Legislative Interest Research Articles

A Model Regime of Privacy Protection (Version 2.0)

This version incorporates and responds to the many comments that we received to Version 1.1, which we released on March 10, 2005. Privacy protection in the United States has often been criticized, but critics have too infrequently suggested specific proposals for reform. Recently, there has been significant legislative interest at both the federal and state levels in addressing the privacy of personal information. This was sparked when ChoicePoint, one of the largest data brokers in the United States with records on almost every adult American citizen, sold data on about 145,000 people to fraudulent businesses set up by identity thieves. Other companies announced security breaches, including LexisNexis, from which personal information about 32,000 people was improperly accessed. Senator Schumer criticized Westlaw for making available to certain subscribers personal information including Social Security Numbers (SSNs). In the aftermath of the ChoicePoint debacle and other major information security breaches, both of us have been asked by Congressional legislative staffers, state legislative policymakers, journalists, academics, and others about what specifically should be done to better regulate information privacy. In response to these questions, we believe that it is imperative to have a discussion of concrete legislative solutions to privacy problems. What appears below is our attempt at such an endeavor. Privacy experts have long suggested that information collection be consistent with Fair Information Practices. This Model Regime incorporates many of those practices and applies them specifically to the context of commercial data brokers such as ChoicePoint. We hope that this will provide useful guidance to legislators and policymakers in crafting laws and regulations. We also intend this to be a work-in-progress in which we collaborate with others. We have welcomed input from other academics, policymakers, journalists, and experts as well as from the industries and businesses that will be subject to the regulations we propose. We have incorporated criticisms and constructive suggestions, and we will continue to update this Model Regime to include the comments we find most helpful and illuminating. Notice, Consent, Control, and Access 1. Universal Notice 2. Meaningful Informed Consent 3. One-Step Exercise of Rights 4. Individual Credit Management 5. Access to and Accuracy of Personal Information Security of Personal Information 6. Secure Identification 7. Disclosure of Security Breaches Business Access to and Use of Personal Information 8. Social Security Number Use Limitation 9. Access and Use Restrictions for Public Records 10. Curbing Excessive Uses of Background Checks 11. Private Investigators Government Access to and Use of Personal Data 12. Limiting Government Access to Business and Financial Records 13. Government Data Mining 14. Control of Government Maintenance of Personal Information Privacy Innovation and Enforcement 15. Preserving the Innovative Role of the States 16. Effective Enforcement of Privacy Rights Commentary

The Mark of Scottish America: Heritage Identity and the Tartan Monster

Zumkhawala-Cook explores the unusually privileged and problematic place that Scottish cultural heritage inhabits in the field of American identity politics. While the widespread presence of social institutions that sustain and define Scottish identity in the United States—clan societies, Highland festivals, and tartan clubs—seems to indicate an expression of ethnodiasporic community, he argues that Scottish America does not quite constitute an ethnic community organized to promote the material, representational, or legislative interests of Scottish Americans. Nor is this ‘diaspora’ committed, in any meaningful way, to maintaining trans-local cultural or political connections with its homeland, he shows. Devoid of any links to a contemporary existing collectivity in Scotland, Scottish identity in the United States has emerged primarily through expressions of “heritage,” rather than of culture or nation. Heritage, Zumkhawala-Cook argues, promises an individualized devotional relationship to a historic “people,” through genealogy and clan origins, while simultaneously dislodging and detaching identity from any of the histories or politics of migration, dislocation, and cultural loss so often associated with diasporic communities. Relying on fantasies of early Scottish life and individual heroism that are profoundly mediated and enabled by kitsch commodities of “auld” Scottish culture, heritage identity follows in step with global capitalism’s re-articulation of national and ethnic cultural identity as a privately held option for middle-class consumers searching for a loose and depoliticized sense of belonging.

