Capitol Hill Research Articles

From Clinic to Capitol Hill: Dermatologists Driving Policy Change

From Clinic to Capitol Hill: Dermatologists Driving Policy Change

Tackling Multiple Biologic Failure in Psoriasis: Research and Advocacy Perspectives.

Psoriasis is an immune-mediated skin disease commonly treated with biologic therapies. While there are currently 12 different biologics approved for psoriasis, there still exists a challenging subset of patients who have tried and failed biologics from multiple classes. In this commentary, we discuss the research and advocacy-based efforts by the National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) and academic collaborators to understand and better support multiple biologic failure (MBF) psoriasis patients. The NPF MBF registry will gather clinical and demographic information on MBF patients to improve therapeutic outcomes, while legislative efforts through NPF Capitol Hill Day aim to advance federal laws in support of all psoriasis patients, with a recent focus on access to biologic therapy. Together, these 2 efforts will improve the care for all people living with psoriasis, including those experiencing MBF.

National Guard Command Authority and the Black Lives Matter Protests of 2020: Domestic Security Debates for a New Generation of Military Veterans

This study explores connections between the military experiences of a new generation of War on Terror (WoT) veterans elected to the U.S. Congress and controversial policy decisions on domestic security during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. WoT veterans became the largest cohort of lawmakers with common military experiences on Capitol Hill in 2020, and this article examines their engagement through two original case studies of legislative debates over command and control of the National Guard mobilization during BLM protests. Confrontations between federal law enforcement officers and BLM protestors led some WoT veterans to propose legislation to restrict executive authority over National Guard deployments, including reforms of Titles 10 and 32 of the U.S. Code and the Insurrection Act, but other WoT veterans challenged these positions. This exploratory study of events and circumstances links the timely topic of domestic security to traditional debates in the civil–military relations literature on whether veterans are more or less likely to support the use of military force and try to expand congressional oversight of presidential powers. By bridging the gap between research areas and crossing generations, this article offers lessons for past, present, and potentially future debates about the use of troops for domestic security operations.

Radicalized Trump Supporters: Construing, Identity Fusion, and Hypothetical and Actual Extremism

In May 2021, four months after the fatal insurrection of the “Save America” rally at Capitol Hill, 420 supporters of Donald Trump participated in an online study. Although it was not possible to recruit specifically for those involved, a subsample reported being present and active in the insurrection (n = 38), with several involved in the storming of the Capitol Building (n = 28). Individuals’ construing was examined through the repertory grid technique, combined with measures of fusion to the group and willingness to undertake hypothetical extreme pro-group actions. Relatively low cognitive complexity was observed in those actually or hypothetically willing to be involved in the most extreme actions, suggesting that they were the least able to adapt to the world around them. A more positive and meaningful view of the self was developed on becoming a Trump supporter, and fellow Trump supporters were construed more positively than anti-Trump activists. Repertory grid and fusion scores were associated with both actual and hypothetical extreme action. Findings assist in the advancement of understanding why some individuals undertake extreme acts on behalf of a political leader, whilst others do not. With political environments becoming increasingly polarized around the globe, such knowledge is vital.

Senator Richard Lugar i rat u Bosni i Hercegovini

The 1992-1995 war in Bosnia generated a significant interest across the Atlantic. For three-and-a-half years, Bosnia was present in the American public life with continuous media reports of the war and the genocide being perpetrated in this part of the Balkans. American policymakers in the George H. W. Bush and the Bill Clinton Administrations grappled with formulating a response to the war. While the executive branch took hesitant steps in response to the war, a number of American legislators led the way in seeking an assertive US role in Bosnia. Before the war broke out in Bosnia in spring 1992, several American legislators had taken an interest in the crisis in the rapidly dissolving Yugoslavia. Bob Dole, the Kansan Republican, was a leading voice calling for a tougher response. From 1992 onwards, Dole was joined by a number of other senators and congressmen on both sides of the aisle in advocating for air strikes and a lifting of the UN-imposed arms embargo on Bosnia. These congressional Bosnia hawks led a sustained campaign aimed at keeping the US focused on Bosnia and adopted landmark legislation in support of the newly independent state in Southeast Europe. Senator Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican and an influential voice on foreign affairs, did not belong to this core group of congressional Bosnia hawks. These hawks, including Senators Bob Dole and Joseph Lieberman, and Representative Frank McCloskey, along with a dozen other legislators, were at the forefront of congressional efforts to shape America’s policy towards Bosnia. Unlike these Bosnia hawks, Lugar did not lead the charge in seeking to steer US policy towards Bosnia. The Indiana Republican was neither a persistent advocate on Bosnia which was a characteristic of the congressional Bosnia hawks. But, he did weigh in on Bosnia starting in 1992 and advocated the use of American force in response to the war in Bosnia. Lugar also voted in favour of a series of legislative efforts aimed at supporting Bosnia from the Capitol Hill. This moderate support was still significant for Bosnia as the state mounted a determined defense of its statehood and citizens from 1992 to 1995. Lugar’s Senate papers located at Indiana University Libraries in Bloomington, IN offer insights into how the veteran senator viewed Bosnia and the policies that he advocated. To date, no study of Lugar’s policy towards Bosnia has been researched and his papers on Bosnia represent a first in-depth look at the senator’s views on the war. Drawing on these original documents, this paper seeks to piece together the story of how Senator Lugar reacted to the Bosnian War. It is a story of his support for Bosnia but one which was neither persistent nor forceful compared to Bob Dole and other pro-Bosnia voices on Capitol Hill. Still, as an independent and internationalist Republican, Lugar left a mark on his nation’s foreign policy including towards Bosnia. This paper, then, further seeks to contribute to the existing literature on the variety of America’s responses to the Bosnian War but also to shed light on Senator Lugar’s little-known effort to shape the US policy towards Bosnia in the early 1990s.

