Legislative Success Research Articles

The 1792 Madison-to-Pendleton Letter: A Time for Reconsideration, Reflection, and Response?

In a 1995 Stanford Law Review article, Professors Akhil Reed and Vikram David Amar argued that the U.S. Constitution’s Succession Clause and its “officer”-language does not permit legislative officer succession. They concluded that the nation’s first succession act—passed by the Second Congress—which put the Senate’s and House’s presiding officers in the line of presidential succession—was unconstitutional. The modern presidential succession statute also puts legislative officers in the line of succession, and so the Amars concluded that it too was unconstitutional. In reaching their conclusion, they opined on the Succession Clause’s history, text, purpose, etc. The largest part of their argument was of a more intuitive variety: i.e., argument based on so-called “constitutional structural.” The Amars supported their intuition, in substantial part, by claiming James Madison shared their intuition. Or, to put it more precisely, they renewed an argument which, according to the Amars, was first put forward by James Madison in a letter to Edmund Pendleton (hereinafter the “Madison-to-Pendleton Letter”), and then they claimed Madison as high authority for the position they put forward. My object in this short paper is limited: it is to show why the Amars were wrong to rely on James Madison. The argument they put forward is their intuition, and not Madison’s. The Amars’ argument may be right on the merits (i.e., legislative officer is unconstitutional) and it may be wrong (i.e., the first succession act and its modern successor are both constitutional)—but the Amars’ claiming the mantle of Madison in support of their position is and always was largely historical error. The intellectual stakes here are not only reasonably high, but also peculiarly timely. The meaning of the Constitution’s Succession Clause and its “officer”-language is always two heartbeats away from contemporary relevance. That issue is always of at least some concern, even absent hype and the more idiosyncratic concerns of cloistered academics. Today, the presidential succession issue is relevant not merely because we are two heartbeats away, but also because we are one impeachment and one heartbeat away from applying the 1947 Presidential Succession Act—which puts the two presiding legislative officers, i.e., the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore (“SPPT”), in the line of succession. Finally, the Amars’ article and the Madison-to-Pendleton Letter are the key (modern) article and the key (premodern) historical evidence discussed in the academic debate over the Constitution’s “office”-language. That debate no longer resides exclusively in the halls of the academy—it has moved into the federal courts which are now litigating civil claims brought against the President under the Foreign Emoluments Clause. That latter clause applies to “Person[s] holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States].” How we resolve or should resolve the issue of whether the President holds an office of profit or trust under the United States will depend, in part, on the rightness (or wrongness) of the Amars’ analysis, the meaning of the Succession Clause and its “officer”-language, and the meaning of the Madison-to-Pendleton Letter. Finally, I add that over ten years ago, I hypothesized that: “There is some reason to believe that [in the Madison-to-Pendleton Letter] all Madison was doing [was] reporting prior debate. Viz., each of ‘Madison’s’ four arguments in his letter to Pendleton had already been expressed on the floor of the House by speakers other than Madison in prior debate.” Today, I intend to make that claim good.

How Valuable Is a Presidential Cabinet? Measuring Ministries’ Political Attractiveness in Brazil

ABSTRACTHow valuable is a cabinet position? While the current literature does not ignore the reality that ministries differ from one another, it does not offer either theoretical or methodological procedures to assess such differences. This article introduces a refined measure of coalescence degree that considers several characteristics ministries may have, as well as politicians’ preferences about cabinet appointments. We estimate the effect of this alternative measure of coalescence on the president’s legislative success using large Brazilian datasets from 1995 to 2014 and an elite survey conducted with 62 Brazilian legislators. Controlling for other coalition management variables (coalition size and ideological heterogeneity), our refined coalescence metric turns out to be a more appropriate tool to assess the president’s performance in Congress.