Market positioning and corporate responsibility

With the current problems surrounding the unethical behaviour of companies and the growth in public awareness of environmental issues, it was inevitable that governments would introduce legislation covering sensible company obligations. This paper examines the issues surrounding legislation in corporate social responsibility and attempts to relate them to stakeholder management. In the long run, companies that take an active interest in such legislation will be in a particularly strong position to develop strong market positioning strategies.

MSJAMA. State ballot initiatives for health care reform.

THROUGHOUT THE LAST DECADE, PHYSICIANS IN SEVERAL STATES have used ballot initiatives as a way to become politically active in campaigns intended to return to them some degree of control over their practices and the patientphysician relationship. Ballot initiative campaigns also provide medical students unique opportunities to work with physicians to affect health policy and hone their political advocacy skills. The initiative process, available in 24 states, allows citizens to circumvent the slower legislative process to adopt laws and amend state constitutions. In recent years, the initiative process has been used to advance controversial policies that at times have been blocked or ignored by legislature. In most states, an initiative must be affirmed by a simple majority of voters to carry the force of law. Of the more than 70 citizen-driven initiatives on election ballots in 2000, 11 addressed health care issues, including allocation of tobacco settlement funds, legalizing physicianassisted suicide and medical marijuana, and universal health coverage. One such campaign was the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Ballot Initiative of 2000. This ballot initiative grew out of the discontent of Massachusetts physicians with the use of financial incentives to limit patient care and control costs, the pressure to increase patient volumes as a means to increase profits, and policies that restrict a patient’s freedom to choose or change his or her physicians. A group of 2300 physicians and health professionals drafted a ballot initiative calling for universal health care access, managed care reform, and a moratorium on the conversion of nonprofit hospitals and health plans to for-profit status. In addition to participating in political strategizing and canvassing, medical student interns worked alongside physicians and other volunteers to collect more than 100000 signatures from voters in Massachusetts to secure placement of the initiative on the November 2000 ballot. The measure, despite minimal fundraising and organization, narrowly failed at the polls, with 48% of the vote. In a poll taken about a month before voting, 72% of respondents reported that they supported the initiative. The opponents, including health maintenance organizations, several Massachusetts lawmakers, business associations, and other insurers, spent $5 million on an advertising campaign that portrayed the reforms as flawed, bureaucratic, and costly. The proponents, on the other hand, invested only $100000 in their campaign. Although the initiative did not become law, it helped renew legislative interest in health care reform. Its popularity, combined with other polling data, indicated that health care reform was important to the citizens of Massachusetts and thus prompted the Massachusetts legislature to enact a managed care reform bill that had been stymied in the legislature for more than 3 years. The bill passed by the legislature affirmed the autonomy of physicians to make clinical treatment determinations for their patients which had been restricted by managed care organizations. In addition, it strengthened protection from gag clauses that prevented physicians from discussing with patients the provisions of their health plan. The managed care bill addressed many of the issues cited as contributing to physicians’ perceived erosion of autonomy and dissatisfaction. Although the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Initiative failed at the polls, it was indirectly successful. A wellcrafted and organized initiative campaign may serve as the impetus for lawmakers to more expediently enact important health care legislation. Medical students have also participated in similar ballot initiative campaigns in California in 1994 and Washington in 2000. In the face of corporate interests that usually dominate the initiative process, physicians and medical students have the unique advantage of direct health care experiences. These can be integrated with the political expertise of professional campaign staff to build coalitions, fundraise, advertise, and reach out to voters. Initiatives can be an efficient method for physicians and medical students to influence health care legislation, advance health care reform initiatives, and draw attention to policy issues that affect medical practice and patient-physician relationships.

