U.S. Prosecution of State and Local Officials for Political Corruption: Is the Bureaucracy Out of Control in a High-Stakes Operation Involving the Constitutional System?

Perhaps the most serious and disabling federal intrusion ofrecent years into the independent political status of stateand local governments has been actions by the U.S. governmentto prosecute elected state and local officials and their closeassociates for local political corruption. In 1986 U.S. Attorneysin New York, Boston, District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, andelsewhere pursued such investigations and prosecutions withunusual vigor. These activities have a recent genesis—since1974—and they are basically unauthorized, in importantrespects out of control, and overall questionable in terms ofthe federal nature of our constitutional system. These findingsare supported by data from the Public Integrity Section of theCriminal Division and the Office for U.S. Attorneys, both inthe Department of Justice, and by opinions of U.S. courts, legislativehistories of bills and statutes, and sources on criminal lawand political corruption.     

Equity under and state responses to the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986

A difficult problem facing states with significant commercial hazardous waste treatment and disposal capacity is the inflow of waste into the state for disposal. The states with commercial capacity allege that other states are reluctant to aggressively pursue siting facilities, and in fact may be impeding development through restrictive siting provisions. Likewise, capacity states are frustrated with the Environmental Protection Agency for its perceived inaction in reviewing state siting standards. Equity discussion abounds at the state level. Capacity states hoped that equity would be elevated to federal debate through Section 104(k) of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. I examine equity and review hazardous waste management in a federalism context to discern the relationship between EPA and the states. I focus on the different roles EPA and the states perceived for the other during implementation of Section 104(k). I conclude with an evaluation of how equity was handled under the new legislation and what remains to be done.Research for this article was supported by the Tennessee Department of Health and Environment and the Waste Management Research and Education Institute at the University of Tennessee. I appreciate the comments provided by David L. Feldman and the anonymous Reviewers. The research assistance of Susan Bohm Seylar is gratefully acknowledged.     

Decreasing Improper Payments in a Complex Federal Program

Since the early 2000s, the U.S. federal government has placed increasing focus on combating improper payments. Implementing policies to control improper payments is no easy task. Federal programs are often large, complex, riddled with moral hazard concerns, and jointly implemented. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor adopted a national strategy to combat improper payments in the Unemployment Insurance program. This article examines the effect that the Department of Labor's strategic initiative had on lowering states’ improper payments. Findings show that two of its tools—mandatory cross matching of employment records between the National Directory of New Hires and State Directories of New Hires and a communication strategy known as messaging—played a statistically significant role in halting the rise of improperly paid unemployment insurance claims. These results suggest that information technology tools and increased communication among stakeholders can be effective in lowering improper payments and improving government performance.     

Reforming the U.S. Department of Transportation: Challenges and Opportunities of the Government Performance and Results Act for Federal-State Relations

This article examines attempts during 1993–1999 to reformthe U.S. Department of Transportation to hold it accountablefor achieving improved program results through performance measures.These attempts affected the department's relationships withCongress and the states. The political context, institutionalstructure, federal system, and separation of powers into whichthese reforms were introduced limited the course and outcomesof the reforms. For the reforms to succeed, changes need totake place in the behavior of state transportation departmentsand members of Congress. However, there are no clear incentivesfor either constituency to change its behavior. Instead, thestates' political interests in maintaining their flexibilitiesand the electoral concerns of members of Congress create incentivesthat undermine rather than enforce reform.     

FCC v. The States: Who Shall Regulate Intrastate Telecommunications?

The 1934 Communications Act established a dual system of federaland State telecommunications regulation. The act gave the FederalCommunications Commission (FCC) authority to regulate interstateand foreign telecommunications but not intrastate communications,a market reserved for the states. As part of its move to deregulatethe telecommunications market in the 1970s, the FCC sought toextend its jurisdiction by preempting state regulatory authorityover telecommunications activities traditionally consideredintrastate. In 1986, however, the U.S. Supreme Court, in itsdecision in Louisiana Public Service, restricted federal preemptionof state laws and reinforced the dual regulatory system. Withthe break-up of AT&T, the FCC has renewed its preemptionactivities, claiming that the preemption is necessary in orderto foster an efficient nationwide telecommunications system.Several cases now pending in federal courts will test the breadthand depth of the Supreme Court's holding in Louisiana PublicService, and thereby, the future of the dual regulatory system.     

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: Implementation of an Administrative Remedy

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is an administrative remedythat has not been fully enforced to protect the voting rightsof minority citizens in those jurisdictions covered by the VRA.Failure to enforce Section 5 fully is the result of: (I) thestructure of the Section 5 review process, (2) the poor qualityof data received by the U.S. Department of Justice, and (3)the cursory analysis of data by the Equal Opportunity Specialists.What is needed to strengthen Section 5 enforcement is a strongpresidential commitment to protect the interests of minorityvoters. Reform of the Section 5 review process can only takeplace if the president places voting rights enforcement highon his political agenda.     

