Legislative Debates Research Articles

What's the matter by Kansas? Legislative debates over stem cell research in Kansas and Massachusetts

This paper examines the contextual factors shaping legislative debates affecting stem cell research in two states, Kansas and Massachusetts, which both permit therapeutic cloning for stem cell research but markedly vary in their legislative approach to the issue. In Kansas, restrictive legislation was proposed but effectively blocked by research proponents, while in Massachusetts permissive legislation was successfully implemented under the auspices of an act to promote stem cell research. The importance of university and industry involvement is highlighted in each case, as are the roles of enterprising and persistent policy entrepreneurs. Providing a close examination of the policy process attending the cloning debate in these states is intended to contribute to an enhanced understanding of the cloning-policy process as it has played out at the state level, with an eye toward informing legislative debates over related biotechnical advances in the future.

Deliberative Democracy and Stem Cell Research in New York State: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Many states in the U.S. have adopted policies regarding human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research in the last few years. Some have arrived at these policies through legislative debate, some by referendum, and some by executive order. New York has chosen a unique structure for addressing policy decisions regarding this morally controversial issue by creating the Empire State Stem Cell Board with two Committees--an Ethics Committee and a Funding Committee. This essay explores the pros and cons of various policy arrangements for making public policy decisions about morally controversial issues in bioethics (as well as other issues) through the lens of Deliberative Democracy, focusing on the principles of reciprocity, publicity, and accountability. Although New York's unique mechanism potentially offers an opportunity to make policy decisions regarding a morally controversial subject like hESC research in accord with the principles of Deliberative Democracy, this essay demonstrates its failure to do so in actual fact. A few relatively simple changes could make New York's program a real model for putting Deliberative Democracy into practice in making policy decisions regarding controversial bioethical issues.

Governing through crime as commonsense racism

This article explores momentous changes to Delaware's death penalty statute in 1991, reforms that made it one of the USA's premier killing states. Reflecting on media coverage of a high profile crime and the legislative debates that led to the law change sheds light on how static conceptions of spaces (i.e. `the dangerous city') and persons (i.e. `non-white invaders from Philadelphia') reveal lawmakers' commonsense racism as inextricably bound to such momentous legislative action. By situating the decision in the context of the intense urgency to act set in motion by a high profile racially charged crime and a taken-for-granted compliance to an aggressive pro-death legal formalism, lawmakers appeared to act in a manner that was racially neutral. However and perhaps most strikingly, the debate lacked any dissenting voices of representatives from racially aggrieved communities long neglected by the state. Such a racially insensitive rush to appear `tough on crime' reveals how Delaware lawmakers acted according to a commonsense of racialized persons, places, and channels that enforced racial hierarchy (i.e. actions that hurt minorities and favor whites). More broadly, we argue that Haney-Lopez's (2003) theory of commonsense racism helps to clarify Simon's (2007) theory of governing through crime as it applies to the `toughening' of already punitive criminal laws at the state level, if not especially the death penalty.

Ciudadanas para una nueva Argentina. Debates por la inclusión política de la mujer durante el peronismo

En 1947 el Congreso Nacional Argentino sanciono la ley que otorgo el voto a la mujer, saldando asi una larga etapa de exclusion de la ciudadania politica. Los debates legislativos sobre la nueva ley electoral traducen una instancia decisiva en la construccion de la hegemonia peronista, evidenciada en la necesidad de cohesionar la nueva fuerza e ir generando las primeras construcciones simbolicas en las que el poder se iba encarnando, tendientes a darle al peronismo una historia entroncada con el pasado de la Nacion y a la mujer una asociacion duradera con la figura de Eva Peron y un rol esencial en la construccion de la Nueva Argentina peronista

Mumtaz Bibi's broken heart

This article investigates the formation of a political consensus between conservative ulama, Muslim reformers, nationalist politicians and women's organisations, which led to the enactment of the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act in 1939. The Act was a radical piece of social legislation that gave South Asian Muslim women greater rights for divorce than those enjoyed by other women in India and Britain. Instead of placing women's rights and Islamic law as opposed to each other, the legislation employed a heuristic that guaranteed women's rights by applying Islamic law, allowing Muslim politicians, ulama and women's groups to find common ground on an Islamic modernity. By interrogating the legislative process and the rhetorical positions employed to achieve this consensus, the paper hopes to map how the women's question was being negotiated anew in the space created in the legislatures. The legislative debate over family law redefined the boundaries of the public and the private, and forced nationalists to reconsider the ‘women's question’. The transformation of Islamic law through secular legislation also gave greater licence to the courts in their interpretation, and widened the schism between traditional practitioners of fiqh and modern lawyers.