Recent Developments in California Labor Relations

Author(s): Mitchell, Daniel J. B. | Abstract: California’s state budget crisis and soft economy have conditioned its labor relations climate. Roughly half of union workers are in the public sector and so are affected by fiscal distress. Neither employers nor economic forecasters expect a robust economic recovery in the state in the near term. A number of union-supported bills were enacted under Governor Gray Davis, including a new paid family leave program, a hike in unemployment insurance benefits, and a mandated mediation process for union-represented farm workers. Nevertheless, state social programs have come under stress. The California Compensation Insurance Fund, which provides workers’ compensation insurance for employers unable to buy it elsewhere, is having financial problems. Lack of job-based health insurance for many low-wage workers has revived legislative interest in alternative proposals for universal coverage. Because of the budget squeeze, threats of layoffs and demands for pay freezes have marked labor relations in government. Job security has been an issue in the private sector, notably in the longshore lockout during the fall of 2002. Health care has been a focus of union organizing and labor disputes, especially involving nurses, against a backdrop of downward pressure on public health program spending and widespread employer concerns about escalating premiums. Until there is a clear-cut improvement in economic conditions, in both public and private sectors, labor relations will continue to reflect an environment of limited resources.

Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536): Renaissance Advocate of the Public Role of Medicine

The great Renaissance scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam was a pioneering advocate of the importance of medicine for social as well as individual welfare. Erasmus' "Oration in praise of the art of medicine" (1518) illustrates his literary approach to this topic. Although the original version of his text did not address the state's role in promoting the health of the populace, Erasmus inserted new material on this topic into the "Oration" for a 1529 edition. This new material and references in some of his other writings from the same period indicate that it was in the 1520s that Erasmus first became a strong advocate of government intervention in public health matters. It is suggested that medical events in Erasmus' own life-his experiences both as a patient and as an observer of diseases-may explain why his interest in public health legislation increased significantly around this time.

O matrimónio canónico-concordatário em Portugal

The present text is a synopsis of the points of greater interest in the current legislation on canonical marriage (improperly called catholic marriage) in Portugal. In the first part of the article we describe the legislation itself, while in the second we analyse some of the difficulties it raises. 1. Without prejudice to the principles of non-confessionality and separation between Church and State found in the Constitution of the Republic, the Concordat signed with the Holy See on the 7 t h May 1940 remains in force. Catholic marriage may only be celebrated by someone who has the capacity for marriage demanded by civil law and must be registered civilly in order to have effect in the internal juridical system. No legislative or judicial competence is recognised to the Church with regard to the separation of the spouses: knowledge of cases of declaration of nullity of catholic marriage and of the dissolution of ratum et non consummatum marriages is reserved to the Church tribunals and registers whose decisions can be executed independently of any revision or confirmation. Convalidation and sanatio in radice produce effects upon inscription of a catholic marriage settlement, once determined conditions are fulfilled. 2. The Constitution does not oblige civil law to establish the presuppositions and effects of catholic marriage in the same way as for all forms of marriage. The regulation to adopt on the nature of the registration of a catholic marriage settlement is done by means of a general norm. However, challenging a transcription is meticulously regulated in law and cannot be applied to catholic marriage celebrated under condition. The civil declaration of presumed death does not permit the spouse of the missing person who has been married in the catholic church to marry again, even though Canon Law would permit this. In this case we would be dealing with an discriminatory marriage impediment which would be unconstitutional. Ever since the Decreto-Ley n ∼ /O 30.615 of the 25 t h July 1940, a catholic marriage cannot be annulled by civil tribunals. Proceedings to declare a catholic marriage null or the dissolution of a ratum et non consummatum marriage is prejudicial to divorce proceedings; even though it comes later the exequatur can never be denied to such a decision. It seems more in tune with the spirit of the system to declare a previous civil marriage null or dissolve it on the grounds of ratum et non consummatum, thus declaring the null or dissolving the marriage bond tout cour.

