The Role of Ideology in State Legislative Elections

In this article, I examine the effect of incumbent ideology on elections in 45 state legislatures, showing that ideological extremists are more likely to be opposed in the general election than are moderates and that extremists tend to do worse in challenged elections than moderates do. I also explore the intervening role of legislative professionalism, finding that in the majority of state legislatures moderation is rewarded, though in the most professionalized legislatures, incumbents are actually rewarded for extremism. These results show that despite the informational disadvantage of the electorate, the ideology of state legislators is an important factor in elections.     

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.     

Juries and Viewpoint Representation

To generate high-quality deliberations, juries should be diverse in terms of not only demographics but also viewpoints. Using data from the Survey of Texas Adults (n = 1380), we examine whether existing processes select for individuals who represent the population on a variety of viewpoint characteristics, particularly whether the process of forming juries selects for people who are more independent-minded versus authority-minded. We find, on average, that those who believe in the importance of speaking English, are less compassionate, support Biblical literalism, and express more concern about the community effects of wrongdoing are more likely to have been former jurors than to not have served. Death penalty support is also modestly predictive of jury membership. Non-jurors rate their neighborhoods as cleaner than do former jurors. Results point to composition effects in the summonsing process and to the possibility that some types of people exempt themselves from this civic obligation.     

Legislative Bellwethers: The Role of Committee Membership in Parliamentary Debate

Political parties and legislators use legislative debates to establish their reputation, challenge rivals, and engage in coalition management, among many other tasks. Yet, existing theories on parliamentary debates have abstracted away from the need for information and expertise, which are costly to acquire. Drawing on the “informational” perspective on legislative organization, we address this problem by arguing that party leaders use committees as training arenas for their backbenchers. They task their assigned members with acquiring specific expertise and then rely heavily on those members during the corresponding debates. We turn to the Portuguese legislature, from 2000 to 2015, to discuss how saliency, government dynamics, and party size affect the use of experts. We test this theory using a novel approach to classify speeches that leverages the texts of legislation as training data for a supervised approach.     

专家在立法听证中的角色和作用

立法听证是一种提高立法公正,促进立法民主的制度;同时也是搜集信息、发现事实的制度设计。专家在立法听证中应扮演重要角色,发挥重要作用:第一,作为利害关系人的委托代理人,他们是利害关系人和立法者之间的桥梁;第二,作为利害关系人的专家证人,他们可以使自然公正原则切实发挥作用;第三,作为专家陈述人,他们可以弥补立法者立法知识和信息的不足,促进立法科学,可以提高公众对立法的认同,这有利于法律的实施。当然,专家参与立法听证也有其消极作用,应有一定的限度。     

西方国家议会立法改革趋势之探析——兼论政府在立法中的功能角色

20世纪以来在法律和政治理论上处于优越地位的西方国家议会，都已呈现出一种共同趋势，即作为立法机关的地位实际下降了。而政府在很大程度上主导、直至支配着立法。为应对此种变化，当代西方国家议会趋于在统一掌握立法最终审议权和控制权的前提下，广泛采用各种更灵活的立法形式。且越来越重视其民主监督功能的发挥，以期一方面强化政府立法的民主保障，加强对政府立法的监督和控制，以协调其立法民主与行政效率的动态统一；另一方面改革和完善议会制度。以实质性地强化其立法审议和立法监督能力。     

Judges and Juries: The Defense Case and Differences in Acquittal Rates

Kalven and Zeisel's (1966 ) classic study, The American Jury, concluded that juries were "in revolt" from the law when they acquitted when judges would have convicted. Using data collected by the National Center for State Courts to examine jury decision making in four different communities, this article reexamines the question of the judge and jury's respective fidelity to the law and evidence by examining the influence on judge and jury of the defendant's evidence, his criminal record, and his reason for refusing to plead. No data can tell us definitively whether the judge is correct and the jury in error when they disagree, but the data analyzed in the present study can tell us whether the factors that move the jury and fail to move the judge are or are not consistent with the innocence of the accused.     

