Federal Role Research Articles

What Counts as Religion? A Study of Federal Endorsing Agencies as Hiring Gatekeepers

What counts as religion, and does the state perpetuate labor stratification on the basis of religion? The labor stratification literature suggests that employers often perpetuate gendered, racial, and socioeconomic inequality in hiring, but in this case study of state-appointed endorsing agencies, findings suggest that the federal government—a primary chaplain employer—perpetuates stratification by religion. Given the institutional separation of church and state, the state technically does not interfere with the free practice of religion or in constructing religion, but because federal sectors like the military, veterans affairs, and federal prisons require chaplains, the state appoints and recognizes specific groups—endorsing agencies—to vet and evaluate the preparation of chaplains to serve in these federal roles. Endorsing agencies thus act as state-appointed gatekeepers in a system set up by the state that has no clear change mechanism for expanding the number and type of religious endorsing agencies, resulting in the exclusion of religious groups in hiring. Drawing on qualitative data from endorsing agencies and complementary archival material, we argue that the state plays a role in setting up a system that both shapes and perpetuates labor stratification by religion. We conclude by discussing the implications for scholarship on religion, inequality, and labor stratification.

Moving Water

Climate change-induced megadrought and rapid urbanization are forcing western agriculture into retreat as water supplies diminish and heat and drought ravage crops and livestock. At the same time, the megadrought is imposing deep ecological harm on riparian areas, fish species, and soil and increasing the concentration of pollutants in dwindling waterways. These developments raise the question of how to use the water rights left behind as western irrigated agriculture in-evitably shrinks. We argue that federal purchase of some of these rights could create a pool of water available for instream flows (also termed environmental flows) to preserve waterways and aquatic eco-systems. We propose that the federal government acquire some west-ern water rights from agricultural holders, just as it has acquired homes in residential “managed retreat” programs, and dedicate those rights to instream flows. This proposal is novel in agricultural policy, which has stubbornly subsidized agriculture in place, and in the schol-arship on government managed retreat from climate change, which has focused on retreating people and land, not rights in natural re-sources. Federal government managed retreat of western water rights reasserts a federal role in western water allocation, a feature we con-tend accords with current needs as well as history. The allocation of western water and the system of state and private water ownership are largely the result of the post-Civil War response to illegal gold and silver mining thought necessary to encourage western settlement. These policies no longer respond to the modern urbanized West and its present environmental challenges. Drought retreat presents an oppor-tunity for the federal government to move toward a more balanced al-location of western water and create durable environmental benefits.

Time to drop the mounted: Reimagining a Royal Canadian Gendarmerie

As Canada's federal police service celebrates its 150th anniversary, the past and future of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police/Gendarmerie royale du Canada (RCMP/GRC) is coming under intense scrutiny. Dogged by historical legacies and endemic external and internal controversies, this national police service with military characteristics serves the Canadian state loyally and professionally. The anachronistic connection with horses in the English name has long outlived its usefulness and it is time that Canada's federal police service embraced more French, greater inclusivity in the ranks, better accountability and a functional approach to provision of national security policing at higher levels. A new refresh requires rebranding into a truly effective gendarmerie adequately manned, trained and equipped for the task, already anticipated in the French name. Refocusing on federal roles at the national level without the distraction of contract policing would give the RCMP/GRC greater purpose and coherence. The aligned symmetry of a Royal Canadian Gendarmerie/Gendarmerie royale du Canada (RCG/GRC) provides a basis for necessary change to happen and reconciliation to begin.

Public management frontiers in guaranteed income programs: Advancing implementation

AbstractThis viewpoint analyzes recent experiments in guaranteed income (GI) projects and identifies implementation issues that extend the frontiers of public administration. GI programs provide low‐income individuals with substantial and regular cash with few or no strings or conditions attached and are being used to assist the lower income population, including informal workers who are left out of many government programs. The following implementation issues are discussed as frontiers in current public administration research and theory: (1) increasing the federal role in vertical collaboration; (2) improving data integration across levels of government; and (3) finding new solutions to financial and political sustainability. As GI programs and experiments proliferate, it becomes critical to examine implementation and not just outcomes or impact.