GWENDOLEN’S MADNESS

Grandcourt threw himself into a chair and said, with undertoned peremptoriness, “Sit down.” She, already in the expectation of something unpleasant, had thrown off her burnous with nervous unconsciousness, and immediately obeyed . . . “Oblige me in future by not showing whims like a mad woman in a play.” (502; ch. 36; emphasis added)NOVELISTIC HEROINES, like Gwendolen in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, become trapped in a complex network of social contradictions when they face the threat of marital violence in a world where such violence was thought not to exist — the middle and upper classes. Though increasing attention was paid to violence in the Victorian home as the century progressed, pamphlets, studies, and legislative inquiry significantly ommited sustained or systematic scrutiny of violence in the home that existed beyond the bounds of the working classes. Frances Power Cobbe’s important essay, “Wife Torture in England,” sought to raise public awareness about marital violence and to stimulate interest in protective legislation for the victims. Yet, in spite of Cobbe’s willingness to consider the possibility that some “gentlemen” might be guilty of abuse, she presents the phenomenon of wife abuse as safely distant from the comfortable quarters of the middle and upper classes, asserting that “the dangerous wife-beater belongs almost exclusively to the artisan and labouring classes” (55). In the debates surrounding the passage of the Divorce Act of 1857, Parliament repeatedly made apparent their belief that middle- and upper-class men could not be a danger to their wives by focusing exclusively on marital violence as a working-class issue. Only in “the humbler ranks of life [was] some prompt remedy” necessary; only “poor women” were conceived of as sufferers of violence at the hands of their husbands (Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., 145 [25 May 1857], col. 801–02).

The fire-safe cigarette: a burn prevention tool.

Cigarettes are the most common ignition source for fatal house fires, which cause approximately 29% of the fire deaths in the United States. A common scenario is the delayed ignition of a sofa, chair, or mattress by a lit cigarette that is forgotten or dropped by a smoker whose alertness is impaired by alcohol or medication. Cigarettes are designed to continue burning when left unattended. If they are dropped on mattresses, upholstered furniture, or other combustible material while still burning, their propensity to start fires varies depending on the cigarette design and content. The term "fire-safe" has evolved to describe cigarettes designed to have a reduced propensity for igniting mattresses and upholstered furniture. Legislative interest in the development of fire-safe smoking materials has existed for more than 50 years. Studies that showed the technical and economic feasibility of commercial production of fire-safe cigarettes were completed more than 10 years ago. Despite this, commercial production of fire-safe smoking materials has not been undertaken. The current impasse relates to the lack of consensus on a uniform test method on which to base a standard for fire-safe cigarettes. Although the fire-safe cigarette is a potentially important burn prevention tool, commercial production of such cigarettes will not occur until a standard against which fire-starting performance can be measured has been mandated by law at the state or federal level. The burn care community can play a leadership role in such legislative efforts.

The Regulation of Children's Advertising in the US

Over the past 30 years the United States has grappled with the regulation of children's advertising in various media. The same debate that occurred in the 1970's in the US over banning children's advertising is heating up in the EU today. As with other regulatory issues the regulation of children's advertising involves trade‐offs. In the US, the First Amendment rights of the advertisers must be balanced with the government interest in protecting children. The regulation of children's advertising also involves balancing the competing interests of advocacy groups, legislators, broadcasters and advertisers. Advocacy groups have been very effective in focusing public attention on the issues of children's advertising. One of the most vocal and impactful groups was Action for Children's Television (ACT), whose efforts culminated in the passage of the 1990 Children's Television Act. Once that was accomplished, ACT was disbanded. In more recent years, however, the Centre for Media Education (CME) has replaced ACT in calling for regulation of children's advertising. CME was instrumental in pushing the 1996 FTC investigation related to 900 telephone numbers directed at children, and is now behind the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The same questions raised nearly 30 years ago by ACT are now being cast in the US in terms of the Internet, otherwise little has changed. Each new innovation in media and technology ushers similar questions to the table, and the same balancing act must again be employed to answer the basic question: how far do we go to protect our children? The US's answer to this question offers insights for other countries seeking answers to similar questions.

