Partisan Stacking on Legislative Committees

One aspect of the partisan model for legislative committee development that is rarely studied is the degree to which the majority party seeks to control legislative committees—and, thereby, chamber decisions—via numerically “overproportional” majority party representation on standing committees. This form of “party stacking” is often mentioned in the literature but has received little systematic examination and hypothesis testing. Using data from state legislative committees for all 49 partisan legislatures in the 2003–04 and 2005–06 sessions, we found support for the partisan model: majority party stacking is associated with a slim majority party advantage in a state legislative chamber.     

Partisan Effects of Legislative Term Limits

Term limits remain a popular policy reform and have generated a great deal of scholarship as a result. Although many predicted that term limits would benefit the Republican party, the literature finds no marked partisan effects, possibly because termed‐out legislators have largely been replaced by copartisans. This article demonstrates that term limits have indeed had partisan effects—just not on electoral outcomes. Term limits have caused a significant reallocation of institutional power from Democrats to Republicans (as measured by contributions from access‐oriented interest groups), in large part because they have removed more senior Democrats than Republicans. The partisan effects of term limits therefore point to the institutional value of seniority.     

The Impact of Partisan Gerrymandering on Political Parties

The relationship between votes and seats in the legislature lies at the heart of democratic governance. However, there has been little previous work on the downstream effects of partisan gerrymandering on the health of political parties. In this study, we conduct a comprehensive examination of the impact of partisan advantage in the districting process on an array of downstream outcomes. We find that districting bias impedes numerous party functions at both the congressional and state house levels. Candidates are less likely to contest districts when their party is disadvantaged by a districting plan. Candidates that do choose to run are more likely to have weak resumes. Donors are less willing to contribute money. And ordinary voters are less apt to support the targeted party. These results suggest that gerrymandering has long-term effects on the health of the democratic process beyond simply costing or gaining parties seats in the legislature.     

Independent Neuropsychological Evaluations

Unlike clinical practice, entering the realm of independent neuropsychological evaluations and similar types of nonclinical evaluations is an area of professional practice for which most neuropsychologists have little to no training. Many ethical and professional issues and challenges arise with such frequency in this type of work that it would be difficult to justify not being prepared for them. For the practitioner looking for guidance and standards of professional conduct in this arena, there are few comprehensive resources that address the range of issues raised by these types of evaluations and/or a clear standard by which to assess their competence. The purpose of this article is to provide a primer (and/or refresher) to acquaint the practitioner with some of the more salient issues associated with conducting these types of assessments and to review the pertinent literature that is evolving in relation to best practices in this area.     

The Strategic Use of Prisons in Partisan Gerrymandering

The census data used to redraw legislative districts counts the country's nearly 2 million prisoners in the location of their incarceration, rather than their previous place of residence. By drawing these phantom populations into districts that lean heavily toward the majority party, legislators can free up eligible voters from those districts to be distributed among neighboring marginal ones, thereby increasing that party's likelihood of winning additional seats in the state legislature. An analysis of state senate district finds that prison populations shift systematically from districts controlled by one party to districts controlled by the other following a switch in partisan control.     

Partisan Turnout Bias in Midterm Legislative Elections

Abstract: Lower salience elections present greater opportunities for representational bias at the polls than do elections with higher levels of political interest. We hypothesize that turnout bias is most likely to occur during midterm congressional elections in which there are clear short‐term forces that exploit the low turnout setting. The effects of these forces are more likely to be observable among registered nonvoters than citizens who are not registered to vote because registrants have access to the polls and are likely to have voted in previous presidential contests. Using midterm National Election Study data from 1978 to 1998, we find that registered nonvoters are frequently more Democratic than midterm election voters, particularly in 1994 and 1998. The historic 1994 congressional election seat losses for Democrats may be partially explained by the finding that voters going to the polls were clearly more conservative than registered nonvoters.     

The Partisan: Carl Schmitt and Terrorism

This article critiques and expands upon the jurisprudence of law’s violence from feminist and lesbian/gay/queer perspectives. The incorporation of gender and sexuality into the jurisprudence of law’s violence, via the social experiences of women and gay men, highlights the masculine and heteronormative character of law’s violence, while bringing into view particular forms of law’s violence, and forms of extra-legal but thoroughly legitimate heterosexual male violence, that have remained invisible in previous accounts. A feminist analysis of violence also suggests that law’s regime of violence is neither totalising nor inevitable, and that possibilities for resistance, if not avoidance, do exist.     