Advocacy in Action: NASN's 2024 Advocacy and Legislative Priorities.

All nurses have a responsibility to advocate. Advocacy is the eighth school nurse standard and can be actualized in many ways. NASN has established advocacy priorities to provide members with strategic advocacy objectives to advance their school nursing practice. One aspect of these priorities is legislative advocacy. The NASN board of directors puts legislative advocacy into action when they visit their Congress members on Capitol Hill. This article describes NASN's advocacy priorities and how school nurse visits to "the Hill" introduces legislative priorities to legislators.

Sneaking AI through the back door: constructing the identity of Capitol Hill rioters through social media images and facial recognition technologies

ABSTRACT Social media images are increasingly appropriated, constructed, and used as evidence. To this end, facial recognition technologies are applied to harness social media images as evidence of people’s identities, movements, and actions. This development transforms visual evidence in terms of which images are constructed as evidence and how and by whom they are constructed as evidence. It also grants access to identifying citizens on an unprecedented scale. This article develops a theoretical framework for understanding how social media images are appropriated as evidence and used as identification through facial recognition technologies. Empirically, the article studies the extensive use of social media images in identifications conducted by state actors and open-source actors, exemplified by joint efforts by the FBI and Sedition Hunters to identify the participants in the Capitol Hill siege (2021). The primary finding of the quantitative analysis is that social media images constitute almost one-third of the images used by the FBI in their identification of the rioters, while the qualitative analysis focuses on FBI’s use of leads from Sedition Hunters and this open-source actor’s key, yet obscure, application of facial recognition technologies.

Federal budget maintains efforts to boost workforce, including peers

At a time when few big‐ticket spending items in health and human services are receiving any meaningful boosts on Capitol Hill, maintaining level support for some smaller‐scale programs has lifted the spirits of advocates for strengthening the substance use disorder (SUD) treatment workforce.

Analytical study of hashtag # at social media platforms in the era of artificial intelligence

The increasing influence of social networking sites, today instead of the traditional use of communication technology, changes are being seen in certain signs and symbols in the language every day. Among all these symbols, hashtag is at the forefront as a symbol of artificial intelligence. hashtags (#) have become a new way to express your views in an organized manner in the media. The ideas of the Capitol Hill movement in America and the farmers' movement in Delhi were spread through hashtags. hashtag (#) Control is not the answer hashtag (#) Self-control is the answer. This is based on the trend of hastag and its usage at various platforms.

ASH Committees Visit Capitol Hill in Support of Funding

ASH Committees Visit Capitol Hill in Support of Funding

The effect of female leadership on contracting from Capitol Hill to Main Street

This paper provides novel evidence that female politicians increase the proportion of US government procurement contracts allocated to women-owned firms. For identification, we use a regression discontinuity design on a sample of mixed-gender elections in the US House of Representatives. The effect grows over a female representative's tenure and concentrates in female representatives who are on powerful congressional committees. Changes in the pool of and behavior by government contractors cannot explain the result. The more gender-balanced representation in government contracting is not associated with economic costs.

Opposition in Four Directions The Fragmentation and Polarization of Todays American Democratic Politics

With Donald Trump's defeat in the presidential election, America's right-wing populist and non-establishment political leader lost his former glory and was replaced by Joe Biden, who supported multiculturalism and the establishment. However, the end of the general election does not mean the end of the conflict and struggle between the four directions of right-wing populism and multiculturalism, non-establishment camp and establishment camp. The opposition in these four directions makes the dilemma of today's American democratic politics clear. The phenomenon of social division and political polarization deserves attention, and the study of the background and impact of the conflict can help analyze the social problems existing in the United States. The struggle between the left and the right and the establishment complexly exists between the two parties, triggering a series of chain reactions such as Hillary's defeat, Trump's political moves and the "Capitol Hill" incident, and further intensifying the intensity of the struggle. Relevant concepts about struggle will be elaborated, the historical factors of struggle will be traced, and its profound and widespread impact on American society will be analyzed.

