Congressional Debate Research Articles

Congress Debates, Administration Acts

Congress Debates, Administration Acts

Feminist Currents

Feminist Currents Eileen Boris (bio) A year ago, as the nation heard about "death panels" and misinformation about health reform poisoned civility when "tea party" activists disrupted town hall meetings, I asked, "What stakes do women have as women in the politics of health care?" and I explained, "While scholars have uncovered the workings of gender in the shaping of medical research and delivery, here we want to collect personal experiences and prescriptions for change from feminist perspectives." Though the question was widely circulated, few of you responded. Steve Wilson, however, provided a useful commentary worth pondering: "The depersonalization of the patient seems to cross gender lines." That is, while sex or age discrimination might enter into treatment, the question of medical expertise can make interactions more of a "patient-doctor issue than a woman's issue." Now, as I put together this "Feminist Currents," six months have passed since President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. What does this modest beginning of health care reform mean for women and our families? Recall that during the final negotiations questions of women's access to reproductive services offered a platform to anti-abortion forces trying to stop passage of the bill. Even though many provisions of the bill would fulfill the mission of the Catholic Church to improve the lives of the poor, the bishops encouraged politicians such as Representative Bart Stupak to introduce a ban on the coverage of abortion in health insurance pools and other government plans even if paid for by private or individual monies. Despite the defeat of this initiative, restrictions on abortion still may enter the operations of preexisting health care insurance plans through administrative rules that were proposed but not finalized as of this writing.1 How will women benefit from the reform? Like other Americans women no longer can be denied or dropped from insurance because of preexisting conditions or have lifetime limits to benefits imposed upon them. The government [End Page 199] will offer preexisting insurance coverage plans to eligible people. Their children must right away gain insurance even if they have a preexisting condition and can stay on a parent's plan until age twenty-six. Cost sharing, or copayments, will end for preventive care measures, like breast cancer screening, bone density tests for women sixty-five and older, mammograms, PAP smears, and prenatal care. Particularly important for women is the right to choose one's ob-gyn without a prior referral from a general practitioner. The qualifying income for Medicaid when the act is fully implemented in 2014 will extend to those 133 percent above the poverty line. Finally, the act expands Community Health Care Centers that cater to low-income people.2 For this "Feminist Currents" I hoped that readers would share their health care experiences. Perhaps the topic is too personal, though the women's health movement of the 1970s taught us that our care is political in ways that the ongoing debate in Congress merely reinforces. If Republican opponents gain control before full implementation, this health care reform, despite its limitations, could be repealed. It certainly would be starved through refusal to appropriate funds. That Obama's reform is more insurance reform than universal health care speaks to the political reality rather than our needs. Respondent Rebecca Plant, who holds an MPH, reminds us that women's health is more than reproductive health: Perhaps I am biased because I have studied public health, but I believe that the physical and emotional health of our nation as a whole is more important than almost anything else. Without health, we cannot accomplish much. And, as many of us who were lucky enough to have caring and attentive mothers know, women are primarily responsible for everyone else's health. Women, even those who work full time outside of the home, still tend to be the primary caretakers of children, and often make most health-related decisions for their families. Women tend to be "early adopters" taking the newest health information and putting it into practice before their male counterparts do. Additionally, their spouses and children depend heavily on them for caretaking and emotional support. Therefore, any health...

POINT-COUNTERPOINT: Oncology Congress Debate: Should Initial Chemotherapy for Ovarian Cancer Include Bevacizumab? Yes: Bradley Monk, MD; No: William P. McGuire, MD

POINT-COUNTERPOINT: Oncology Congress Debate: Should Initial Chemotherapy for Ovarian Cancer Include Bevacizumab? Yes: Bradley Monk, MD; No: William P. McGuire, MD

The Political Act of Public Talk: How Legislators Justified Welfare Reform

Prior to the creation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, federal legislation primarily positioned mothers in the private sphere of parenting and men in the public sphere of work. Welfare reform changed this citizenship construction dramatically, requiring mothers to work but failing to acknowledge their caretaking responsibilities. This article presents a discourse and content analysis of the welfare reform debate that directly referenced citizenship. Findings suggest that legislators emphasized paid work as a citizenship activity while rarely portraying parenting as such. Furthermore, legislators' endorsement of paid work as a duty of citizenship, and the manner in which they paired this endorsement with the minimizing of parenting as such a duty, may have further diminished the perception of parenting as a valuable citizenship activity. Welfare reform may have been possible because the heretofore recognized citizenship work of mothering was largely ignored in the congressional debate.