Issue Voting and Partisan Defections in Congressional Elections

In every election cycle the fate of some candidates is determined by partisans who defect from their usual voting habits to cast a ballot for the candidate of the opposing party. Defections in congressional elections have been attributed to incumbency, presidential approval, partisan strength, and factors related to individual voters. Our systematic assessment of the impact of issues on voter defections shows that party‐owned issues and performance issues associated favorably with one party affect the likelihood of partisan defections. The results suggest that congressional candidates can use issues to draw supporters away from the opposing party and to keep partisan voters loyal.     

Partisan Bridges to Bipartisanship: The Case of Contraceptive Coverage

The negative consequences of polarization have been pointed to by scholars and politicians alike as evidence of a need for a renewal of bipartisanship. However, scholarship on bipartisanship remains limited. This article develops a theory of partisan bridging that predicts when and why certain legislators might be willing to cross the partisan aisle. I argue that personal preferences can lead some legislators to cross the aisle in search of consensus, in effect serving as “partisan bridges.” I test my theory by examining the role of Republican women in the diffusion of contraceptive coverage at the state level. Through an individual‐level analysis of sponsorship and vote choice and an aggregate‐level analysis of policy diffusion, I find that moderate Republican women at times served as critical actors in the policy process.     

The Mask of Neutrality: Judicial Partisan Calculation and Legislative Redistricting

Do judges ruling on redistricting litigation increase electoral competition in congressional races while simultaneously drawing districts favoring their party's congressional candidates? I offer a novel theory of judicial partisan calculation, arguing that judges draw more competitive districts than legislatures or commissions, but that judge‐drawn districts favor the electoral interests of their copartisans. These claims are reconcilable because judges target districts held by contrapartisan legislators to maximize their copartisans’ fortunes. I find that Democratic judges draw competitive districts by adding Democratic voters to Republican‐held House constituencies. Court‐administered redistricting increases competitiveness, ostensibly due to judicial neutrality. This mask of neutrality, however, conceals sophisticated partisan calculation.     

Measuring Partisan Bias in Single‐Member District Electoral Systems

In recent decades, the literature has coalesced around either symmetry or responsiveness as measures of partisan bias in single‐member district systems. I argue neither accurately captures the traditional idea of an “efficient” gerrymander, where one party claims more seats without more votes. I suggest a better measure of efficiency and then use this new measure to reconsider a classic study of partisan gerrymandering. Contrary to the original study findings, I show that the effects of party control on bias are small and decay rapidly, suggesting that redistricting is at best a blunt tool for promoting partisan interests.     

The Role of Party: The Legislative Consequences of Partisan Electoral Competition

We examine the proposition that incentives for legislative organization can be explained by the nature of electoral competition. We argue that legislators in environments where parties are competitive for majority status are most likely to have delegated power to their leadership to constrain individualistic behavior within their party, which will in turn increase the spatial predictability of individual voting patterns. Using roll‐call votes and district‐level electoral data from the U.S. state legislatures, we show empirically that increased statewide interparty competition corresponds to more predictable voting behavior overall, while legislators from competitive districts and those in the minority party have less predictable behavior.     

Post-FTO Performance Evaluations of Rookie Police Officers

Abstract

The literature surrounding the Field Training Officer (FTO) program examines how police recruits navigate post-academy on-the-job training, the reactions these novices have, and how these fledgling officers assess their training experience. Absent from this literature is any consideration of how new officers perform after graduation from the FTO program. The present study examines 347 monthly evaluations issued by immediate supervisors for 66 rookies at the Tallahassee (FL) Police Department. An analysis of scores registered in 18 areas over the first six months after FTO completion determines that race and sex of the sergeant and officer exhibit a statistical influence on grading practices. While these effects do not appear to taint the transition from probationary to full employment status, long-term ramifications are explored.     