Devising Administrative Reform That Works: The Example of the Reinvention Lab Program

Administrative reform doesn't work. At least such is the conclusion drawn by a number of scholars in reviewing the history of attempts to reorganize and reform the federal executive establishment. Their verdict is based on their observations, first, of Congress's reluctance to accede in presidential proposals for reconfiguring the bureaucracy and, second, of a general failure of those proposals that have gained congressional approval to achieve their objectives. Based on past patterns, failure might be anticipated of the most recent manifestation of reform, the National Performance Review (NPR). However, various features of the NPR proposals and the strategy that has been employed to implement them, as well as the context in which they have been introduced, warrant caution in using the past as a guide in this instance. Among the important distinctions between the National Performance Review and previous reforms are the following: 1. NPR is less a reorganization than an attempt to change service delivery methods. 2. The primary targets for change are rank-and-file federal employees rather than political appointees or high ranking members of the career service. 3. Implementation of the NPR recommendations is not wholly, or even substantially, dependent on congressional approval; many of the changes being wrought are within the control of executive branch officials. These differences have important implications for evaluating NPR as a reform initiative. Rather than attending to the outcomes of legislative battles or to the durability of various changes to government-wide management systems, an investigation of how reform has affected the day-to-day activities of front-line federal employees is warranted. This article presents the results of such an investigation and finds that NPR generally, and the reinvention lab program specifically, has had substantial impact at this level. These results, when contrasted with past analyses, allow a useful opportunity to reexamine the construct of administrative reform and how it is appropriately understood and evaluated. The Futility of Reform Prominent among the reasons given for past failures of attempts at administrative reform is the hostility that members of Congress have shown towards a disruption of the bureaucratic status quo. Various forces appear to be at work. Members of Congress often seek to preserve their institutional role in overseeing the bureaucracy and to preclude an enhancement of presidential control (March and Olson, 1983). Congressional resistance may also stem from the demands of groups whose privileges are threatened by proposed changes (Seidman, 1980). One interpretation of why resistance so often emerges from Congress is that the very structure of government, the classic [bureaucratic] formula of hierarchy, specialization, professionalism, and written rules and regulations (Knott and Miller, 1987, 173), serves the interest of legislators. Their benefit from the service delivery capacity that bureaucratic structures allow, while, at the same time, they can take credit for remedying the complaints of constituents who will feel the bureaucracy's impersonal, bureaucratic routines have generated an inappropriate response in their unique (Knott and Miller, 1987, 199). The attention to bureaucratic dysfunction as a reform issue presages the National Performance Review. The need to revise obsolete practices associated with the bureaucratic model is a founding principle of the reinventing government movement. The nature of the changes being recommended under NPR and the history of past reforms, however, imply that failure is likely. Rosenbloom (1993) presents the case for such a failure. He argues that reform generally needs to be examined in a political context and that key actors, members of Congress in particular, have disincentives to change the traditional organizational model in ways that are congruent with reinvention principles. …

Committee characteristics and re-election margins: An empirical investigation of the US House *

Models of legislative organization frequently begin with the premise that the committee system serves the re-election interests of incumbent legislators. Attempts to substantiate this notion empirically have been unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the notion lives on, nourished by a stylized characterization of the committee system. In the standard model committees have jurisdictional monopolies over specialized policy areas and legislators gravitate toward those committees that deal most closely with the policy concerns of their constituents. Contrary to this simplifying characterization, the degree of monopoly control and policy specialization varies across standing committees in the us congress. Some committees have wide jurisdictions and attract members with diverse policy preferences. Jurisdictional overlap and resulting turf battles are common aspects of congressional sessions. We suggest here that these realities warrant a re-opening of the empirical investigation into the link between electoral success and committee characteristics. Our findings indicate that assignment to a committee with a relatively high degree of monopoly control increases a member's vote share, and that assignment to a narrowly focused (specialized) committee does not.