Federal Leadership Perspectives and Role on the Era of Access, Accountability, and Evidence-Based Practices in Special Education

This article is part of a case study of federal leadership in special education from the perspective of those who served in the roles of Assistant Secretaries of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services and Directors of the Office of Special Education Programs or their equivalents in the former U.S. Office of Education and later U.S. Department of Education. This case study covers the time period from the George W. Bush administration and lasting through the first 4 years of President Barack Obama’s administration (2000–2012). During this time, government intervention in education reached its zenith with the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001 and the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004. The participants detailed their (a) career and appointment, (b) vision for educating students with disabilities, (c) theory of change, (d) politics and financial constraints, (e) advocacy, and (f) views of the past, present, and future.

Current Development in the United States Case Law on Abortion and its Possible Impacts on the European Union and Continental Legal System

This article aims to acquaint readers with the role and decision-making practice of the (Federal) Supreme Court of the United States of America in the matter of artificial abortion and a woman’s right to abortion in general. Special focus is placed on jurisprudential development in 2022, as a landmark decision was issued in 2022, which significantly interferes with the right to abortion throughout the United States. Abortion and abortion policy is currently widely discussed across the United States. For several decades, it was clear beyond any doubt that abortion is, in essence, a fundamental human right arising from the Constitution itself (Fourteenth Amendment) and that a woman can – while respecting certain set rules – undergo abortion, particularly in the first trimester, at virtually any time, according to her will. However, what was regarded as a certain and fundamental women’s right arising from the Constitution, has been overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 for the first time in 50 years. In addition to the description of the current situation in the United States, this article briefly reflects on the possible effects of the current state of jurisprudence in the United States on the continental legal system. This article is created and reflects the legal status as of December 1, 2022.

Federal/State/Local Collaboration Networks in Disasters Case Study

The purpose of this case study, with a biblical perspective, was to analyze intergovernmental collaboration networking during disasters by evaluating six areas that require additional research: 1) An analysis of the strong federal direction of national goals or greater flexibility; 2) The analysis of the effects of federal management roles in emergency management positions; 3) A discussion of how states address major hazards without federal encouragement; 4) Analysis of advantages to developing local capabilities that reduce hazards; 5) Discussion on the likelihood of local officials addressing risks to life and property without outside funds or support with recommendations for the future. Effective communication during natural and man-made disasters reduces response time and when practiced with local community volunteers periodically develop collaboration and cooperation with private, public, and nonprofit organizations. Therefore, this study examines frameworks of local, state, and federal emergency management agencies and their inter-organizational communication patterns during times of uncertainty for the development of skills in interagency situations.

Super‐priority lien challenged for its state constitutionality in the United States of America

AbstractThis note focuses on super‐priority liens (SPLs), which allow homeowner associations to foreclose a property over its mortgage. Twenty‐two states have so far implemented such liens, hoping to balance the interests of mortgage creditors and homeowner associations. The state of Nevada has been facing more challenges from both mortgage creditors and homeowner associations regarding the constitutionality of non‐judicial foreclosure than other states. This paper summaries the cases since 2000 and discusses the three major decisions that the Supreme Court of Nevada made involving SPLs' non‐judicial constitutionality, tender‐extinguishing SPLs, and federal creditors' role in SPLs.

The Changing Federal Role in Support of Public Transportation

The Changing Federal Role in Support of Public Transportation

US Immigration Politics, Sanctions Threats and Private Prison Corporations’ Stock Market Values

Abstract Although politics play pivotal roles in the emergence and operation of private prison corporations (PPCs), less is known about the effects of politics on PPCs’ financial performance. This paper examines the economic consequences of US immigration politics on PPCs using stock market data. Results show that PPCs benefit from restrictive immigration politics through increased stock values and certainty of future profitability. In contrast, their stock values are more likely to fall when the federal government announces sanctions threats on PPCs. These immigration politics only shape PPCs because of their unique business partnership with governments, but do not have meaningful impacts on private security companies that hold weak commercial interests in immigration politics. Finally, this study offers policy implications by revealing consequential effects of national-level politics on PPCs’ financial performance, suggesting future directions for federal roles in regulating PPCs.

