Circumventing Legislative Committees: The US Senate

Committees have been established to improve legislation and make expert recommendations. However, many bills do not appear in committees, and how they reach the Senate floor varies in style and strategy. We develop and test expectations for when, as well as how, bills bypass Senate committee proceedings. The procedures legislators use to circumvent committees and what makes committee bypassing more probable are explored. The findings clearly demonstrate that bills introduced by ideologically extreme minority-party members are more likely to bypass committees. We also show a clear shift in the procedural choices senators make as the Senate becomes increasingly polarized. This article highlights the procedural choices members make, how these choices produce differing outcomes, and suggests evidence of positive agenda power for individual minority-party senators.     

Issue Attention and Legislative Proposals in the U.S. Senate

This analysis of bill sponsorship across a variety of issues and Congresses shows that committee membership is the single most important factor shaping a senator's level of issue attention. Constituency demand is of secondary importance. Ideology, partisanship, and national conditions play little or no role. Consistent with a theoretical cost‐benefit framework, the results suggest that senators are motivated by the prospect of electoral and policy rewards from successful legislation rather than from mere position taking. The findings attest to the enduring importance of the committee system in a highly individualistic and increasingly partisan Senate.     

Staggered Terms for the US Senate: Origins and Irony

This article provides the first detailed study of the origins of staggered Senate terms, which typically have been interpreted as part of the framers’ intent to create an insulated, stable, and conservative Senate. I draw upon three sources of evidence—the meaning and application of “rotation” in revolutionary America, the deliberations and decisions at the Constitutional Convention, and the arguments during Ratification—to show that the origins of and intentions behind staggered terms offer little support for the dominant interpretation. Instead, staggered terms, a mechanism to promote “rotation” or turnover of membership, were added to the Constitution as a compromise to offset, not augment, the Senate's longer terms by exposing a legislative chamber with long individual tenure to more frequent electoral influence and change.     

Explaining Women's Legislative Representation in Sub‐Saharan Africa

This study examines the relative impacts of social, economic, cultural, and political determinants on women's legislative representation in sub‐Saharan Africa by using an ordinary least squares multiple regression model. Under study are sub‐Saharan African countries that held democratic legislative elections between January 1990 and June 30, 2001. Only the latest election in each country is included for analysis. My study finds that patriarchal culture, proportional representation systems, and gender quotas are statistically significant. This study, by focusing on sub‐Saharan Africa, fills a gap in the extant literature, which has focused on women's legislative representation in advanced industrialized democracies.     

Ideology and Representation in the US Senate: Roll Calls v. Constituent Assessments

Most research on representation in the US Congress examines the relationship between the voting behaviour of legislators and citizens' preferences. Using a roll call-based measure (DW-NOMINATE scores) of US Senators' ideologies and citizen assessments of Senators' ideologies (from the American National Election Study: Pooled Senate Election Study 1988, 1990, 1992), we demonstrate that judgements about Senators' responsiveness (the extent to which more liberal/conservative Senators represent more liberal/conservative states) is sensitive to measurement issues. In addition, using citizen assessments, we move beyond responsiveness to examine ‘representativeness’ (the extent to which Senators' ideologies match the average ideologies of their constituents) as a dimension of representation. We conclude that citizen assessments should not be overlooked since representation may ultimately be a phenomenon that rests in the eye of the beholder and since governmental legitimacy itself rests on citizens' attitudes and beliefs.     

An Ambition‐Theoretic Approach to Legislative Organizational Choice

Understanding legislative organization requires that we understand internal institutional choice; we must be able to describe and predict variation in internal structures across legislatures rather than simply explain a given structure. Currently, models that would enable us to do so are largely unavailable. This article offers a more general model, based on a variant of ambition theory, with the explicit purpose of examining variation in internal organization rather than a particular structure. Theoretical results indicate that legislators' strategic preferences over structures will fall into distinct and opposed types. This finding implies that legislatures themselves should fall into the same types and that structures, rules, and norms should appear in organized, relatively coherent bundles linked to varying legislator types.     

State‐Level Institutional Effects on Legislative Coalition Unity in Brazil

How do subnational factors affect the proclivity of legislators from the same party or coalition to vote together? We estimate the effects of two institutional forces operating at the state level—intralist electoral competition and alliance with governors—on voting unity among coalition cohorts to the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. Larger cohorts, in which the imperative for legislators to distinguish themselves from the group is stronger, are less unified than smaller cohorts. We find no net effect of alliance with governors on cohort voting unity. Governors are not dominant brokers of legislative coalitions, a result suggesting that the net gubernatorial effect is contingent on factors that shape governors' influence relative to that of national‐level legislative actors.     