The Amesbury-Salisbury Strike and the Social Origins of Political Nativism in Antebellum Massachusetts

On May 31, 1852, John P. Derby, newly appointed agent of Salisbury Manufacturing Company, announced that luncheon privilege would be abolished following day. so-called luncheon privilege, a custom at this woolen factory since it began production in 1823, amounted to two fifteen-minute breaks in morning and afternoon for male employees. next day about onehundred operatives defiantly left mills at usual hour for their morning break. All were discharged for their insubordination, and were soon joined by most employees of SMC, male and female, in sympathy strikes. Within two weeks Samuel Langley, another newly appointed agent of nearby Amesbury Flannel Manufacturing Company, announced that his firm would likewise revoke luncheon privilege. Threatened with a massive strike, Langley refused to rescind his order and watched his mills completely shut down.1 As operatives streamed out of mills, residents organized a political response. Led by towns' native-born journeymen, master craftsmen, and small storekeepers, a local movement erupted in mid June for ten-hour working day. leaders penned a Hour and sent it to surrounding communities in July. In it, activists declared it to be the duty of every well-wisher to prosperity of state to unite in favor of a ten-hour law. They emphasized how issue transcended usual schemes and prejudices of party politics, maintaining all classes have a common and inseparable interest in legislation for a ten-hour day. On this note of antipartyism and cross-class solidarity Ten Hour Circular announced a decisive break with political orthodoxy. Amesbury and Salisbury, Massachusetts, once roseately described by Quaker-poet John Greenleaf Whittier as places where the utmost harmony prevails and has always done so between employer and employee, were plunged into a period of political upheaval.2 tumult peaked two years later when local insurgents united behind Know Nothing, or American party in November 1854 election. Know Nothing candidates in both towns, and indeed throughout state, swept to record majorities, obliterating Whig party and speeding collapse of second American party system in Massachusetts. In fact election of 1854 capped years of popular frustration, both locally and statewide, with Bay State's conservative Whig establishment. Remarkably, insurgent party carried nearly every town in state-a complete rout that suggests scope of voter antipathy towards politics-as-usual. Proclaimed one Amesbury nativist: The American movement gives more power to mechanics, true strength of country. It excludes those broken-down wire-pullers and party hacks, he gloated triumphantly, who will sell themselves for political office.3 Historians continue to debate sources of Know Nothing revolt in

Impact of Target Prices and Payment Limits on the Supply Function

In 1970, a $55,000 per limitation on direct payments was established largely in response to Wilcox's Congressional testimony indicating the magnitude of direct income subsidies by different-sized farms. The payment limit was reduced to $20,000 per person in the 1973 farm bill, increased to $40,000 in the 1977 farm bill, and then subsequently raised to the present limit of $50,000 per person (Knutson et al.). As U.S. farm program costs exceeded $20 billion per year in the 1980's, questions again rose as to who was receiving these payments (Ambus; United States General Accounting Office, 1987a, 1987c, and 1987d; Lin, Johnson and Calvin; Johnson and Short). Due to loopholes in the payment limit regulations, they have not been effective in limiting direct payments to producers (United States General Accounting Office 1991; Johnson and Short). However, interest in legislation that would effectively cap direct farm program payments continues to be discussed (United States General Accounting Office 1987b, 1987c, and 1994). Given the current interest in reducing government costs, it is expected that methods to more effectively target farm program payments will be debated in the 1995 farm bill. Because payment limits have not been effective in the past, policy analysts have not analyzed the impacts of alternative payment limit levels on supply and prices. However, if effective payment limits are established, supply response models will need to be augmented. The literature includes numerous supply response models that explicitly quantify the impacts of target prices, loan rates, and acreage reduction programs, but none of the reviewed literature includes payment limitations (e.g., Subotnik; Bailey and Womack; Shideed and White; Morzuch, Weaver, and Helmberger; Evans; Chembezi and Womack; Lee and Helmberger; Garst and Miller; Houck and Ryan; McIntosh and Shideed; Duffy, Richardson, and Wohlgenant). The purpose of this article is to develop a simple graphical model of the supply impacts caused by legislation that effectively limits farm program payments to individual producers without inducing changes in farm ownership and control.' Without resorting to empirical proofs, this analysis unambiguously demonstrates that if payment limitations can be effectively enforced without changes in farm ownership and control, the aggregate supply curve will shift to the left. Effectively enforced payment limits, therefore, could act not only as a targeting mechanism, but also as a vehicle for supply management.