Districts for a New Decade—Partisan Outcomes and Racial Representation in the 2021–22 Redistricting Cycle

Abstract This article provides an overview of the new congressional and state legislative districts that were drawn around the country during the 2021–2022 redistricting cycle. We provide background on the redistricting landscape, most notably the changing federal role in both partisan and minority representation. We also discuss the process used to draw the new districts in each state. We then provide an empirical look at partisan fairness, competitiveness, and minority representation in the new plans. We find that both parties have enacted increasingly extreme partisan gerrymanders when they control the redistricting process. The combination of Republicans’ control of the redistricting process in far more states than Democrats and the inefficient concentration of Democrats in cities has enabled Republicans to largely maintain an advantage in the translation of votes to seats in both Congress and many state legislatures. As a result, the policymaking process in many states will continue to be skewed in a conservative direction. At the same time, nonpartisan commissions appear to offer a consistent means to produce less biased and more competitive maps than when parties drawn the lines. Finally, while Black and Latino representation has improved in some places, both groups of voters remain underrepresented. We conclude by discussing lessons for both scholars and advocates.

Echoes of 1937: Recovering America's Wildlife Act would bring wildlife conservation funding full circle

AbstractWildlife populations face significant threats, including habitat loss and climate change. However, the United States has faced major biodiversity crises in the past. In 1937, in response to dwindling wildlife populations, Congress passed the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, known as “Pittman‐Robertson” (PR). The law helped restore wildlife populations by establishing a federal role in funding state wildlife agencies enabling states to develop the infrastructure and expertise for effective wildlife conservation. Now, the 117th Congress is considering the Recovering America's Wildlife Act (RAWA). RAWA would provide state, tribal, and territorial wildlife agencies the funding to implement their State Wildlife Action Plans for the conservation of nongame wildlife. Herein, we explore the relationship between PR and RAWA while tracing the historical roots of PR and discussing its successes and limitations. We also demonstrate how RAWA builds upon PR and could become a generational conservation accomplishment.

The Political Development of Schools as Cause and Solution to Delinquency

AbstractThis article offers a comprehensive history of the development of the federal role in education and juvenile justice policy from the 1950s to the 1970s. We argue that the issues of juvenile delinquency and education became linked during this period and policies that were enacted reflected the belief that education was a solution to delinquency. In the mid-twentieth century, a broader variety of approaches to antidelinquency, such as public job creation for youth, began to fall out of favor and education became elevated as the primary policy area for addressing delinquency outside the criminal justice system. Policy makers frequently justified federal involvement in education by arguing that schools were central to antidelinquency efforts. Drawing educational institutions into the fight against delinquency made schools susceptible to the punitive turn in crime policy. Ultimately, these developments have introduced punitive policies into schools and pushed antidelinquency efforts away from broader structural reforms.

America's First Interstate: The National Road, 1806–1853 by Roger Pickenpaugh

Reviewed by: America's First Interstate: The National Road, 1806–1853 by Roger Pickenpaugh Deborah Popper America's First Interstate: The National Road, 1806–1853. By Roger Pickenpaugh. ( Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2020. Pp. xiv, 210. $29.95, ISBN 978-1-60635-397-4.) Infrastructure is one of this year's hot topics, and so America's First Interstate: The National Road, 1806–1853 promises a wide audience. The National Road, stretching from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois, was a project of the early republic. In writing this book, Roger Pickenpaugh [End Page 159] keeps his ambitions in check. In the introduction, he writes, "The goal of this work is to provide a solid narrative history of the National Road's earliest days" (p. xii). It does not, and is not intended to, offer analysis or interpretation. Instead it provides a thorough digging through the archives, tracking the various congressional votes, construction contracts and conditions, technology, usage, and services along the route, to serve as grounding for future study. The book is detailed. The federal government's role in road building was a major point of contention during the early republic, between those wanting a stronger federal role to spur development and knit the nation together and those wanting a smaller national government. Yet nothing then—or now—was so simple. Thomas Jefferson, a supporter of small government, promoted the National Road and commissioned his treasury secretary Albert Gallatin to put together a proposal for national infrastructure. Unlike the Gallatin plan, the National Road had an advantage that allowed its construction to go forward. It was authorized early as a way of connecting the Northwest Territory of Ohio, an area already targeted for settlement and as compensation to soldiers who were owed money. Funding the road to extend beyond Ohio, however, was much chancier. In each chapter, the book provides details and a little discussion but not a full exploration of meaning. That may be for the best since the very notion of a national road could be a subject of its own. As pieces of the road were completed, they were turned over to the states to manage. So was it funding, labeling, or the concept dictating that the road continue from one state to another that made it national? How uniform should the roads be? Congress set the terms of construction, but the states managed much of the implementation, including pacing and ensuring compliance, and were also essential in choosing the exact routes. Pickenpaugh goes through the technological challenges—the road materials and labor, plus their availability (or scarcity). He describes the vehicles and tells what trees were used for the various parts of the Conestoga wagon. As the road was built, he moves on to talk of what buildings lined it and how they served travelers, especially the inns and stables, along the way—their layout, menus, sleeping arrangements. The book's energy seems to peter out toward the end, much as the road's construction did. The early fights to get it funded and built occupy the book's major sections, but as it went along, the urgency was no longer there as alternate roads sprang up and settlers, impatient for ways to get around, made alternatives. Canals and railroads were more important means of transportation for moving goods. The cattle industry, which made heavy use of the roads early on, moved elsewhere. The nation's expanding new settlement was less concentrated along the road's route, making it less a subject of interest. Probably the book's most disappointing chapter is the last, which discusses the road's ongoing history. One gets the road funding details, but there is little examination of how the road affected national considerations of infrastructure. Thus, the book is useful in precisely the way it claims—offering nitty-gritty details to those who want and need them. While its discussion of larger questions is limited, America's First Interstate is still thought provoking since so many of the issues remain with us. [End Page 160] Deborah Popper CUNY College of Staten Island and Graduate Center Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association