"An Innate Sense of Fairness": State Responses to the U.S. Supreme Court's Sovereign Immunity Decisions

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent revival of state sovereign immunityis usually cited as a significant development in modern U.S.federalism. These decisions giving states a powerful defenseagainst lawsuits lead to the question: How will the states reactto the Court's rulings? How likely is it that states will consentto be sued? This article discusses the consequences of the Court'ssovereign immunity rulings specifically concerning state legislativedebates over immunity waiver bills. It explains why some stateshave been willing to waive immunity, despite the Court majority'sfears of a flood of lawsuits if states did not enjoy immunity.     

"Mad" About Mandates: The Issue of Who Should Pay for What Resurfaces in the 1990s

In 1990, constitutional amendment proposals were put beforethe voters in Florida and Wisconsin (nonbinding) to limit unfundedstate mandates. This brought the number of states with constitutionallybased mandate-reimbursement requirements to fifteen. Voter supportwas garnered by attributing local property-tax increasesandloss oflocalcontrol over spending priorities to unfundedstatemandates. The Florida and Wisconsin efforts came close on theheels of stale mandate studies by the U.S. General AccountingOffice, National Conference of State Legislatures, Urban Institute,and U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.Fifty-two hypotheses are generatedfrom these studies and theFlorida and Wisconsin cases to help structure future research.As the mandate limitation movement spreads, larger data baseswill be available with which to test these propositions. Inthe states that already have limits on unfunded state mandates,research will shift to the policy consequences of these restrictions.     

The geographic scope of migration in Mexico City

"This paper reports some results of analyzing migratory dynamics in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City, which ever since the 1970-1980 decade have affected other regions of the country, mainly the State of Mexico. The analysis describes different types and modes of migratory movement: metropolitan (from Mexico City), inter-county (within each state), and interstate (between Mexico City and other states). Data was provided by the XI Population and Household Census of 1990." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

The changing role of the federal and state courts in safeguarding the rights of the mentally disabled

From the mid-1960s until the early 1980s, federal courts havegreatly expanded the rights of persons who have been institutionalizedfor treatment of mental illness. The rights have included dueprocess in commitment proceedings, provision of services, andtreatment in the least restrictive environment. Federal courtshave based their decisions on federal statutes and constitutionalprinciples of due process, equal protection, and protectionfrom harm. More recently, however, the U.S. Supreme Court haseffectively closed the federal courts as a forum for advancingthe rights of the mentally disabled. Federal courts must, inessence, defer to the states for decisions about treatment ofthe mentally disabled. State courts may decide what servicesare required under state law, while state mental health officialsmay decide specific treatment questions for individual patients.Consequently, advocates for the mentally disabled are turningto state courts to advance client rights. In 1984 two significantcases decided by the New York State Court of Appeals have thepotential for significantly expanding the rights of the mentallydisabled.     

Shooting yourself in the foot

He has taught there since 1967 and is the author of five books, including several on international food issues, and over forty articles. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Rockefeller Fellow, and a fellow of the German Marshall Fund; and consultant to the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Food Program, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. His current research is on food aid to Africa.     

Satellite Industry Perspectives on Export Control Regulations

In 2013, the Satellite Industry Association (SIA) submitted public comments recommending changes to and requesting clarifications on U.S. government proposals to modify the export-control regulations governing satellite technology. The comments represented a final stage of the decade-long effort to reform the restrictive export-control policy put in place in the late 1990s. To assist in constructing a transparent and effective regime that protects national security and U.S. competitiveness, SIA’s comments contained detailed recommendations to the State Department and Commerce Department that addressed highly technical concerns, attempted to harmonize confusing definitions, and requested additional clarity on jurisdictional questions. Taken in context, the filing represents a perspective on export control policy shared by the bulk of the U.S. satellite industry.     

Income inequality and economic freedom in the U.S. states

This paper examines the impact of economic freedom on income inequality using cross-sectional data for U.S. states. While previous research has explored this relationship internationally, the results have been conflicting. In addition, while it seems obvious that the large institutional differences across countries will impact income inequality, it isn’t so obvious that the smaller variation in policies among U.S. states can have a measurable impact. Can improvements in income inequality be used as a justification for marginal pro-market policy reforms at the state level, or is this argument applicable only to national-level institutional reforms?     