Pre-Electoral Coalitions of Chief Executives, Pork-Barreling, and Legislative Success:

通説的に、議員とは別個に公選される執政長官 (大統領、知事など) は、望む政策を立法によって実現することに苦労しデッドロックに直面しがちであるとされてきたが、執政－議会関係についての近年の研究は、執政長官がポーク・バレリングによって議員の支持を取り付けるという形で議員に影響力を行使し、立法に成功しうることを明らかにしてきた。しかし先行研究では、執政長官の選挙前連合、つまり執政長官の選挙において同じ候補を支持する議員や政党の連合がポーク・バレリングによる執政長官の影響力行使や立法の成功をどのように左右するかについての分析は不十分である。

In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics by Benjamin Talton

Reviewed by: In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics by Benjamin Talton Charles Henry (bio) Benjamin Talton, In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press 2019), ISBN 9780812251470, 281 pages. Imagine a charismatic, young, minority congressman with progressive views on health care, homelessness, immigration, Black-Latino coalitions, human rights, and humanitarian aid. Imagine also that this politician had been a community organizer and had an especially close connection to East Africa. No, it's not an idealized version of Barack Obama, it is Mickey Leland. The late Houston Representative is the subject of Benjamin Talton's In This Land of Plenty. Leland may have emerged as a presidential candidate if not for his tragic death in a plane crash while on a humanitarian aid mission in Ethiopia in [End Page 971] August 1989. Leland was a larger than life figure in Houston and among his colleagues on the Capitol Hill, yet he is largely forgotten today. Talton's work uncovers some of the reasons why and in the process points to some larger concerns around humanitarian aid, Africa and foreign policy. Leland was part of a group of Texas Southern student activists who formed the Black Community Action Team in 1968. Financed in large part by a local Presbyterian Church, they considered their connections to the movements and peoples in the Caribbean and Africa as self-evident. Deciding to focus his career on public health, Leland pursued pharmacy as a major. However, inspired by McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, he decided to run for the Texas state legislature the same year. Aided greatly by the support of a white philanthropist, Leland won. After a largely frustrating first term, the young legislator toned down his rhetoric and had some legislative success his second term. When Congresswoman Barbara Jordan retired in 1977, Leland sought and won her seat the following year. After arriving in Washington Leland discovered that the health issue already had a number of champions and decided to focus on global hunger. In the early seventies, Leland had traveled to East Africa and had been impressed with leaders like Tanzania's Julius Nyerere. When famine broke out in Ethiopia Leland had found his issue. The Houston Congressman's first official trip to Ethiopia in March 1983 to visit feeding centers affected him deeply. When the delegation Leland was a part of met with President Mengistu, he was convinced the government approached the famine with great concern and accepted Mengistu's contention that his policies and Ethiopia's civil wars had little to do with the problem. As a result, Leland tried to remain outside politics when it came to famine relief. Constant media coverage of Ethiopia's starving children produced a groundswell of popular support for relief aid that the Reagan administration was unable to ignore. And while Leland was able to capitalize on public pressure to provide famine relief, he was unable to separate it from politics. Republicans cited the Mengistu regimes' Communism as a major reason for Ethiopia's famine and pushed for regime change. Leland, fearful that such pressure would lead the regime to refuse aid, would not criticize the government. This strategy backfired when Leland and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus sought to criticize South African apartheid and rejected "constructive engagement." Although Leland argued apartheid was a human rights issue while Ethiopian aid was a humanitarian crisis, many of his colleagues failed to accept the distinction. In fact, the effort to end South African apartheid would represent the zenith of African American influence on United States foreign policy. The passage of the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 over the veto of President Reagan was the culmination of over a decade of electoral and non-electoral activity on White rule in South Africa. The Congressional Black Caucus, led by Charles Diggs and later Ronald Dellums (Leland's mentor), had elevated South Africa to the status of a legitimate legislative issue and Jesse Jackson's two presidential campaigns made anti-apartheid a mainstream political issue. Shortly before he died Leland said: "I am convinced that the fate of African Americans in this country...

Synthetic Cannabinoid Receptor Agonist-related Intoxication: Impact and Legislative Success