Economic Ideas and the Political Process: Debating Tax Cuts in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1962-1981

While sociologists and political scientists have become interested in the role of ideas in the political process, relatively little work looks at how ideological claims are actually deployed in political discourse. This article examines the economic claims made in two pairs of Congressional debates over tax cuts, one (in 1962 and 1964) generally associated with Keynesian economic theories, and one (in 1978 and 1981) tied to supply-side ideas. While these bills were indeed initiated by groups subscribing to different economic ideologies, subsequent debates look surprisingly similar. The bills were closer in substance than one might expect, and while their proponents came from opposite political camps, in both cases supporters focused more on supply-side than demand-side effects and emphasized tax cuts’ ability to pay for themselves through economic stimulation. The authors propose that politically acceptable economic claims may evolve more slowly than the economic theories that inspire policy entrepreneurs, and that this “discursive opportunity structure” may not only constrain the political process but may potentially shape the political effects of expert knowledge.

Engineering security: the Corps of Engineers and Third System defense policy, 1815-1861

The system of coastal defenses built by the federal government after the War of 1812 was more than a series of forts standing guard over a watery frontier. It was an integrated and comprehensive plan of national defense developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it represented the nation's first peacetime defense policy. Known as the 'Third System' since it replaced two earlier attempts, it included coastal fortifications, but also denoted the values of the society that created it. The governing defense policy was one that combined permanent fortifications to defend seaports, a national militia system, and a small regular army. The Third System remained the defense paradigm in the United States from 1816 to 1861, when the onset of the Civil War changed that paradigm. In addition to providing the country with military security, the system also provided the context for the ongoing debates in Congress over national defense through the annual congressional debates on military funding. In charting the philosophy, construction, and maintenance of the forts of the Third System, a history of antebellum American national defense policy emerges, and permits an investigation of the political, economic, social, and military development of the U.S. between the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

Negotiating Inclusion in the Nation: Mapuche Intellectuals and the Chilean State

This article examines the discourses of three Mapuche intellectuals–Manuel Manquilef, Manuel Aburto Panguilef and Venancio Coñuepán–all of whom played an important role in the creation and development of an indigenous rights movement in Chile. It emphasizes the diversity of Mapuche politics and intellectuality, mapping out the multiple ways in which Manquilef, Panguilef and Coñuepán confronted the state but also negotiated with it. Drawing on a wide range of material, including congress debates, newspapers and published writings, it explores the different ways in which they imagined and re-imagined indigenous identity, as part of their campaign to be treated as fully-fledged citizens of the Chilean nation.

Large Cardiac Registries: The Path to Higher Quality and Lower Cost in Our Healthcare System

This observer agrees with Stanford economist Victor Fuchs that the 3 major reasons to undertake systematic reform of the US healthcare system are (1) to provide coverage for the uninsured, (2) to correct significant lapses in quality, and (3) to control the high and rapidly increasing cost of care.1 The “how to” for achieving each of these objectives is clear. It merely requires defining who is to be covered under universal coverage, insisting that we have “effective care,” and deciding the best way to achieve payment reform. On the other hand, the devil is in the details, as became abundantly clear during this past year of congressional debate before the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordability Act. Of the 3 issues cited, coverage is the most clearly addressed in this legislation, although, as it now stands, some millions of uninsured will still remain. The other 2 issues, quality and cost of care, appear the most threatening. Michael Chernow of the Harvard Department of Health Care Policy, in discussing the increasingly larger annual deficits ($1.3 trillion dollars in 2010) and their resultant debt burden ($8.8 trillion at the end of 2010), representing 60% of the gross domestic product, underscores how unsustainable these figures are and cautions that the result will be a financial Armageddon.2 Accordingly, it is imperative that we members of the cardiovascular community provide workable solutions to improve quality and reduce the cost of care because, if we fail, it will bankrupt us. Article see p 2635 In this regard, and equally pertinent to the “devilish details” accompanying health reform law (PL 111–148; PL 111–152), is an informative article published in this issue of Circulation by Hannan and colleagues.3 This “tale of two cities” examines differences in utilization rates, practice patterns, and facilities available for …