WORDS COUNT: HOW INTEREST IN STEM CELLS HAS MADE THE EMBRYO AVAILABLE--A LOOK AT THE FRENCH LAW OF BIOETHICS

This paper aims at demonstrating the manner in which the recent focus of the public and legislative debate in France on the issue of embryonic stem cells has contributed to silencing the previously strong opposition to any kind of embryonic research. After explaining what the legal state of affairs was subsequent to the 1994 law of bioethics as far as the embryo was concerned, the article presents and analyzes the new provisions of the 2004 law of bioethics. It then stresses all the rhetoric tricks that have made the 2004 legalization of research on embryos and embryonic stem cells possible (ambiguous legal provisions, strategic uses of scientific imagery, opportunistic changes in vocabulary). Finally, it assesses the 2004 legislative construction as a compromise that embodies no particularly coherent axiological choice, thus as a fragile and unsettled agreement.

Words Count - How Interest in Stem Cells Has Made the Embryo Available: A Look at the French Law of Bioethics

This paper aims at demonstrating the manner in which the recent focus of the public and legislative debate in France on the issue of embryonic stem cells has contributed to silencing the previously strong opposition to any kind of embryonic research. After explaining what the legal state of affairs was subsequent to the 1994 law of bioethics as far as the embryo was concerned, the article presents and analyzes the new provisions of the 2004 law of bioethics. It then stresses all the rhetoric tricks that have made the 2004 legalization of research on embryos and embryonic stem cells possible (ambiguous legal provisions, strategic uses of scientific imagery, opportunistic changes in vocabulary). Finally, it assesses the 2004 legislative construction as a compromise that embodies no particularly coherent axiological choice, thus as a fragile and unsettled agreement.

Los argumentos de eficacia en el discurso parlamentario

Este trabajo aborda la relación entre justificación racional y eficacia de las leyes desde el punto de vista de una teoría de la argumentación parlamentaria. Dentro de este marco me centraré en la cuestión de cómo son tratados y qué relevancia tienen en el discurso de los legisladores los problemas relativos a la eficacia social del Derecho. Intento primero clarificar cuál es el papel de la eficacia en la racionalidad legislativa, para discutir luego, a propósito de la dimensión simbólica de las normas, en qué medida la argumentación durante (y después de) la formación de la ley condiciona su capacidad regulativa. Sobre esta base planteo un modelo para analizar los argumentos de eficacia en la discusión parlamentaria de las leyes y, a modo de ejemplo, lo aplico a los debates sobre la modificación del código civil español en materia de matrimonio.

Energy polarization and popular representation: Evidence from the Russian Duma

In this article we introduce the term “energy polarization” to explain the politics of energy market reform in the Russian Duma. Our model tests the impact of regional energy production, party cohesion and ideology, and electoral mandate on the energy policy decisions of the Duma deputies (oil, gas, and electricity bills and resolution proposals) between 1994 and 2003. We find a strong divide between Single-Member District (SMD) and Proportional Representation (PR) deputies High statistical significance of gas production is demonstrated throughout the three Duma terms and shows Gazprom's key position in the post-Soviet Russian economy. Oil production is variably significant in the two first Dumas, when the main legislative debates on oil privatization occur. There is no constant left–right continuum, which is consistent with the deputies' proclaimed party ideology. The pro- and anti-reform poles observed in our Poole-based single dimensional scale are not necessarily connected with liberal and state-oriented regulatory policies, respectively. Party switching is a solid indicator of Russia's polarized legislative dynamics when it comes to energy sector reform.