Malpractice reform in the 1990s: past disappointments, future success?

State governments, the federal government, interest groups, and researchers have proposed various approaches to reform the malpractice system. Malpractice reforms fall into two generations. First-generation reforms are those adopted by states beginning in the 1970s chiefly to reduce claim frequency and severity and thereby improve the malpractice system primarily from the perspective of providers and insurers. Scholars and interested constituencies developed second-generation reforms, such as use of medical practice guidelines to set the standard of care, various no-fault approaches, enterprise liability, mandated alternative dispute resolution, and scheduling damages, to streamline the adjudication and compensation system from the perspective of claimants and providers. Research indicates that first-generation reforms have not been very effective in achieving the compensation and deterrence goals of tort, whereas second-generation reforms hold greater promise of doing so. This analysis of state and federal legislation indicates that states, and more recently Congress, have been reluctant to adopt second-generation reforms but continue to promote and/or adopt first-generation reforms. The strength of the provider lobby, concerns of health care reformers about the relationship between defensive medicine and health system costs, and lack of an organized consumer force for second-generation malpractice reform are important explanations of why the states and Congress have not embraced second-generation reforms. Furthermore, federal and state legislative interest in second-generation reforms, although never high, is waning in the current health care reform debate.

Child abuse and neglect reporting laws: Understanding interests, understanding policy

AbstractThis article focuses on the interests of the persons involved in the child abuse and neglect reporting process—(1) the child, the accused, and the family members of the child and of the accused; (2) physicians, psychologists, therapists, private agency and hospital social workers, educators, and other professionals; (3) law enforcement officers, state social service workers, lawyers, and judges; and (4) legislators. With this focus, the article illuminates the rationales and explicit and implicit policy choices reflected in the legislation's reporting requirements and processes. Such insight is necessary to a critical review of existing legislation and future improvements in the practical operation of reporting law legislation. This article demonstrates that the interaction of these interests is complex and often creates competing concerns and goals. This article concludes that efforts should be made to better harmonize these interests in future legislation.

Farmers increase hiring through labor contractors

Farm wages in California, as a percentage of farm sales, fell slightly during the 1980s, partly because many farmers switched to hiring workers through Farm Labor Contractors (FLCs). The abuses frequently attributed to FLCs — including underpayment or nonpayment of wages and (over)charges for housing, transportation and work equipment — have renewed legislative interest in regulating their activities.

The effects of multiple objectives in the theory of public sector supply

This paper incorporates objectives of both legislators and bureaucrats in a model of public sector decisionmaking. Existing models assume that either bureaucrats control production information and decisions, (Niskanen-type models) or legislators control production decisions (legislative models). My model explicitly incorporates imperfect agent behavior and corresponding preferences of both legislators and bureaucrats to reflect the bilateral nature of appropriations. The analysis shows that output levels generally differ from politically and socially efficient levels and depend on the relative weights of legislative and bureaucratic interests. Accordingly, Niskanen-type and legislative models are viewed as special cases of this more general approach.

Measuring the ideological preferences of U.S. presidents: A proposed (extremely simple) method