Synthetic cannabinoids Receptor Agonist (SCRA) intoxication presents with various medical and psychiatric symptoms. The products are sold as K2 or Spice. The symptoms range from agitation, altered mental status (AMS), lethargy, paranoid behavior, psychosis and seizures. In some cases, brief psychiatric or inpatient medicine admission was required for stabilization. Some patients seem to stay longer for observation in the ED. These patients worsen the already problematic ED crowding. To assess K2-related ED presentation, length of stay in the ED and types of disposition over a 5 year period. A retrospective chart review of patients who presented with K2 intoxication. Charts were reviewed from January 1, 2012 until December 31st, 2016 excluding 2016. Demographics, age, gender, past psychiatric illness and other substance abuse history were reviewed. A total of 1405 patients were seen for K2-related ED visits from January 1, 2012 until December 31st, 2016 of which 1279 patients (91%) were male and 126 patients (9%) were female. One hundred thirty nine patients (9.9%) were hospitalized and 1266 patients (90.1%) were either discharged or left from the ED. Twenty-eight (2.0%) stayed more than 16 hours in the ED. Of the 53 patients, whose urine the showed benzodiazepine or opiates 36 patients stayed more than 6 hours in the ED. Most patients with K2 use were male (91%) between the ages of 19 and 50 years (76.4%). There was a surge in K2-related presentation in 2015, particularly in the months of April until November. In addition, K2-related intoxication led to prolonged ED stay, which could affect the ED crowding phenomenon. A concerted effort from public pressure and legislative measures led to a reduction of K2-related visits to the ED.

Actual problems of formation of legal culture in Ukraine at the present stage

Introduction. The scientific article analyzes the features of legal culture of Ukraine, which is in the status of a national legal culture has absorbed not only by a common legal culture, but also special about it and specific to a given legal culture. Provided that there are no two identical legal systems, and no two identical legal cultures. Each national legal culture is developing in a separate society, which has its own cultural characteristics, its own history, develops in particular natural and historical conditions; and that primarily is due to the specificity of state-legal development of society, and therefore the specifics of the national legal culture. Noted that the peculiarities of formation and development of legal system of Ukraine at its initial stage are the objective factors that significantly influenced the development of legal culture of Ukraine, and with it – at the societal, group and individual perception of the new law in the minds of the people and their choice of the relevant legal values. It is argued that under adverse and highly controversial economic, social and state-legal development of Ukraine in the early 90-ies, national legal culture is acquired not progressive, and chaotic and even regressive trend of its development. By the authorities to attempt to reform society, including the state and legal reform, led mainly to the opposite effect, to the increasingly obvious destruction of the system of state administration and legal system, to the denial of the principle of legality and criminality, corruption, and systematic disregard for and violations of the ruling subjects of human rights. Therefore, instead of approval in public life generally accepted legal values in Ukraine today questioned the value of the law and legal nihilism entered level generally threatening the company's existence. The aim of the article. To find out the problems of the formation and development of legal culture in Ukraine, taking into account certain aspects of it to cover them in this article. Results. When talking about the formation of legal culture, it is noted in the literature, apparently, mean measures that create for this process, the necessary conditions, providing the opportunity to the highest degree manifest objective factors that should serve as a conditions of development of legal culture of a society in transition. However, the objectivity of the process of formation of legal culture of society does not mean elimination of human factor from the process. It is also alleged that in the professional legal culture on the legal culture in Ukraine, a special place belongs to the legal culture of lawmakers because of the level of their professional training, legal culture depends on the quality of laws, the timely and proper amendments and additions to the existing legislation with a view to its improvement. The actions of the lawmakers form the authority of the government, contribute to a proper understanding of the law, the observance of the current legislation. For legislative success is essential continuous professional legal culture of direct participants. As shown by practical experience, a high level of professional legal culture of the participant of the legislative process reaches the combining of the two requirements. The first involves the education of the participant of the legislative process, his personal conviction of the need of observance of laws in everyday life. The second is directly connected with the process of obtaining the quality of professional knowledge regarding the mechanism of creating laws and the legal system and develop skills to professionally apply that knowledge. Conclusions. The authors mainly focus not on the characteristics of the development and current state of national legal culture and on various aspects of relations "society-state" in whose context also refers to the legal culture in its private manifestations, and expressed opinions relative to problems of formation in Ukraine of a higher level or better quality of legal culture. But without a clear understanding of the specific and the real state of the national legal culture of Ukraine can not develop the necessary tools and levers of formation of legal culture necessary for the effective functioning of the national legal system.

Buying Amendments? Lobbyists' Campaign Contributions and Microlegislation in the Creation of the Affordable Care Act

When do campaign contributions matter? This article advances the claim that a group that gives campaign contributions to US Members of Congress is more likely to achieve legislative success when (1) a single legislator can deliver to the group (2) a private benefit (3) without attracting negative attention. Using an original data set based on the written comments of nearly 900 interest groups lobbying the US Senate Finance Committee on health reform legislation in 2009, I link group requests to corresponding legislation. The analysis shows a significant relationship between lobby groups' campaign contributions and their legislative success, and at distinct units of analysis—the group, the side, and the group‐senator dyad. The relationship is particularly strong in predicting senators’ amendments in committee. The rare data presented here offer compelling evidence that interest groups' legislative victories are sometimes connected to campaign contributions in a way that previous studies could not identify.