优先权的立法定位

我国正在起草的《物权法》中,对于基于维护社会公益和社会正义的目的,需要赋予优先受偿效力的某些特种债权是否应当作为一项独立的法定担保物权制度在《物权法》中加以规定,学界有着不同的观点。本文通过对大陆法系法、日和德、瑞等国在此问题上的不同观点和立法例的比较分析,提出我国未来立法不应采用法、日的立法例,将特种债权作为法定担保物权看待,而应将之作为债权效力的例外来处理。因此在立法模式上,赋予特种债权以优先受偿的效力,不应通过在《物权法》中增设新的担保物权种类来达到,而应通过完善我国现行《民事诉讼法》中的债权清偿程序、执行程序、破产偿债程序和《企业破产法》中的破产清算程序来实现。     

论立法规划的性质

立法规划,指一定的国家机关依照法定的职权,在一定政策与原则的指导下,根据一定的方式、程序与技术,对立法的进程进行的系统安排与设计。立法规划不仅仅是一种技术,或立法过程中的一个阶段,而且是立法政策的体现。立法规划具有政策性、非正式程序性和技术性。     

论刑法立法解释权与立法权和司法权的纠葛

刑法立法解释权的产生和发展,导致这一权力同立法权和司法(解释)权产生了冲突,使得刑法解释权力体制产生了新变化。现实中,刑法立法解释权同立法权之间产生了混淆,进而因为这一权力的混淆,类推性立法解释的溯及既往造成了对被告人权利的侵犯。同时,由于解释对象和方式的混同,刑法立法解释权又同司法解释权发生运用的重合,深刻地影响了最高人民法院、最高人民检察院的刑事司法解释权的格局。     

Juries and Unpredictability in Products Liability Damage Awards

The size and variability of jury damage awards in tort cases has been a contentious issue for over a decade. Nevertheless, there has been little empirical work addressing the relationship between the size of jury awards to products liability victims and their compensable losses. This paper examines this relationship using a sample of California cases. A compensatory model of damages based on plaintiff, injury, and case characteristics explains a large proportion of the variance in damage awards suggesting that juries rely heavily on monetary and non-monetary loss estimates in determining damages. The evidence argues against charges of unpredictability, and indicates undercompensation on average.     

Pre-verdict Judicial Fact-finding in Criminal Trials with Juries

In criminal trials with a jury, judges have many opportunitiesto engage in adjudicative fact-finding before the jury retires.English law has no conceptual framework for examining this judicialfact-finding which encompasses two categories of collateralfact (preliminary and underlying fact) and foreign law. A thirdcategory of collateral fact (conditional fact) is decided bythe jury. The article examines the nature of judicial fact-findingand the history and rationale for this allocation of fact-findingresponsibility between judge and jury.     

澳门特别行政区的立法体制

立法体制是指一个国家或地区关于立法权的分配及其运作规则.根据《中华人民共和国澳门特别行政区基本法》规定．澳门是一个享有立法权的地方行政区域,其立法体制不同于内地,主要体现在以下几方面:……     

立法的合法性评估

法律绩效评估是指法律实施一段时间以后,有关政府部门、组织或人员对其实施效果等进行评估,根据法律在实施中存在的问题,分析其立法上的原因,从而进一步完善立法.立法的合法性评估是法律绩效评估的重要内容之一,它包括立法的形式合法性、价值合法性以及实践合法性的评估.当下中国立法面临权限不清晰、公众参与缺乏等合法性困境,需在立法程序、立法权限等制度方面加以重构.     

Legislative Effectiveness and Legislative Careers

We studied an underutilized source of data on legislative effectiveness and exploited its panel structure to uncover several interesting patterns. We found that effectiveness rises sharply with tenure, at least for the first few terms, even when we control for legislators' institutional positions, party affiliation, and other factors. Effectiveness never declines with tenure, even out to nine terms. The increase in effectiveness is not simply due to electoral attrition and selective retirement, but to learning‐by‐doing. We also found evidence that a significant amount of “positive sorting” occurs in the legislature, with highly talented legislators moving more quickly into positions of responsibility and power. Finally, effectiveness has a positive impact on incumbents' electoral success and on the probability of legislators moving to higher office. These findings have important implications for arguments about term limits, the incumbency advantage, and seniority rule.