assembly. Other elections have been only "provincial" or local in scope. It was an election that had been scheduled for December 1978, but had to be cancelled because of the Carter administration's decision to derecognize the government of ihe Republic of China (ROC) and transfer recognition to the People's Republic of China. It was also an election held in a milieu of more than just slight apprehension and nervousness. Less than a year earlier political protest had turned into violence at a Human Rights Day demonstration in Taiwan's second largest city, Kaohsiung. Following this incident, political freedoms were cut back and a number of the instigators of the demonstration were put on trial for sedition, convicted, and given stiff prison sentences. In addition, during the last election, in 1977, violence in the city of Chungli, not far from Taipei, had followed a controversy resulting from the invalidation of some ballots. Early in the year, the government proceeded to write new election laws and promised elections for late in the year while adding a number of new seats to the National Assembly and the Legislative Yuan. Before the election, security forces warned political elements on the right not to disturb the election process or intimidate liberal and independent candidates. A warning had already gone out to, the left during the trials,

In Search of a General Approach to Legal Analysis: A Comparative Institutional Alternative

Abstract: This article constructs a general approach to legal analysis. Its central thesis is that all legal decisions share a fundamental feature that should be a basic building block for any general analytic approach: they all involve a choice among imperfect alternative decision-making institutions. In all cases, legal decision makers must consider the relative merits or attributes of the alternative institutions. The analyst of legal decisions, therefore, should adopt a "comparative institutional" approach. In this Article, this comparative institutional analysis is compared and contrasted with conventional law and economics. There are two distinct problems with this prevailing approach. First, it is unclear whether the analytic concern of the conventional economic approach is with the determinants or the effects of legal decisions. This ambivalence about analytic purpose has produced sweeping claims that the common-law judiciary tends to produce results that are allocatively efficient, while the legislature does not. This distinction between legal analysis of the determinants and effects of decisions, and the problems caused by the failure of the proponents of the economic approach to limit their discussion to determinants, are discussed in Part I. Second, and most important for this Article, when those employing the conventional economic approach do search for the determinants of legal decisions, they reveal a distinct institutional myopia. The approach generally considers variation in the attributes of only one institution - the market. This approach is basically incomplete. If societal decisions are allocated to or away from the market, they are taken from or given to some other institutional alternative. A number of institutions are available and the adequacy of each of these institutions varies with the legal setting. Thus it is not enough to establish that in a given setting the market would not perform perfectly; one must also compare the market's performance with that of the available alternative decision-making institutions. Part II compares the conventional economic and comparative institutional approaches in several contexts: property rights and remedies,the role of custom and penal statutes in the determination of tort liability, and the constitutional law issue of economic due process, among others.

Block grants and the resurgence of federalism.

Abstract: In an address, this past summer, to the National Convention of State Legislatures, President Reagan captured to essence of the block grant proposal in a sentence. "Our task," the President said, "is to restore the constitutional symmetry between the Central Government and the States and to re-establish the freedom and variety of federalism." Consolidating the current profusion of complex and often overlapping Federal health grants into four State-administered packages will greatly reduce administrative costs and allow us to make wise use of scarce health dollars in a time of economic trial. At the same time, these changes will give States the managerial and policy flexibility that they need, but have lacked, to respond to their own most pressing needs. Of perhaps most importance in the long run, this system of grants will return a just portion of responsibility for the preservation and improvement of our health care system to the States, their communities, and the people. It is precisely this kind of equilibrium, this symmetry, that the President had in mind and that, for too many years, the Federal-State-Private partnership in health has been without. The restoration of this equilibrium, it should be noted by all, is underway.