Diversity and Minority Interest Group Advocacy in Congress

This paper examines the role that racial and ethnic diversity plays in improving the legislative success of minority interest groups. Relying on campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures to explain minority interest groups’ influence on legislators’ behavior is not sufficient, because most minority organizations are public charities, or 501(c)(3) organizations, and as such are both banned by federal law from making candidate contributions and limited in how much they can spend on federal lobbying. I argue, however, that the inclusion of more blacks and Latinos on congressional committees enhances the lobbying influence—and thus the legislative success—of civil rights organizations in Congress. Using data from lobbying disclosure reports on bills supported by black American and Latino civil rights groups in the 110th Congress (2007–2008) and 111th Congress (2009–2010), as well as House markup data, I find that National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCR), and UnidosUS-supported bills referred to House committees with greater proportions of racial and ethnic minorities received more markups than did bills referred to House committees with less diversity. Diversity is significant in predicting committee attention even when accounting for possible confounding factors, including committee jurisdiction and the ideological composition of committee membership.

Overcoming the global despondency trap: strengthening corporate accountability in supply chains

This paper re-examines why global collective action problems persist, and how to overcome them. Drawing on 140 interviews with campaigners, politicians, and businesses in 10 European countries, it suggests that many activists are stuck in a despondency trap. Never seeing radical reform, they lower their ambitions, and invest in more feasible but sub-optimal alternatives. This creates a negative feedback loop, in which the dearth of radical reform becomes self-fulfilling. But if reformists see advances at home and abroad, they may become more optimistic about collective mobilisation and break out of their despondency trap. This is shown by tracing the drivers of ground-breaking legislation. From 2018, large French firms must mitigate risks of environmental and human rights abuses in their global supply chains, or else be liable. This bill – the world’s first of its kind – was vociferously contested by businesses. But French campaigners and politicians persisted for four years, because they saw reasons for optimism. These include growing international support; public outcry; the French political culture (state intervention, and distrust of multinationals); together with a Centre-Left Government. Optimism galvanised relentless mobilisation. Legislative success in France then delivered a positive shock to activists across Europe, who were emboldened to launch similar campaigns and escape their despondency trap.

Laws About Transparent School Vaccination Reporting: Public Health Context and Ethics.

In response to a recent surge in vaccine exemptions for school-aged children, advocacy for transparency regarding school vaccination rates has gained momentum in the sphere of public policy and legislation. We explore the public health context for transparency-focused school vaccination reporting laws and recent legislative successes and failures. We then provide an ethical analysis of policy that mandates publicly accessible, granular reporting of school vaccination rates.The ethical justification for this type of policy is robust. Although there is no evidence demonstrating its effects on public health, transparent school vaccination reporting has the potential to enhance individual and public decision-making, especially concerning the protection of children with compromised immune systems. This policy also offers the benefit of preserving the autonomy of parents who choose not to vaccinate their children.Policymakers in all states should support passage of this type of legislation along with other effective vaccination policies, including evidence-based vaccine education for parents who seek exemptions and reimbursement for clinicians who provide vaccine-related counseling.

The long and winding road to assisted dying in Australia

AbstractPublic opinion polling shows that Australians have long supported legalising assisted dying, but this has not generally led to legislative success. Since 1993, Australian parliament have considered legalising assisted dying over 50 times, with only two attempts being successful: Northern Territory in 1995 and Victoria in 2017. This paper describes the Northern Territory and Victorian legislation and the processes associated with the passage of the legislation in both jurisdictions. It suggests that one of the factors that contributed to the Victorian outcome was the extensive consultation involved prior to the introduction of the legislation into parliament. Political factors – including government support – also facilitated the legislation's passage.