Priming Unconscious Racial Stereotypes About Adolescent Offenders

Two studies examined unconscious racial stereotypes of decision makers in the juvenile justice system. Police officers (Experiment 1) and juvenile probation officers (Experiment 2) were subliminally exposed to words related to the category Black or to words neutral with respect to race. In a presumably unrelated task, officers read 2 vignettes about a hypothetical adolescent who allegedly committed either a property crime (shoplifting from a convenience store) or an interpersonal crime (assaulting a peer). The race of the offender was left unstated and the scenarios were ambiguous about the causes of the crime. Respondents rated the hypothetical offender on a number of traits (e.g., hostility and immaturity) and made judgments about culpability, expected recidivism, and deserved punishment. They also completed a self-report measure of conscious attitudes about race. As hypothesized, officers in the racial prime condition reported more negative trait ratings, greater culpability, and expected recidivism, and they endorsed harsher punishment than did officers in the neutral condition. The effects of the racial primes were not moderated by consciously held attitudes about African Americans. The implications of the findings for racial disparity in the juvenile justice system and for changing unconscious stereotypes were discussed.     

Evaluating the Probative Value of Child Custody Evaluations

It has previously been argued that a competent forensic work product is defined, in part, by the evaluator's use of conventional forensic methods and procedures applied to child custody evaluations (Gould, 1998) and that the more judges and other legal professionals understand about forensic methods and procedures, the better they are able to critically weigh the substance and merit of a child custody evaluation (Gould & Bell, 2000). These forensic methods and procedures have their foundation in the behavioral sciences and are characteristic of competent and comprehensive forensic evaluations conducted for other legal purposes. In this paper, we provide a more detailed model for critiquing the forensic competence of a child custody report. Such a model better assists courts and lawyers in understanding how to assess the substance and admissibility of custody reports.     

The Diagnostic Frame in National Security Evaluations

In clinical and most forensic evaluations, “diagnosis” connotes the expectation of a DSM‐5 or ICD‐10 formally labeled mental condition. When the task is to evaluate the security risk a person's psychological makeup presents to an institution, such a molar diagnosis can blind the clinician and elevate the risk to a security agency. When “diagnosis” connotes achieving an understanding of a person's behavior that has raised security concerns, then a different conceptualization of the diagnostic process is required. Unlike the clinical situation, the evaluation is not being performed to benefit the person but for the purpose of assessing risk to an agency. The differences this introduces involve every aspect of the evaluation and changes the type of diagnosis expected. Not appreciating these differences can cause the clinician to fail in the task of assessing psychological tendencies that affect national security.     

How Policy and Procedure Shape Citizens' Evaluations of Senators

I report findings from survey experiments that improve our understanding of how people want individual Senators to approach their role as representatives. The findings show that people are committed to the idea that Senators should prioritize their states' preferences over those of the national public. This preference persists in situations where a Senator's advocacy for her state plays a key role in defeating nationally supported legislation. This finding contradicts popular claims that voters are hungry for Senators who prioritize national preferences over those of their constituents. I also find that people who support a piece of legislation—but not those who oppose it—evaluate a Senator who helps to defeat the legislation by filibustering substantially less favorably than one who accomplishes the same ends through majoritarian means. This suggests that how people respond to some procedural characteristics of politicians' behavior depends on how they feel about the outcomes it yields.     

College Student Evaluations of Parent–Child Disciplinary Situations

This study examined the influence(s) of the type of physical discipline administered and the type of child misbehavior on college student’s evaluations of parent–child disciplinary situations. Participants evaluated vignettes describing a child’s behavioral transgression and the subsequent parental disciplinary response. Evaluations were assessed in terms of the abusiveness, effectiveness, and appropriateness of the discipline. As predicted, evaluations varied as a function of both the type of physical discipline and the type of behavioral transgression. For example, parent–child interactions were evaluated as being more abusive when the severity of the discipline exceeded the severity of the transgression. Gender differences emerged with women evaluating mild discipline as being just as appropriate as moderate discipline while men evaluated mild discipline as being less appropriate than moderate discipline. Further, men evaluated moderate and severe discipline as being more effective than mild discipline. Results are discussed in terms of how the current research extends previous work in this area. Implications and areas for future research also are discussed.     

Partisan Infighting Among House Republicans: Leaders,Factions, and Networks of Interests

Congressional parties are commonly viewed as unified legislative teams, but recent intraparty battles have revealed serious ideological divisions within the House Republican caucus. Using annual ratings from nearly 300 interest groups, we estimate the ideological locations of Republican legislators in order to map their party's factional structure. Based on the distribution of interest‐group support from 2001 to 2012, we detect three Republican factions that we characterize as worker oriented, pro‐business, and ethno‐radical. We find that Republican leaders block bills by legislators in the worker and ethno‐radical subgroups and that they advance bills by members in the corporate faction.