Racial Vote Dilution: Impact of the Reagan DOJ and the Burger Court on the Voting Rights Act

Since passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the subsequentregistration of millions of minority voters, racially basedvoting discrimination has shifted from a strategy of vote denialto one of vote dilution. The VRA, especially Section 2 and 5,is the dramatic congressional effort to eliminate strategiesthat deny effective political participation to millions of citizens.However, the VRA has to be aggressively implemented by the U.S.Department of Justice (DOJ), and it has to be broadly validated,in concrete cases and controversies in federal courts, if itis to blunt the vote discrimination/dilution strategy. Whilethe Warren Court saw Section 5 as a radical but legitimate toolto end the perpetuation of voting discrimination, the BurgerCourt has seen Section 5 in less sweeping terms. And while theCarter administration DOJ aggressively supported minority plaintiffsin federal voting rights litigation brought under Sections 2and 5, the Reagan administration has redirected civil rightspolicy, including the methodology of implementing Sections 2and 5 of the VRA.     

Progress and Challenges with Iraq's Multilevel Governance

Nations in the Arab world are largely unitary states, yet Iraq has embarked on a seemingly ambitious agenda of decentralization and devolution mixed with federalism. While local elections have been delayed at least until 2012, and indeed may never take place, Iraq's constitutional commitment to decentralize and subsequent statutory enactments appear to be turning provincial governments into significant actors in Iraqi governance. Progress has taken place at a slower, more deliberate pace than both proponents and opponents feared in 2002–6. This article discusses the current state of implementation of this process as a cornerstone of Iraqi democratic development, from the perspective of a former U.S. Department of State senior governance specialist who served on an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in 2009–10. These reconstruction teams were dismantled in the year leading up to September 6, 2011, as the American relationship with Iraq was “normalized,” though they likely will continue in Afghanistan into 2013.     

Constitutional Amendment and Revision Revisited

State constitutional amendment and revision procedures differsubstantially from formal procedures for amending the US Constitution.Popular participation and frequent change in state constitutionscontribute to significant differences between state and nationalconstitutional politics. State constitutions are widely perceivedto be "political’ documents, whose amendment is not muchdifferent from ordinary legislative and electoral politics.The U.S. Constitution is regarded as relatively permanent and"above politics." Neither perception is wholly accurate. Differencesbetween state and national procedures and politics are at issuein the recent revival of state constitutions as sources of civilrights and liberties. An analysis of constitutional amendmentssuggests that use of the ballot proposition, which is uniqueto the states, tends to restrict civil rights somewhat in criminaljustice while somewhat expanding support for new rights in otherareas, including those not fully protected by the national government.     

How the Clinton Administration Can Make Foreign Aid Work

The changes taking place in the world today are exposing the inadequacies of the U.S. foreign assistance program. Beyond external changes such as the fall of communism, internal changes have occurred in the policy decisions and purposes governing the program, management and operations of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), level of public attention on scandal, and aggressiveness of congressional oversight. After describing the purposes of the foreign assistance program, this article assesses the evolving role of the agencies involved in foreign assistance planning, budgeting and implementation processes; the processes themselves; the changes affecting the program; and the decision-making structure. Three reforms are needed to make the U.S. foreign aid program more responsive to U.S. foreign policy interests and more effective in accomplishing its development mandate. First, a strong policy focus is needed to direct the program toward realistic objectives and the best mechanisms for achieving those objectives. Second, the foreign aid program must move away from implementing projects with limited objectives and toward programs that promote broad-based economic growth, pluralism and democracy. Finally, AID should be merged into the State Department, and its field structure reorganized and reduced to better integrate development and foreign policy considerations.     

Capacity,Guidance, and the Implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Programs administered by the U.S. Department of Energy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 were designed to spur investment in clean energy and jump‐start the economy. There was considerable variation, however, in the proportion of obligated funds that states spent during each year. A primary goal of the ARRA was to infuse as much money as possible into the struggling economy; however, there was significant variation in the success with which states implemented these programs. This article draws on and extends the literature on intergovernmental implementation to explain such variation. The authors argue that jurisdictional capacity and federal guidance were important determinants of the rate at which states spent ARRA funds and, more important, that these factors interacted with one another in the implementation process. This assertion is tested using a mixed‐methods approach that includes a regression analysis of state ARRA spending between 2009 and 2012, as well as an evaluation of interviews conducted with 46 state agency representatives responsible for spending ARRA energy funds.     

Responsiveness without Representation: Evidence from Minimum Wage Laws in U.S. States

How well does public policy represent mass preferences in U.S. states? Current approaches provide an incomplete account of statehouse democracy because they fail to compare preferences and policies on meaningful scales. Here, we overcome this problem by generating estimates of Americans' preferences on the minimum wage and compare them to observed policies both within and across states. Because we measure both preferences and policies on the same scale (U.S. dollars), we can quantify both the association of policy outcomes with preferences across states (responsiveness) and their deviation within states (bias). We demonstrate that while minimum wages respond to corresponding preferences across states, policy outcomes are more conservative than preferences in each state, with the average policy bias amounting to about two dollars. We also show that policy bias is substantially smaller in states with access to direct democratic institutions.