Public Health and the NHS at 70: Fit Enough for the Challenge of New Enemies in a New Landscape? An Example of Public Health Measures to Address Alcohol Consumption

Health for the many, and particularly the health of the poorest, has often been vulnerable to the commercial interests of powerful actors such as corporations and industry. This is exemplified by the efforts of the alcohol and tobacco industries to fight public health policies aimed at curbing alcohol and tobacco consumption: through the publishing of poor science, political lobbying and finally through legal action at national and international levels. There is clear evidence that better public health cannot be achieved solely through the promotion of healthy behaviour but also requires active efforts to counter those powerful entities with vested interests in commercial profit. The manner in which the British government’s commitment to introducing a minimum unit price (MUP) for alcohol in England and Wales saw an extraordinary U-turn has been described as a cautionary tale of the power of the alcohol industry to influence public health policy. In Scotland, where the bill was passed, legislative success was followed by a five-year legal battle with alcohol industry trade bodies. MUP as a policy exposed just how strategically and earnestly industry will fight to preserve its profits and its interests at the expense of public health.

The Double Crisis of Representation and Participation in Brazil

ABSTRACTThe Brazilian political system is a mix of representation and participation and innovation and political continuity. It introduced several new form of direct participation but also kept the proportional system with a strong president. The design of the Brazilian system divided political scientists, a few of them arguing the system could not possibly produce governability (Ames, B. 2001. The Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in Comparative Politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press) whereas others argued that the system could produce good governance and executive branch legislative success (Figueiredo, A. C., & Limongi, F. 2010. Presidential power, legislative organization, and party behavior in Brazil. Comparative Politics, 32 (2), 151–170). In addition to that, the Brazilian institutional design strengthened the Supreme Court and the judicial system as a whole, an act that opened a judicial venue in the process of citizens representation in the process of expansion of rights. In this article, we are going to assume an intermediate position in the debate between Ames and Limongi. We will argue that the system of representation in Brazil was built upon several design problems but could work well as long as it interacted with a system of participation that help to give it legitimacy. In addition to that the political system lost influence to the judicial system in the representation of citizenship. The political arrangement based on the integration of representation and participation was provisional and collapsed after the June 2013 demonstrations opening the way for different attacks on representation and participation by both social actors and the judicial system.

Success of Hospital Intervention and State Legislation on Decreasing and Standardizing Postoperative Opioid Prescribing Practices

We sought to evaluate change in postoperative prescription practices in an independent community-based hospital after hospital interventions and a state legislation change. This is a retrospective review of opioid-naïve adult subjects who underwent 5 common general surgical procedures between 2015 and 2017, including cholecystectomy, appendectomy, minimally invasive inguinal hernia repair, open inguinal hernia repair, and breast lumpectomy. Educational interventions were introduced, new statewide legislation was passed, and 129 subsequent cases were reviewed. Mean ± SD oral morphine equivalent (OME) prescribed for all procedures on retrospective review was 218.8 ± 113.7 (n= 722), cholecystectomy 235.3 ± 133.8 (n= 248), appendectomy 220.2 ± 103.2 (n= 175), open inguinal hernia repair 214.4 ± 97.2 (n= 119), minimally invasive inguinal hernia repair 187.7 ± 87.8 (n= 117), and lumpectomy 212.5 ± 114.5 (n= 63). There was significant variation in OME prescribed by procedure and by surgeon (p= 0.006 and p= 0.008, respectively). Review of post-intervention cases showed a significant reduction in the OME prescribed each year (mean OME 197.6 in 2015 to 2017 vs 72.3 in 2018; p < 0.005), and a 60% to 70% reduction in mean OME per procedure. Post-intervention data also revealed resolution of previously seen variation in prescription practices, and a significant increase in the percentage of patients prescribed multimodal pain therapy (23.5% in 2015 to 2017 to 31.5% in 2018; p < 0.05). We achieved a 60% to 70% decrease in postoperative opioid prescription at our community hospital for 5 common surgical procedures, and resolution of variation in opioid prescription practices after a hospital-wide intervention and statewide legislation.