Democracy For the Second Republic

Abstract: Following the collapse of many civilian and constitutional governments in postcolonial Africa, most political analysts and commentators drew a dismal conclusion. They decided that democratic representation based upon freedom of speech and association would be abandoned in Africa and they proclaimed the onset of an era of authoritarian rule.1 Some analysts, in the tradition of colonialist thought, asserted that cultural and social conditions in Africa are simply unsuited to the practice of liberal democracy.2 Today in Africa, contrary to the expectations of those who accepted the prognosis of long-term authoritarian rule, liberal government has revived on a grand scale. Nigeria, the largest African country-with 90 to 100 million people, approximately 20 percent of the continental population-has chosen to reconstruct her political order upon foundations of constitutional liberty. This historic event is likely to have considerable impact upon political thought and practice in other African countries, yet Western analysts and commentators have been slow to appreciate its meaning. With few exceptions their reports have scarcely indicated the extent of Nigeria's national commitment to constitutional government. Constitutional rebirth in Nigeria involved three years of public debate after an all-civilian and broadly representative Constitution Drafting Committee issued its report in September 1976.3 Following a year of uninhibited public discussion focused by Nigeria's notably free press,4 the draft was scrutinized and modified by a Constituent Assembly of 228 members, of whom 203 were elected by local government councils in the nineteen states.5 The military government then amended the draft in several particulars which appear to have been largely noncontroversial. To be sure, this exercise of final authority by the military government, confirmed by its decision to dispense with a referendum to ratify the new Constitution, does detract from the civilian government's claim to democratic legitimacy. However, the thoroughness of the public debate, the freedom with which it was conducted, and the national consensus that has become manifest, together support the conclusion that Nigeria's Second Republic was established upon a genuinely popular foundation. Political activity was formally inaugurated in September 1978, leading to five separate elections during July and August 1979-for state legislators, state governors, members of the Federal House of Representatives, senators, and president of the Federal Republic. Apart from the separation of executive from legislative power-specifically, the establishment of an American-type executive president and a cabinet of ministers who cannot be members of Parliament-the major aspects of the new Constitution are remarkably similar to those of the ill-fated First Republic. They include a Federal form of government, an independent judiciary, and competition for elective office between rival political parties. One striking departure from the pattern of the First Republic is the constitutional prohibition f political parties deemed to have ethnic, religious, or sectional, rather than truly national, orientations and organizational foundations. On this principle, the Federal Electoral Commission registered five parties, out of a total of nineteen applicants, to compete in the elections of 1979. While this prohibition does severely restrict the right of citizens to compete in elections, its practical effect is much less innovative than might be supposed, for two reasons: (1) the electoral system of the First Republic did foster the formation of a few large parties and transregional party coalitions; and (2) as shown by the election results, the parties that qualified for recognition by virtue of their having established a credible presence in at least two-thirds of the states are nonetheless identified with the particular interests of specific ethnic or sectional groups. If, as I suggest, the legal prohibition of sectional parties will not greatly affect the substance of political behavior; if, moreover, the liberal democratic form of government is essentially similar to that of the First Republic, are there any new political conditions that auger well for the future of constitutional government in Nigeria? Fortunately, the military governments in control of Nigeria since 1966 have wrought a fundamental and salutary change in the structure of the Nigerian state. The Federal government of the First Republic (1963-66) as erected upon a foundation of domineering regional power. There were four governmental regions-one, with a majority of the national population, in the northern part of the country, and three in the southern part. In every region the dominant group dispensed patronage and exercised authority to consolidate its own power while it discouraged or repressed opposition. Defenders of the regional power system subscribed to the regional-security maxim that resources obtained in one region should not be used to undermine the ruling group in another region, either by electoral or any other means. By enforcing this rule of political conduct, the conservative leaders of the large Northern region planned to maintain their control of the Federal Parliament. Southern conservatives were willing to tolerate Northern political supremacy at the

The House of Lords in the Parliaments of Edward VI and Mary I: An Institutional Study

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. The composition of the House 3. The quality of the House 4. Attendance and activity, absenteeism and management 5. Cohesion and division 6. The Lords' inheritance: clerks and assistants to the House 7. The rules of business: procedure 8. The legislative record of the mid-Tudor Lords.

Revenue-Raising Limitations on Local Government: A Focus on Alternative Responses

Abstract: Local governments across the country are reevaluating their fiscal position. California's vote on Proposition 13 in 1978 and the subsequent flood of similar proposals that surfaced in legislatures and on referenda throughout that fall exemplify the public concern that is focused on governmental expenditures and the competition for public monies. It is important for administrators and scholars to take a fresh look at the limitations, both new and traditional, imposed upon the availability of local governments to raise the revenue needed for public service delivery. This research will review state revenue limitations and the alternatives with which localities deal with such fiscal constraints. Additionally, the actions of the Maryland General Assembly during the 1978 and 1979 legislative sessions to shift tax burdens and alter taxation procedures between the state and the local governments are examined as a case study of a state attempting to relieve fiscal pressures on its localities. The popular pressure for austerity may have come along at the right time. After a long post-World War II period of operating deficits (with a record deficit of $6.2 billion for 1975), state and local governments, as an aggregate, were in the black for the years of 1976, 1977, and 1978. This is in contrast to the continuing deficits in the federal budget. The sharp growth in local government spending that characterized the early 1970s diminished somewhat in 1974 and 1975 when the recession forced state and local governments to tighten their belts. State and local spending increased only 5.7 percent during fiscal 1977.