Several observations can be made concerning the data presented in the preceding tables. First, as one might expect, not all Democratic or Republican presidents are alike. As shown in Table 3, John Kennedy has a higher cumulative pro-ADA rating than does Lyndon Johnson than does Jimmy Carter. On the Republican side, Dwight Eisenhower comes in at roughly the middle of the ADA liberal/conservative ideological spectrum and considerably to the “left” of both Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Second, while there appear to be significant differences between the ideological preferences of presidents from the same party, the correlation between a president's annual or cumulative pro-ADA percentage and a dummy variable reflecting the party of the president (Democrats equal unity, Republicans equal zero) is still fairly high. For example, the correlation between the nine post-World War II presidents' cumulative pro-ADA percentages (Table 3) and a party dummy variable is 0.93. The correlation between presidents' annual pro-ADA percentages (Table 2) and a party dummy variable is 0.87. In calculating the annual correlation, President Johnson's 1963 and President Ford's 1974 pro-ADA percentages are included as separate observations (i.e., separate from President Kennedy's 1963 and President Nixon's 1974 pro-ADA records). Thus, while a dummy variable reflecting the party of a president may not be the most preferred measure of presidents' ideological preferences, such a variable may be a reasonably accurate substitute for the pro-ADA percentages reported in Tables 2 and 3. Third, as are the ratings of congressional representatives published annually by ideological watchdog groups such as the ADA, the presidential ratings reported in Tables 2 and 3 are sensitive to the issues reaching (or not reaching) a vote on the House/Senate floor. President Bush's low 1989 pro-ADA percentage, for example, may partly reflect the fact that (Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, December 30, 1989, p. 3545): “all the 1989 tests of his [Bush's] clean-air proposal took place in committee.” President Johnson's higher pro-ADA percentages in 1964 and 1965 relative to 1966–68 partly reflect the focus of Congress on debate and passage of Johnson's Great Society programs during the early years of his administration. The extent to which the issues reaching a vote in Congress influence and are influenced by the ideological preferences of the president (at least as the preferences are measured by my proposed methodology) is an important question for future research. The correlation between the Table 2 presidential pro-ADA percentage and the mean (analogously-constructed) pro-ADA percentage for the Senate (see the Appendix) is 0.04. Finally, the presidential ADA ratings developed in this paper do not appear to evidence a bias toward the middle (i.e., a 0.5 rating) as a function of the percentage of times a president takes a position on the ADA-selected issues. One could argue, for example, that presidents who are less likely to take positions on ADA-selected issues are also less likely to want to be labeled as “extremists” and are thus more likely to position themselves as the middle of the ADA ideological spectrum. The correlation between a variable reflecting the distance (expressed in absolute value terms) between a president's annual pro-ADA percentage and 0.5 and the percentage of times the president takes a position on the issues selected by the ADA for the same year is 0.06. In conclusion, the methodology and data presented in this paper are intended to be a first step toward testing the explanatory power of the congressional dominance theory relative to other, broader conceptions of bureaucratic/regulatory policy outcomes. After developing measures of the independent ideological preferences of bureaucrats, I plan to examine a specific case of bureaucratic policymaking as a function of the interests of overseeing legislators, the president, relevant interest groups, and bureaucrats themselves. In the course of the investigation, I plan to draw on the approach developed in Kalt and Zupan (1984 and 1990) for distinguishing between the independent preferences of legislators and the interests of legislators' constituents in explanations of congressional policy outcomes. The approach to be taken in analyzing bureaucratic policy outcomes ultimately also may be useful in explaining judicial decisionmaking. For example, on an issue like abortion or civil rights, to what extent do the independent preferences of Supreme Court justices such as Scalia, Brennan, and Warren matter? By undertaking a content analysis of the editorials in several of the nation's leading newspapers written in response to Supreme Court nominations, Segal and Cover (1989) develop one possible measure of justices' independent ideological values from Earl Warren to Anthony Kennedy (1953–88). And to what extent do the positions taken by such justices reflect the interests of overseeing/appointing legislators, presidents, and relevant interest groups?

THE POLITICS OF LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT: MONITORING EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN SIX STATES

Legislative oversight traditionally has been viewed as a rational tool for achieving democratic accountability. Legislators conduct oversight to ensure consistency between implementation and official policy directives. The major theme of this paper is t h a t oversight is best understood as an integral part of legislative‐administrative politics. By examining how six states monitored recent educational reforms, the author finds that legislators conducted oversight in ways that minimized time commitments and maximized political benefits.The paper concludes that legislative interest in controlling implementation often was secondary to political considerations. Oversight, therefore, may not really be effective as an accountability tool.