Latrobe’s Site Plan for Capitol Hill (1803): Discovering Graphic Complexity in Landscape Design and its Representation

ABSTRACT: The Library of Congress’s collection of Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s drawings contains a graphically complex topographical site plan for the US Capitol. This watercolor sheet from 1803 depicts a completed Capitol positioned on the crest of Jenkins Hill (now Capitol Hill) with its principal façades oriented towards east and west. Upon close inspection, Latrobe’s site plan communicates two systems: the hill’s existing topography and Latrobe’s design to reshape it. As a palimpsest of faintly visible layers of information, the plan reveals the city’s major avenues converging at the Capitol, illuminating how Latrobe’s design is spatially continuous with L’Enfant’s 1791 Plan of the city of Washington. Latrobe’s drawing represents a formal arrangement and design for the reshaping of Capitol Hill relative to the Capitol building itself, which was in progress, and the visionary city yet to be built. This paper will explore the systems of landscape representation that ultimately led to Latrobe’s unique way of quantifying and compiling landscape information. In the decades immediately prior to the creation of the Capitol site plan, rapid advancements in the graphic representation of scientific data included the discovery and use of contour line topography and the emergence of data visualization, also known as information graphics. As industrial, scientific, economic, and architectural advancements occurred during the eighteenth century, new ways of visualizing and communicating data, specifications, and results quickly followed. Essentially, architectural drawings themselves, including site plans, are systems of data visualization. The field note will deconstruct Latrobe’s site plan drawing using analog and digital methods and develop new drawings based on computer landform models that reveal the two systems of representation concealed in the graphically complex original. In 1959, the Capitol extension project necessitated the use of ground-penetrating radar to discover the Capitol’s topography from 1810 based on undisturbed soils. The paper will compare the accuracy of Latrobe’s original survey and drawing with the scientific results achieved in 1959.

ASH Committee Supports Care for Sickle Cell Disease on Capitol Hill

ASH Committee Supports Care for Sickle Cell Disease on Capitol Hill

The U.S. Capitol Grounds and Arboretum: an iconic landscape with a holistic approach to pest management

Abstract The care and maintenance of managed urban greenspaces require integrated pest management (IPM) strategies that are best suited for their local conditions. The evolution of IPM for the public grounds of the U.S. Capitol and Congress provides a unique perspective into the distinct challenges in developing and implementing an overall plant healthcare program for the nation’s historical landscape. The Capitol Grounds and Arboretum (CGA) staff of the Architect of the Capitol are the stewards of this urban greenspace, located in the center of Washington D.C., and present an overview of their historical, current, and prospective IPM developments for urban landscape pest control. With the adoption of holistic, ecological-based pest management practices, successful IPM examples in 3 different landscape habitats on Capitol Hill—turfgrass lawns, urban forestry, and ornamental horticulture display beds—are described. Ultimately, a list of current programming and future opportunities for expanding ecological IPM practices best suited for solving the CGA’s unique landscape pest management challenges are summarized.

Review: No Longer Outsiders: Black and Latino Interest Group Advocacy on Capitol Hill, by Michael D. Minta

Review: <i>No Longer Outsiders: Black and Latino Interest Group Advocacy on Capitol Hill</i>, by Michael D. Minta

Legislative Advocacy on Capitol Hill: Experiential Learning for Nursing and Midwifery Students.

Policies, regulations, and laws influence all aspects of health care, including the education of health care professionals, independent practice, and patient access to care. Health equity and social justice are mediated through policy. While health policy knowledge and skills are recognized as essential competencies within nursing and midwifery curricula, most students graduate with limited or no experience engaging in advocacy efforts to advance legislation that would improve health systems and the delivery of care. An experiential learning activity is described that gives students authentic experience in federal legislative advocacy. Students report powerful, positive learning from interacting with their legislators. Support of a legislative advocacy experiential learning activity requires ongoing faculty initiative and can promote advancement of health policy bills into law. Opportunities to participate in legislative advocacy need to be expanded within nursing and midwifery education to cultivate leaders who can effect policy change.

QAnon Beliefs, Political Radicalization and Support for January 6th Insurrection: A Gendered Perspective

ABSTRACT This study measured political radicalization and support for the January 6th riot alongside a measure of QAnon conspiracy beliefs in an online survey of 429 U.S.-based participants. The study aimed to investigate how conspiracy theories associated with the QAnon movement relate to support for the January 6th Capitol Hill riot and political radicalization, as well as explore the contribution of the Big 5 personality traits. Additionally, the study explored the gender dimension of QAnon-related radicalization. Belief in QAnon conspiracy theories correlated with intentions for radical political action, and with support for the January 6th insurrection. Agreeableness negatively correlated with QAnon beliefs. In our sample, more women reported believing QAnon conspiracy theories, and their average endorsement of QAnon conspiracies was higher than that of men. In women in our study, support for January 6th riot was positively related to Openness to Experiences, and activism and radicalism were positively related to extraversion; these relationships were reversed among men. These gender differences suggest a different psychology underlying QAnon’s appeal for men versus women, and radicalization stemming from beliefs in QAnon conspiracy theories.

NCMHR advocates for key legislative MH priorities in D.C.

Earlier this month, a coalition of advocates and organizations representing people with mental health diagnoses from around the country descended on Capitol Hill to advocate for a recovery‐focused mental health system that prevents crises, protects rights and promotes social justice, wellness, economic empowerment and social inclusion.

Al Horvath attends Congressional Chemistry Caucus event on Capitol Hill

Al Horvath attends Congressional Chemistry Caucus event on Capitol Hill