La place de l'information dans la décision en santé publique

Public health, prevention, health education and health promotion are inseparable from the concepts of information and communication. Information should respond as much as possible to the needs of professionals, decision-makers, and consumers who are more and more concerned and conscious of its importance in light of "information overload", various dissemination channels and the multiplicity of its sources. There are numerous issues at stake ranging from comprehension, to the validation of health information, health education, health promotion, prevention, decision-making, as well as issues related to knowledge and power. Irrespective of the type of choice to be made, the need for information, knowledge, and know-how is inseparable from that of other tools or regulatory measures required for decision-making. Information is the same as competence, epidemiological and population data, health data, scientific opinion, and expert conferences--all are needed to assist in decision-making. Based on the principle of precaution, information must increasingly take into account the rejection of a society which often reasons on the basis of a presumption of zero-risk, in an idealistic manner, and which also excludes the possibility of new risks. The consumer positions himself as the regulator of decisions, specifically those with regard to the notion of acceptable level of risk. All of the actors involved in the health system are or become at one moment or another public health decision-makers. Their decision might be based either on an analytical approach, or on an intuitive approach. Although the act of decision-making is the least visible part of public health policy, it is certainly the driving force. This process should integrate the perspective of all of the relevant players, including consumers, who are currently situated more and more frequently at the heart of the health system. Public health decision-making is conducted as a function of political, strategic and environmental issues; of lobbies and their power; and of social maturation. Decision-making is a necessity. Making the right choice at the right time requires high quality information, and it is often necessary to respect a certain amount of time for reflection and ripening of an issue in order to make the best possible decision. The media and consumers play an increasingly significant role in public health decision-making and in the ensuing legislative consequences and debates which come as a result. Access to information is changing, especially thanks to the Internet which is completely modifying the global scenery of knowledge and know-how. Information supports decision-making with calculated risk, and it offers the opportunity to make choices and decisions, recognising that "to choose, is sometimes to relinquish".

The European pharmaceutical industry: coming to a screen near you?

The European Commission Pharmaceuticals Unit is currently developing a legal proposal to increase the public provision of information about prescription medicines. Their preliminary proposal would achieve this by permitting pharmaceutical companies to provide unsolicited information about their prescription-only products directly to the public via the mass-media.1 The permitted channels of dissemination would include television, radio and print media, as well as standalone products distributed directly or via healthcare professionals. The stated intention of this controversial proposal is to meet a public need for high quality, reliable information about medications. Legislative debate in this area is not new. In 2002, the European Parliament debated a proposed five-year pilot scheme of mass-media advertising limited to drugs for diabetes, asthma and AIDS. The proposal was rejected by 494 votes to 42.2 Currently, the USA and New Zealand are the only developed countries that permit direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription-only medications; it is a contentious issue in both.3,4 The preliminary proposal insists that our ban on advertising should be maintained, instead forwarding a suggestion that the pharmaceutical industry be able to disseminate ‘non-promotional information’. Herein lies the conundrum, as the distinction between ‘advertising’ and mass-provision of unsolicited information by industry is not immediately obvious. Indeed, despite widespread agreement that such a distinction is absolutely crucial to the current proposal, neither the proposer nor any stakeholder has yet offered a clear means to achieve this.5 Opponents therefore fear that permitting such legislation would be tantamount to allowing advertising in all but name.6 The importance of this debate cannot be underestimated: widespread information dissemination has the potential to significantly impact the public's understanding of health, disease and medications, and to alter the nature of the doctor-patient relationship. Whilst this debate may be relatively new to Europeans, it is both long-standing and familiar in North America and Australasia. We are therefore fortunate to have the benefit of others' experiences. Indeed, we are urged to learn from these experiences by physicians in New Zealand. They fear that Europe's current trajectory represents a ‘slippery slope’ to their own situation in which drug advertising is omnipresent, though unpopular with doctors and with patient groups.7 Within this article we draw on international experience to contextualize and consider the potential European policy. We summarize the discourse that surrounds DTCA in the USA and New Zealand and present a taxonomic framework. Starting from a discussion of Canada's experience, we discuss the distinction between information and advertising. We consider how Europe could draw all of this together to carve its own path towards world-class provision of patient-centred information.

Patterns of Parliamentary Discourse: How ‘Deliberative’ are German Legislative Debates?