Attitudes Towards Alternative Management Policies for Public Recreation Lands

Public recreation land management agencies have been searching for ways to increase revenue. User fees as implemented by the Fee Demonstration Program have received the most attention. Corporate sponsorships and private donations have also been implemented and other options, such as partial privatization, closure of some areas, and different forms of public-private partnerships have been debated. The present paper reports results from a 2002 mail survey of randomly selected Idaho and New Hampshire households, designed to elicit public attitudes about a wide variety of management policies for public (federal/state) recreation lands. The most socially acceptable forms for raising revenue were donation boxes (61.1%), corporate sponsorships for visitor centers (61.8%) and education facilities (61.1%), and adopt-a-site contracts (81.0%). Both increased taxes and user fees faced greater opposition (about 49% of respondents) than support (39%). In addition, user fees have resulted in (reported) changes in behavior among a quarter of the respondents, and may have stronger negative impact on lowincome households and on the users of public recreation lands. This study is relevant to the current debate in Congress about the future of the Fee Demonstration Program. Our findings can also be used by policy makers interested in raising revenue through socially acceptable management policies. Our results suggest that donations, adopt-a-site and corporate sponsorships (for selected areas) should be used to raise additional revenues, and if additional funding is needed, policy makers may be justified to advocate for increased taxation rather than fees.

Caught Between “The Rock” and a Hard Place: The Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Struggle for Identity in Public Health

DURING THE CONGRESSIONAL debate over health care reform in the fall of 2009, Saturday Night Live opened a show with a parody of President Barack Obama trying to persuade reluctant senators to endorse an overhaul of the nation's health care system. His best sales pitch was that each of the senators would have a voice in the process, but his overtures fail to win their support.1 The president becomes so frustrated by the politicians’ steadfast opposition to reform that he transforms into “The Rock Obama,” a Hulk-like character played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. FAR LEFT: Murina Sony and her baby, Ketsen. Printed with permission. The skit evoked a mixed response from Dorothy E. Schmidt-Vaivao of the Samoa National Nurses Association (SNNA). “It made me laugh but it also made me think,” she says. “There is profound irony in The Rock Obama—with his commanding voice—being played by a Samoan American at a time when Pacific Islanders are among the faintest voices in our country's health care dialogue.” SNNA and a growing number of other health advocacy groups believe that giving Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders parity in health research and services should be a priority for health care reform but is not because most people assume that they are in large part a healthy group. As Schmidt-Vaivao put it, There is a false perception out there that the highly conditioned Pacific Islander athletes who thrill sports fans on Monday Night Football or Saturday night wrestling are the norm. We are very proud of people like Dwayne Johnson and Troy Polamalu but unfortunately they do not represent the health status of most Pacific Islanders. Taunuu Ve'e-Remmers, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders Affairs Manager of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF) agrees that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are at risk for negative health outcomes because of these assumptions. “The scant public health data collected about Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders have traditionally been overshadowed because they were combined with much larger data sets about Asian Americans,” she points out, “but the socio-cultural context of Pacific Islanders is different from Asian Americans and as a result their health issues are different.” Historically, there are pros and cons regarding why Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander census and health data were aggregated. Now, however, most progressive health researchers recognize that aggregating such data distorts the true picture of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander health and have begun collecting separate data sets on these distinctly different groups. “Because of their relatively small population sizes, Pacific Islanders have tragically been almost invisible to public health, and as a result resources have not been made available to assess and respond to their particular health needs,” says Ve'e-Remmers. APIAHF and other Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander advocacy groups have been pushing hard for more disaggregated health data to quantify the health issues facing these groups in an effort to teach others about the disparities and needs that are in plain view within their communities. Armed with data, these groups hope to marshal the support and resources needed to improve Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander health.

The Real Pro-Life Stance — Health Care Reform and Abortion Funding

“Baby killer.” The accusation was made during what may have been the most remarkable exchange in the year-long congressional debates over health care reform, late in the evening of March 21, just after the House had passed the Senate's reform bill. House Republicans moved to recommit the bill to the Budget Committee for the sole purpose of adding the Stupak–Pitts antiabortion amendment, whose inclusion had been necessary for the passage of the House's original health care reform bill.1 Only 10 minutes were allotted for the debate over the motion to recommit, and most of this time was given to the . . .