Examining the relationship between low empathy and self‐reported offending

Purpose . This paper reports the results of a study comparing measures of cognitive and affective empathy to self‐reported offending in a group of adolescents. Methods . Data on self‐reported offending and empathy were collected from 720 UK adolescents (376 males, 344 females) in Year 10 (mean age = 14.8) using anonymous questionnaires administered in a classroom setting. The prevalence of self‐reported offending was found to be consistent with results of a national level study that employed a similar methodology. The empathy scale, which was developed and validated using this sample, assessed levels of cognitive and affective empathy. Results . Males who had committed any offence had lower empathy (especially affective) than those who had not. Females who had committed any offence did not have low empathy compared to those who had not. Both males and females who had committed violence had lower empathy than males and females who had not. High‐rate male offenders had lower empathy (especially affective) than low‐rate male offenders, and high‐rate female offenders had lower empathy (especially affective) than low‐rate female offenders. For males (but not for females), the relationship between low affective empathy and violence was accounted for by the relationship between low affective empathy and a high rate of offending. Conclusions . More research comparing the empathy of males and females with their self‐reports of offending is needed, especially in prospective longitudinal studies, so that the time ordering of the effects can be established. Also, more research is needed to investigate whether the relationship between low empathy and self‐reported offending holds independent of other factors previously found to be associated with offending (e.g. low intelligence, low socio‐economic status).     

Pink‐Collar Representation and Budgetary Outcomes in US States

Legislatures worldwide are dominated by wealthy elites, who are often out of touch with the needs and problems of citizens. Research shows that the underrepresentation of the working class matters in terms of policy processes and outcomes. Yet the research on class has largely focused on blue‐collar representatives, who are primarily men. Working‐class women are more likely to hold pink‐collar jobs, or low‐status occupations dominated by women. We argue that pink‐collar legislators are uniquely positioned to legislate over education and social service policy. To test our argument, we combine a new coding of working‐class backgrounds that accounts for pink‐collar representation with state spending data on education and social services from US states over time. Modeling compositional budget data, we find that class and gender intersect to shape policy outcomes via state budget allocations, with women's pink‐collar representation associated with increased spending on both education and social services.     

Examining the constitutionality of Internet filtering in public schools: a US perspective

The use of Internet filters in public classrooms in the USA has been intensely debated, both in terms of its effectiveness and legality. The debate pits concerns to protect students from indecent material against issues of unconstitutional censorship. This paper examines the legal issues addressed in various rulings by the US Supreme Court pertinent to issues raised in the debate over the constitutionality of filtering in the classroom. The rulings and opinions offer valuable insights into the legal issues raised in this debate.     

Soft Post‐Legislative Rulemaking: A Time for More Stringent Control

The Commission's soft post‐legislative rulemaking by way of communications, notices, codes and similar instruments has become an increasingly important tool for the adequate functioning of the system of shared administration in the EU. However, the development of its legal framework has not kept pace with this, as the Treaty on the EU nor the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) recognise this regulatory phenomenon. As a result, its current procedural control is of a very ad hoc nature. Given the risks this rulemaking involves for the legitimacy of the EU, its practical and legal importance for legal practice and the way in which the Treaty of Lisbon has sought to condition and control the behaviour of the Union institutions, it is argued that the time is ripe for a more stringent and consistent procedural control of soft post‐legislative rulemaking. Some options to realise this are presented for further research.     

Measuring Legislative Power: An Expert Reweighting of the Fish‐Kroenig Parliamentary Powers Index

The Parliamentary Powers Index (PPI) developed by Fish and Kroenig (2009) is the most important effort to date to measure legislative power in cross‐national perspective, but it has been criticized on both theoretical and methodological grounds. We build on the 32‐item PPI to develop an alternative indicator of legislative strength that is based on an expert survey of 296 political scientists in 2014. We reweight each of the powers by expert opinion, creating a new Weighted Legislative Powers Score (WLPS) for the 158 national legislatures in the Fish and Kroenig data set. In addition, the article reports the expert‐assigned weight factors for the entire set of 32 powers contained in the original PPI, thus allowing researchers to innovate alternative, disaggregated indicators of legislative power.     

中美两国死刑制度之立法原因比较

中美两国尽管在文化传统、社会制度、经济发展水平等方面均存在较大差异,但在废止或严格限制死刑的世界性潮流面前,对死刑却采取了相似的政策——既保留死刑又限制其适用,其中既有民意因素,也有政治因素。美国现阶段的高犯罪率、南方的私刑传统、历史上未经纳粹统治等因素导致其支持死刑的民意高涨,这对于政治精英、联邦最高法院及地区法官和检察官都有影响;在中国,现阶段社会治安形势恶化、礼法传统与家族主义的深远影响,以及缺少西方启蒙运动洗礼等因素导致民意支持死刑,这对于执政党、立法机关和司法机关,以及法官与检察官个人,都产生了深刻的影响。在政治因素方面,美国联邦与各州的权限划分以及盛行的联邦主义是影响其现行死刑制度的重要原因;在中国,统治者所奉行的"乱世用重典"的治国之策和重刑主义的历史传统、特殊历史时期所形成的"左"的错误,都是影响中国死刑制度的重要原因。对于中美两国死刑制度进行改造,应注意从民意与政治因素方面着手进行。     