An under-researched topic in German politics is the systematic assessment of the nature and quality of its political discourse. Since absolute standards of high and low discourse quality are difficult to establish, we explore discourse quality – defined in deliberative terms as more or less respect – in a comparative fashion by contrasting the German Bundestag with the Swiss Nationalrat. We find that the government–opposition setting in Germany decreases the quality of political discourse (despite frequent institutional pressures to find agreement). In comparison with the Swiss grand coalition setting, respect scores are clearly lower. While political culture does not make a difference for discourse quality, partisan status and strategies strongly affect it.

Automatic Annotation of Semantic Fields for Political Science Research

ABSTRACT This article discusses methods for automatic annotation of political texts for semantic fields—groups of words with related meanings. This type of annotation is useful when studying political communication, such as legislative debate or political speeches. We present three types of automatic annotation: unsupervised clustering, dictionary-based approaches, and a method based on relevant experimental data. All methods are applied to analyzing Margaret Thatcher's political rhetoric. For this data, we find that unsupervised clustering is most useful for tracing topics; dictionary-based methods are most effective in a comparative setting; whereas the last method is the most promising for detecting off-topic, singular uses of semantic domains, which are often rhetorical tools used to achieve a political end. Applicability, strengths, and weaknesses of each method and of their combinations are addressed in detail.

Lincoln and freedom: slavery, emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment

Lincoln's re-election in 1864 was a pivotal moment in the history of the United States. The Emancipation Proclamation had officially gone into effect on January 1, 1863, and the proposed Thirteenth had become a campaign issue. and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment captures these historic times, profiling the individuals, events, and enactments that led to slavery's abolition. Fifteen of the nation's leading Lincoln scholars contribute to the collection, covering slavery from its roots in 1619 Jamestown through the adoption of the Constitution, to Abraham Lincoln's presidency. This comprehensive volume, edited by Harold Holzer and Sara Vaughn Gabbard, presents Abraham Lincoln's response to the issue of slavery as politician, president, writer, orator, and commander-in-chief. The topics include the history of slavery in North America, the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, the evolution of Lincoln's view of presidential powers, the influence of religion on Lincoln, and the effects of the Emancipation Proclamation. This volume effectively explores slavery as a Constitutional issue, both from the viewpoint of the original intent of the nation's founders as they failed to deal with slavery, and as a study of the Constitutional authority of the commander-in-chief as Lincoln interpreted it. Addressed is the timing of Lincoln's decision for emancipation, and its effect on the public, the military, and the slaves themselves. The collection also covers the role of the U.S. Colored Troops, the election campaign of 1864, and the legislative debate over the Thirteenth Amendment. The editors include an essay on the role that iconography played in forming and informing public opinion about emancipation and the amendments that officially granted freedom and civil rights to African Americans. and Freedom, which includes nineteen illustrations, provides a comprehensive study of slavery in America and offers a rare look at how Lincoln's views, statements, and actions played a vital role in the story of emancipation.

“That Coming Storm”: The Irish Poor Law, Colonial Biopolitics, and the Great Famine

The potato blight, Phythophthora infestans, was first recorded in Dublin in August 1845. Over the next five years the Irish potato harvest failed four times, triggering mass hunger and disease on a magnitude the European continent had not endured for centuries. During this period, over one million Irish perished and a further two million fled the land, never to return. Thus, in a relatively short period, three million people were dead or gone. The purpose of this article is to situate this story of human deprivation and suffering within the context of an evolving “colonial biopolitics” aimed at regenerating Irish society. Although recent writings demonstrate an interest in the regimes of power that produce famine, there has been little attempt to connect such arguments to the theory and practice of colonialism, especially its investments in the liberal goals of development and social improvement. Building on the perspectives of Michel Foucault, particularly his discussion of “biopolitics,” I argue that the Great Famine was shaped by a regulatory order willing to exploit catastrophe to further the aims of population reform. The article draws particular attention to the development of an Irish Poor Law system, arguing that this legislative debate exposes the growing perception that agricultural rationalization, fiscal restructuring, and population clearances were necessary to “ameliorate” and “improve” Irish society. This twining of relief and development facilitated dangerous distinctions between productive and unproductive life and allowed the colonial state to apply its own sovereign remedy to Irish poverty.