The Demise Of Slavery In The District Of Columbia, April 16, 1862

On Thursday, May 22, 1862, Margaret C. Barber of Washington, D.C. stood before the Board of Commissioners for the Emancipation of Slaves in the District of Columbia. She presented a claim to the Commission to be compensated by the Federal Government, which had freed her 34 slaves. She was not alone in making such a request, as more than 1,000 District residents filed similar documents, but hers was the second largest. Documents from her claim provide a vantage point onto both the institution of slavery and the beginning of its demise during the Civil War. As of April 16, 1862, all slaves within the District of Columbia were freed by the "Act for the Release of Certain Persons Held to Service or Labor in the District of Columbia," passed by the U.S. Congress. According to this Act, All persons held to service or labor within the District of Columbia by reason of African descent are hereby discharged and freed of and from al I claim to such service or labor; and from and after the passage of this act neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for crime, whereof the party shall be duly convicted, shall hereafter exist in said District. The Act passed after considerable congressional and Presidential debate and compromise. Some urged a cautious approach for fear of alienating slaveholding border states such as Kentucky. Abolitionists wanted immediate emancipation without compensation to slave owners, with some suggesting compensation be given to slaves instead. Non-abolitionists tended to favor compensation to former owners.

Legislative: Searching for Health Policy Information on the Internet: An Essential Advocacy Skill

Nurses and Health Policy 2009-2010 healthcare reform agenda of President Obama and the 111th Congress clearly illustrates the importance of nurses' efforts to influence health policy. Individual nurses and professional organizations across the country who took part in town hall meetings, wrote letters to the editor, and voiced their opinions to elected officials helped generate momentum leading to the passage of H.R.3962, The Affordable Health Care for America Act (American Nurses Association, 2009). congressional debates that followed and resulted in passage of the historic health care reform bill, H. R. 3590, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also demonstrate that sustained effort is essential to achieve health policy change (American Nurses Association. 2010). Health policy advocacy requires participation in political arenas; many nurses may not feel prepared to navigate these arenas effectively (Abood, 2007). Taking political action on behalf of the public, as well as advocating for the nursing profession, begins with staying informed and networking to shape reform efforts. Therefore, the goal of this column is to help nurses search for and evaluate health policy information on the Internet. Useful health policy websites are provided. Searching for Health Policy Information Information is a critical resource for political involvement. Although the Internet provides nurses access to excellent resources to keep abreast of leading health policy issues, busy professionals need help dealing with today's Internet information overload. Sorting through millions of electronic documents to find relevant information can be daunting and time consuming. Furthermore, nurses need quick and easy access to high quality information, such as systematic reviews of health policy research, to guide the development of solutions for health -related problems (Fox, 2005; Lavis, Posada, Haines, & Osei, 2004). Useful guidelines for searching peerreviewed, and professional literature databases, such as PubMed and CINAHL (The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), have been published by Klem and Northcutt f2008) and also Morrisey and DeBourgh (2001). practical strategies and tips we offer in this column for searching Internet sites for health policy information complement the scholarly literature. A successful health policy Internet search begins with thorough planning. first and most important step for obtaining highly relevant search results is formulating a clear and concise health policy issue statement that succinctly describes and quantifies the problem to be addressed (Bardach, 2000). next step is to identify the target authence for the advocacy efforts. This step will help to determine how complex and detailed the information that you gather will need to be fAndrews. Burr. & Ja netos. 2004). Consider, for example, whether the goal is to inform the public about healthcare reform proposals generally orto work with congressional experts to obtain Medicare reimbursement for transitional care. final step is to identify key words and phrases to look for information using a search engine. Brainstorming the concepts that are most relevant to the policy topic is an effective way to generate key words. Search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo! Search, are the most common tools to find information on the Internet. Search engines are actually large databases of web documents created by automated search programs fBarker, 2003). Working at the interface between the searcher and the Internet, the search engine locates information by matching key words entered into the search box to websites and documents in the databases. Then, the engine weighs and ranks the web pages according to relevance. Search engines differ in size, speed, coverage of the Internet, search options, and the schemes used for ranking, so each will return slightly different search results CHanes-Ramos. …

The Metapolitics of the 2002 Iraq Debate: Public Policy and the Network Imaginary

The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center was an event that inaugurated a "War on Terror." This essay constitutes a productive rhetorical analysis and critique of the 2002 congressional debate over Iraq in an effort to open a metapolitics. Congressional debate is read as an intertextual extension of administration rhetoric pitting fear appeals lit up through a network imaginary against pragmatic policy questions. The reflexive rhetoric constituting a national policy debate at the federal level is discussed, and the outcomes of common cause and political cover are critiqued.