Electoral Influences on Legislative Behavior in Mixed‐Member Systems: Evidence from Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada

Abstract: This article addresses how mixed‐member systems that combine proportional representation (PR) and single‐member districts (SMD) into a single election can influence legislators' voting behavior. Scholars have generally extended standard expectations of behavior to mixed‐member systems by assuming that legislators occupying PR seats in mixed‐member parliaments should be more cohesive than those occupying SMD seats. I argue that controlling for seat type alone does not take into account the interaction between PR and SMD in mixed‐member systems. Using voting data from Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, I show that controlling for dual candidacy and the “safety” of the deputy's district or list position increases our understanding of the factors motivating legislative cohesion.     

Incarceration and the Legitimate Labor Market: Examining Age‐Graded Effects on Employment and Wages

Over the past 30 years, the U.S. inmate population has increased dramatically, and the penal system has acquired growing attention in accounts of recent trends in economic stratification. As the prison system has expanded, its population has aged; incarceration rates have risen sharpest among older age groups. A large body of research documents differences in criminal offending and incarceration over the life course, but little attention has been paid to how the effects of spending time in prison depend on the timing of incarceration in the life course. Using state administrative data that provide significant variance in the age of offenders, this article investigates how the timing of incarceration in the life course influences its effects on post‐release employment and wages. We do not find consistent evidence that incarceration effects vary by age at admission. Instead, incarceration appears to have important consequences for employment and wage outcomes regardless of when individuals are admitted to prison. Even the most motivated offenders suffer sizeable and significant wage penalties and, over time, decreased likelihood of employment. These findings underscore the relevance of legal and institutional shifts associated with carceral expansion and the aging of the inmate population for life course theories of criminal desistance, accounts of labor market inequality, and prisoner reentry programs.     

美国加密工具的立法进程为什么会陷入停滞

美国国会曾经推出S.2067、S.376、S.377、S.798、S.990、H.R.850等多部加密法案。“9.11恐怖袭击”之后,美国加密工具的立法进程已经陷入停滞。美国产生过两类立法:改造环境的立法、改造自然人的立法。后一类立法中,南北战争前维护奴隶制度的立法、二战前的优生学立法都已经被废弃。然而,随着生物技术的发展,这些立法体现的立法模型(通过甄别、处置人的生物学特征分配社会待遇、社会权利)可能演变出一些切实可行的制度安排。美国加密工具的立法前途取决于一个二取其一的选择:法律应改造环境?抑或改造自然人?     

Non‐Legislative Rule Making after the Lisbon Treaty: Implementing the New System of Comitology and Delegated Acts

The reform of comitology and the introduction of the new instrument of delegated acts in the Lisbon Treaty were followed by protracted negotiations on the implementation of both articles. This article examines the resultant system that has emerged for both types of non‐legislative instruments. In the area of implementing acts, a new regulation sets out important changes: a reduction in the number of procedures, the extension of the scope to trade defence measures and the replacement of a referral to the Council with a new appeal committee. With respect to delegated acts, the search for an overarching framework resulted in a Common Understanding. Our analysis not only demonstrates the need to go beyond the treaty provisions in understanding the nature of non‐legislative rule making in the EU, but also emphasises the importance of informal procedures and non‐binding agreements in fully assessing the nature of non‐legislative rule making in this area.     

论经济特区立法权和立法体制的完善

<立法法>的颁布实施为解决现存问题提供了一些法律依据,同时又出现一些新的问题,急需在理论上加以探讨和澄清,才能完善经济特区的立法权和立法体制.     

立法需求的生成与确立问题探究——析《立法法》第72条第4款

《立法法》第72条第4款将立法需求作为一个衡量设区的市立法权获得实际行使资质的法定裁量因素和事实基础条件,使之成为了一个法律概念,但却是一个不确定法律概念.为此,在《立法法》的解释和实施中,立法需求不仅成为针对设区的市,而且成为各种立法主体特别是立法职权主体在评判立法项目及其制度设计的全过程中的目标指向,具有了普遍意义.在其本源和生成的过程中,立法需求导源并依次来自利益需求和价值需求.作为一定社会群体的共同制度供给需求,不为既有的政策、道德等其他社会规范调整机制所有效满足的情形下,同时不为已然的法律制度所切实对应,即转化为对法律规范的变革、创设的需求,并因此产生立法参与、立法表达和立法项目、立法过程中构建和提供某种新的法律规范及其实施机制的需要、愿望,此即立法需求.