The Failed Federalism of Affordable Housing: Why States Don't Use Housing Vouchers

This Article uncovers a critical disjuncture in our system of providing affordable rental housing. At the federal level, the oldest, fiercest debate in low-income housing policy is between project-based and tenant-based subsidies: should the government help build new affordable housing projects or help renters afford homes on the private market? But at the state and local levels, it is as if this debate never took place. The federal government (following most experts) employs both strategies, embracing tenant-based assistance as more cost-effective and offering tenants greater choice and mobility. But this Article shows that state and local housing voucher programs are rare, small, and limited to special populations. States and cities almost exclusively provide project-based rental assistance. They move in lockstep despite disparate market conditions and political demands: project-based spending overwhelmingly predominates in both high- and lowrent markets and in both liberal and conservative states. States have done so across decades of increased spending. This uniform subnational approach suggests an unhealthy federalism—neither efficient nor experimental. This Article further diagnoses why states have made this unusual choice, identifying four primary culprits: (1) fiscally-constrained states use project-based models to minimize painful cuts during recessions; (2) incomplete federal housing subsidies inadvertently incentivize project-based spending; (3) the interest groups involved in financing and constructing affordable housing are relatively more powerful subnationally; and (4) rental assistance’s unusual, lottery-like nature elevates the value of visible spending over cost-effectiveness. Finally, this Article points the way toward reform, offering two paths forward. Taking a federalist perspective allows for a new understanding of federal housing statutes. Better cooperative models—expanding either the federal or state role in providing affordable housing—could accept states’ limitations in providing rental assistance and exploit their strengths.

Healthcare Federalism in an Age of Nation-to-Nation Interaction

Primary provincial responsibility over healthcare in Canada has consistently produced sub-optimal results, but any increased federal role in healthcare faces familiar hurdles. Attempts to optimize the system by shifting at least some responsibilities to the federal government are undermined by a lack of clarity on the constitutionally acceptable and morally optimal contours of a central (if not primary) federal responsibility. Resolving this apparent dilemma is crucial if we are to achieve enhanced healthcare performance and healthcare justice in Canada. Yet even an increased federal role capable of surmounting those hurdles faces another, often-overlooked problem: a case can be made that the recognition of sub-state nations (e.g., the Québécois and Indigenous nations) in Canada would require the admission of their claims to greater authority over healthcare. This study examines this potential additional obstacle by setting out the options for an increased federal role in healthcare and how they interact with legitimate sub-state nationalist claims. It ultimately demonstrates that there is no ideal option for balancing those competing values. Even the best option – a national healthcare strategy – raises a number of moral issues. Yet this need not lead to an impasse. An explanation of the relevant moral concerns and analysis of the relevant policy options instead demonstrates the need to make trade-offs between values in determining who should make healthcare policy decisions in a state. The provision of examples of how one can approach the weighing of values to arrive the least bad option in this sphere should be valuable for Canadians and scholars working in this domain in other multinational states.