The Metapolitics of the 2002 Iraq Debate: Public Policy and the Network Imaginary

Abstract The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center was an event that inaugurated a "War on Terror" This essay constitutes a productive rhetorical analysis and critique of the 2002 congressional debate over Iraq in an effort to open a metapolitics. Congressional debate is read as an intertextual extension of administration rhetoric pitting fear appeals lit up through a network imaginary against pragmatic policy questions. The reflexive rhetoric constituting a national policy debate at the federal level is discussed, and the outcomes of common cause and political cover are critiqued.

Preparing for Growth: Current Capacity and Challenges in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Programs

During the past decade, the demand for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation has grown dramatically, and there are expectations that this will continue or even accelerate over the next decade. This prompts a variety of questions about the ability of the health care system to accommodate the increased demands on transplantation centers; for example, what is the current patient capacity of transplantation programs, and how much elasticity do they have to accept a larger volume of patients? An informal survey of a sample of medical directors of transplantation programs found that existing facilities might be able to increase their patient volume by about 7%. Expanding much beyond that limit will require an infusion of resources to enlarge current programs and/or establish new programs.

Americans Disunited: Americans United for World Organization and the Triumph of Internationalism

Created in 1944, Americans United for World Organization was a private internationalist organization promoting US entry into the United Nations, and although it has been overlooked by historians it deserves re-evaluation. This is less a result of its contributions to the public and congressional debates over UN ratification, and more closely related to the internal ideological and bureaucratic divisions that afflicted the organization from its very beginning. Americans United for World Organization was in fact anything but united, and it foreshadowed the divisions of the internationalist movement in the early years of the Cold War.

Selling the Obama Plan: Mistakes, Misunderstandings, and Other Misdemeanors

Selling the Obama Plan: Mistakes, Misunderstandings, and Other Misdemeanors

Culture Wars: The U.S. Art Lobby and Congressional Tariff Legislation during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

From 1883 to World War I, disputes over art tariffs roiled America's art community, drawing preeminent painters, sculptors, architects, and illustrators into national lobbying campaigns. This essay exposes artists’ agency in tariff politics, illuminates their ideologies, and explains congressional debates, legislation, and diplomacy regarding U.S. art schedules, while demonstrating how the art tariff imbroglio often challenged longstanding partisan patterns in Washington with respect to tariff protectionism. It also contributes to Atlantic world studies by exploring how artists’ anti-tariff positions derived from transoceanic systems of art pedagogy and exhibitions and by showing how protectionists (including a minority of artists) capitalized upon persistent popular stereotypes of national cultural inferiority. Finally, this essay argues that growing disparities of wealth and class sensitivities increasingly affected turn-of-the-century tariff discourse. Protectionists demanded punitive retribution against the international collecting activities of America's ostentatious plutocrats; free-art proponents craved tariff reforms for the didactic purpose of elevating popular taste through exposure to European masterworks.

The Annals of Congress, the Original Public Meaning of the Succession Clause, and the Problem of Constitutional Memory

The Constitution contains several clauses referring to government “offices” and “officers.” The precise phrasing used in the different clauses is similar but textually distinct. In several recent publications, I have that argued that these fine textual distinctions were purposely drafted by Gouverneur Morris (the Committee of Style’s primary draftsperson) and by the other members of the Federal Convention and that they were also meaningful to the Constitution’s intended audience, even if such distinctions usually pass without analysis or even notice by modern commentators. The purpose of this short Article is not to rehash that debate, or even to present a further substantial defense of the ideas already presented on several prior occasions. Instead, the purpose of this Article is to explain one reason why modern scholarship in this area failed to fully engage the Constitution’s text. My answer is a simple one. Modern scholars treats the Annals of Congress as an official record of contemporaneous congressional debate. That was and is a mistake. Nor is it a mistake limited to those scholars researching obscure constitutional word-choice relating to “office” and “officer.” It is a mistake made by the widest body of scholars, left or right or center, researching virtually each and every provision of the original Constitution of 1787 and its antebellum amendments. My topic here is a narrow one, but it has implications for constitutional scholarship generally. Seth Barrett Tillman, The Annals of Congress, the Original Public Meaning of the Succession Clause, and the Problem of Constitutional Memory (Dec. 18, 2009) (unpublished manuscript) (on file with author) (with appendices).