The Telecoms Packagee and the Copyright Amendments A European Legal Framework to Stop Downloading, and Monitor the Internet

This paper considers how imminent changes to European telecommunications law will permit the monitoring and blocking of websites and peer-to-peer exchanges by ISPs, in a way that is currently not legally possible. These legal changes will also permit ISPs to sanction users by suspending or terminating Internet access. And they are essential in order for the French ‘riposte graduee’ or ‘3 strikes’ copyright enforcement measures to be implemented.The changes are a series of hidden amendments related to copyright, and contained in the so-called ‘Telecoms package’. This paper argues that these amendments will effectively erode the ISP’s legal status of ‘mere conduit’, which currently protects individual rights and liberties on the Internet. It argues that the ‘mere conduit’ status should be preserved, and the copyright amendments rejected.The proposed copyright amendments will result in the loss of individual freedom and privacy on the Internet – in breach of fundamental principles of human rights law in Europe. Ultimately, they could open the door to wider political or commercial censorship, and this is the real danger of permitting them to get into law. The risk is that this will happen without proper legislative scrutiny or public debate. The European Parliament committees responsible for the Telecoms package voted on July 7th and the Parliament as a whole voted on September 2nd.

'A brake upon the wheel': Frank Oliver and the Creation of the Immigration Act of 1906

As Minister of the Interior from 1905 to 1911, Frank Oliver held a fundamentally different philosophy of immigration to that of his predecessor. While previous immigration legislation had been open door, and focused on economic criteria, Oliver believed in the effectiveness of a closed door policy based primarily on cultural criteria. The Immigration Act of 1906, resting on the twin pillars of selection and restriction, was designed to establish and implement that criteria. The immigration bill was well received by the public, engendered minimal legislative debate, and was passed substantially as it had first been introduced. Oliver had responded to what Canadians perceived was a national need.

Reconstituting Cultural Memory through Image and Text in Leïla Sebbar's Le Chinois vert d'Afrique

Despite the impact of the Algerian War on Franco-Algerian relations, the war's atrocities have all but vanished from French collective memory — until relatively recently. Legislative debates in the French National Assembly regarding the revision of textbooks attest to this: does France have the right to teach future generations about colonialism's positive effects? This article examines how Leïla Sebbar comes to terms with post-war trauma through a combination of text and image. Should one then read Sebbar's novel, Le Chinois vert d'Afrique, as a piece of ecphrastic writing? And more importantly, does Sebbar's use of photography function effectively as a vector of memorial transmission?

The Legacy of a Story: Commemoration and the Double-Narrative of Jeffrey Arenburg and Brian Smith

This article examines a recent amendment to Ontario's mental health legislation that was named "in memory" of Brian Smith, a local television personality killed by Jeffrey Arenburg, a person diagnosed with a mental illness. Rather than evaluating the socio-legal validity of "Brian's Law", it critically attends to the emergent "narrative of commemoration" that helped consolidate collective memory of the event. The genesis of the legislation is traced through public documents that support the "storying" of the murder, inquest, and legislative debate, including the "mythologizing" of Smith and the derisive story of Arenburg. Both representations are essential to the social and political efficacy of this "double-narrative" and the formal process of commemoration. The "legacy" of Brian Smith as exemplar of moral and social responsibility depends upon the alternative public conception of Arenburg, as mentally ill and morally ambiguous. Essentially, this narrative reaches beyond individual experience, and even social memory, and becomes enshrined in law as institutional memory.

Violence and Colonial Dialogue: The Australian-Pacific Indentured Labour Trade

During the post-abolition period a trade in cheap and often cost-neutral labor flourished in the western Pacific. For more than forty years, it supplied tens of thousands of indentured laborers to the sugar industry of northeastern Australia. "Violence and Colonial Dialogue" tells the story of its impact on the people who were traded. From the beaches and shallows of the Pacific's frontiers to the plantations and settlements of Queensland and beyond, a collective tale of the pioneers of today's Australian South Sea Island community is told through an abundant and effective use of materials that characterize the colonial record, including police registers, court records, prison censuses, administrative reports, legislative debates, and oral histories. With a thematic focus on the physical violence that was central to the experience of people who were voluntarily or involuntarily recruited, the history that emerges is a powerful tale that is at once both tragic and triumphant.