Local Transportation Sales Taxes: California's Experiment in Transportation Finance

Over the last 25 years, voters in 20 California counties approved “local transportation sales taxes” to pay for transportation projects. A growing source of revenue, they generate roughly $2.5 billion per year. Four features explain their popularity: they require direct voter approval; funds are raised and spent within the counties that enact them, so voters experience benefits directly; most automatically expire; and they usually specify the improvements to be financed. These taxes are an important revenue source, but tend to favor capital investments over operations and maintenance. They have enhanced local governments' decision‐making authority, but may have made regional transportation planning in multicounty regions more difficult to achieve.     

The Beating of Rodney King: The Dynamics of Backfire

The 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police provides rich case material in how an attack perceived as unjust can backfire. Drawing on nonviolence theory, an original framework is developed to analyze attacks as potential backfires that are usually, but not always, inhibited. Attackers can use a variety of methods to inhibit backfires, including covering up the attack, devaluing the target, reinterpreting the events, using official channels, and using intimidation and bribery. Writings on the Rodney King beating include evidence on the use of each of these methods. Studying the backfire process offers improved understanding on how to oppose unjust attacks.     

All Votes are Equal? Significant Legislation and Party Competition in the Danish Folketing

In nearly all studies on legislative party competition, all votes are treated equally. It is argued in this article that the cooperation between parties varies substantively depending on the type of legislation analysed. However, establishing a measure of the relative significance of votes has challenged legislative studies for decades. A novel measure for legislative significance is therefore proposed: length of debate. Using parliamentary votes from 23 legislative periods in the Danish parliament from 1953 to 2003 and debate length as measurement for bill significance, analyses are presented that focus on between‐party voting patterns on significant and non‐significant legislation and the presence, extent and features of legislative cartels is discussed. The results suggest that looking only at significant legislation reveals more clearly the legislative cartels within the legislature. These findings challenge the traditional assumption of treating parliamentary votes equally, and they allow for a better understanding of legislative cartels in the Folketing.     

When Politics Matters: The Impact of Politicians' and Bureaucrats' Preferences on Salient and Nonsalient Policy Areas

For three decades, the “politics matters” literature has found that political ideology is an important explanation of public policy. However, this literature systematically fails to include the influence of the bureaucracy. In fact, it is almost impossible to identify a single study in this literature that controls for the influence of the permanent bureaucracy. In this article, we investigate whether politics still matters when bureaucratic preferences are taken into account. We do this in a simultaneous test of political and bureaucratic influences on public budgets, a policy measure often studied in the “politics matters” literature. We find that political preferences trump bureaucratic ones in policy areas salient to the public but not in less salient areas. This might be comforting news from a democratic perspective. However, as public budgets represent an easy case for political influence, it is food for thought that political preferences do not always prevail.     

Exogenous Lipoid Pneumonia as a Contributory Factor in a Drug‐related Death

Postmortem investigation often reveals various conditions, which may or may not have played a part in the death of the individual. The case of a 32‐year‐old woman is reported, with a long history of drug addiction. She was found dead in her bed. The autopsy revealed diffuse pulmonary edema with congestion of the lungs, brain, liver, and spleen. Microscopic examination of the lungs showed multiple intra‐alveolar and interstitial foamy macrophages and extracellular fat droplets surrounded by polynuclear giant cells. Death was attributed to acute polydrug intoxication. As microscopic examination had revealed severe pulmonary lesions, lipoid pneumonia was considered as a contributing factor to death. Lipoid pneumonia is an uncommon entity with the characteristic radiograph features and histologic findings of alveoli filled with vacuolated, lipid‐laden histiocytes. It can be either exogenous or endogenous in cause, based on the source of the lipid. Exogenous lipoid pneumonia usually results from aspiration or inhalation of fat‐like material, such as mineral oil or petroleum‐based lubricants and decongestants, resulting in pulmonary inflammatory reactions.     

An Investigation of Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) and Eurasian Badger (Meles meles) Scavenging,Scattering, and Removal of Deer Remains: Forensic Implications and Applications

Within northwest Europe, especially the United Kingdom, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and the Eurasian Badger (Meles meles) are the largest wild scavengers capable of modifying a set of remains through scavenging. Knowledge of region-specific and species-typical scavenging behaviors of scavengers within the crime scene area and surroundings can aid in more efficient and accurate interpretations. The scavenging behaviors of captive and wild foxes and badgers were recorded and compared through actualistic methods and direct observation. The scavenging by wild foxes and badgers of surface-deposited baits and whole deer (Cervus nippon; Capreolus capreolus) in a woodland was observed and analyzed. Wild foxes were found to scavenge deer more frequently than badgers. The scavenging of deer remains by foxes was also compared with forensic cases. The scavenging pattern and recovery distances of deer and human remains scavenged by foxes were similar but were potentially affected by the condition and deposition of a body, and the presence of clothing.     

‘Place‐ing’ fear of crime

This commentary seeks to situate the work of Solymosi, Bowers, and Fujiyama (2015) in the literature on fear of crime, identifying several future opportunities where the methodological innovations they describe could be gainfully applied.