Plutocracy, Platonism and Education in Brazil: Some Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Lancet stated in its editorial on the 9th of May 2020 that the situation in Brazil was very problematic insofar as the COVID-19 pandemic was concerned. More than a year later, Brazil already registered more than half a million deaths from complications of COVID-19, which places it in second place in the world ranking of deaths despite having the seventh-largest population in the world. Despite this utterly tragic situation, in July 2021, almost 40% of the Brazilian population approved of the federal government's role in confronting the pandemic, and the Brazilian elites have defended openly the view that the economy was more important than individuals' lives. Given this context, in this article, we reflect on the issue of plutocracy, demonstrating its platonic authoritarian foundations, in order to understand the Brazilian elites' attitude toward the pandemic, which had no proper regard or care for the most vulnerable in society. Through this philosophical inquiry we indicate the importance of education, particularly of philosophy of education, in encouraging educationists and educational systems to reflect on problematic issues and self-reflect so as to identify possible educational deficiencies and shortcomings that created the conditions for individuals' attitudes of indifference to the victims of the pandemic and the vulnerable in society.

An Emergency Preparedness Response to Opioid-Prescribing Enforcement Actions in Maryland, 2018-2019.

Federal and state enforcement authorities have increasingly intervened on the criminal overprescribing of opioids. However, little is known about the health effects these enforcement actions have on patients experiencing disrupted access to prescription opioids or medication-assisted treatment/medication for opioid use disorder. Simultaneously, opioid death rates have increased. In response, the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) has worked to coordinate mitigation strategies with enforcement partners (defined as any federal, state, or local enforcement authority or other governmental investigative authority). One strategy is a standardized protocol to implement emergency response functions, including rapidly identifying health hazards with real-time data access, deploying resources locally, and providing credible messages to partners and the public. From January 2018 through October 2019, MDH used the protocol in response to 12 enforcement actions targeting 34 medical professionals. A total of 9624 patients received Schedule II-V controlled substance prescriptions from affected prescribers under investigation in the 6 months before the respective enforcement action; 9270 (96%) patients were residents of Maryland. Preliminary data indicate fatal overdose events and potential loss of follow-up care among the patient population experiencing disrupted health care as a result of an enforcement action. The success of the strategy hinged on endorsement by leadership; the establishment of federal, state, and local roles and responsibilities; and data sharing. MDH's approach, data sources, and lessons learned may support health departments across the country that are interested in conducting similar activities on the front lines of the opioid crisis.

Why Pandemics Matter to the History of U.S. State Development

When a new strain of influenza circled the globe in the fall and winter of 1918, it swept through the United States at terrifying speed, infecting at least 25 million Americans—roughly one-quarter of the population—over the next two years. Based on any metric, the pandemic was the country's largest mass-mortality episode of the twentieth century, killing approximately 675,000 Americans and surpassing the death toll of World War I. Even as the virus struck the United States with unprecedented ferocity, however, the federal government left most public health decisions to the states, producing a disjointed and hyper-localized approach to a crisis that was national and global in scope. In the absence of a strong federal role, state governments carved out their own policy paths, adopting widely divergent strategies to stem the spread of the disease. This preventive playing field was wildly uneven. Some states were well-equipped with robust public health infrastructures; others lacked the tools to manage the disease's rampant spread.

Commentary: Global Comparisons of Physician Associations.

The authors reflect on their own work in relation to the articles in this special section on physician organizations, and they make four observations. First, association-government power relations shift after countries introduce universal health insurance, but they are by no means diminished. In France, Germany, and Japan, physicians' economic interests are explicitly considered against broader health system goals, such as providing affordable universal insurance. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), physician organizations do not share power in the same way. Second, in higher-income countries, fragmentation may occur along specialty or generalist lines, and some physicians are unionized. Generally speaking, physician influence over reimbursement policy is reduced because of organizational fragmentation. Third, associations develop as legitimate voices for physicians, but their relationship to other professions differs in higher-income countries. Associations in LMICs form coalitions with other health professionals. Finally, although German state physician associations have a key implementation role, in most countries, state and federal policy roles seem relatively defined. Global comparison of the LMICs and other countries suggests power, unity, legitimacy, and federal roles are tied closely to the stage of health system development.