Overcoming the Limits of Legal Opportunity Structures: LGBT Rights’ Divergent Paths in Costa Rica and Colombia

ABSTRACTCosta Rica and Colombia, two of the earliest Latin American countries to protect many LGBT rights, attempted to amplify those rights and litigate same-sex marriage (SSM) in mid-2000s; however, these attempts sparked a major anti-LGBT backlash by religious and conservative organizations. Yet a decade later, Colombia legalized SSM while Costa Rica still lacks the right to SSM. Using a most-similar systems comparative case study, this study engages the judicial politics literature to explain this divergent outcome. It details how courts, while staying receptive to many individual LGBT rights claims, deferred SSM legalization to popularly elected branches. In spite of the lack of legislative success in both countries, in Colombia a new litigation strategy harnessed that deference to craft a litigated route to legalized SSM. In Costa Rica, the courts’ lack of conditions or deadlines has left SSM foundering in the congress.

Motivated Reasoning, Public Opinion, and Presidential Approval

Presidential approval is a desirable commodity for US presidents, one that bolsters re-election chances and the prospects of legislative success. An important question, then, is what shapes citizens’ approval of the executive. A large body of literature demonstrates that the president’s handling of issues, particularly the economy, is an important component. A similarly large literature confirms that evaluations of the president, like most political objects, are filtered through partisan lenses. Due to changes in the US political environment in the last few decades, we suspect that the relative importance of these components has changed over time. In particular, we argue that polarization has increased partisan motivated reasoning when it comes to evaluations of the president. We support this empirically by disaggregating approval ratings from Reagan to Obama into in- and out-partisans, finding that approval is increasingly detached from economic assessments. This is true for members opposite the president’s party earlier than it is for in-partisans. While the president has been over-attributed credit and blame for economic conditions, the increasing impact of partisanship on approval at the expense of economic sentiment has generally negative implications when it comes to electoral outcomes and democratic accountability.

Navigating the Ambiguities and Uncertainties of the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016

With an admirable purpose, a celebrity endorsement from Dame Helen Mirren, and unanimous support in Congress, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR Act), passed in late 2016, appears to be a rare legislative success. Its congressional momentum, however, belies the pitfalls that inhere in its text. The Act’s nuanced and often ambiguous language raises many questions to be addressed in future litigation over restitution claims to Nazi-looted art. The HEAR Act was meant to address a perceived problem that legitimate claims to recover art looted by the Nazis were not being heard “on the merits” in U.S. courts, but were instead too frequently being dismissed as brought too late—in particular, blocked by courts’ application of state statutes of limitations. And, at a minimum, disputes over the timeliness of claims to Nazi-looted art rendered litigation of such claims protracted and costlier. The Act sought to relieve claimants of these obstacles by instituting a nationwide six-year limitations period running from “actual knowledge” of the relevant facts. Despite its relatively short length, the HEAR Act brings a number of interpretive difficulties that will give rise to a new set of litigation hurdles for both claimants and possessors of artworks subject to claims. This Article is meant as a guide to courts and litigants in navigating key ambiguities and uncertainties in the statute. The Article discusses the Act in three parts. First, we briefly explain the context in which the Act was enacted: the history of United States and international efforts to return art lost during the Holocaust to rightful owners. Second, we describe the Act’s consideration by Congress and its operative provisions. We finally discuss half a dozen instances in which the HEAR Act’s language is unclear, ambiguous, or raises difficult issues about the application or scope of the statute. Several of these instances are ambiguities created by the text of the statute, which is often in tension with its legislative history; others reflect an apparent mismatch between the statutory language and the practical reality of litigation. Where possible, we suggest what we believe is the most plausible and compelling reading of problematic statutory language in light of the text, history, and purposes of the Act, as well as the realities of litigation over Nazi-era art restitution claims. Our concern with the uncertainties created by the Act’s language is not theoretical. Litigants are already espousing conflicting interpretations of the Act’s language on some of the points discussed below, and courts have already reached holdings at odds with the statute’s language or legislative history (and sometimes both). All in, an Act meant to streamline claims to recover Nazi-looted art may well end up making such litigation costlier and more time-consuming for parties and courts as litigants argue for their preferred meaning of the Act’s terms.

Collaborating for Legislative Success: Overcoming Organizational Tribalism

Historically, the roles and responsibilities of professional nursing organizations have often overlapped, creating friction and frustration within the profession. Who is responsible for what, how will the initiative be led, and perhaps the most concerning, but unspoken challenge: who will get the credit? Colorado professional nursing organizations have been experiencing these issues for years, with no real willingness to face these challenges head on, until recently. The state Nurse Practice Act is going to sunset in 2020, and there are some clear challenges facing the profession that will have to be dealt with directly and collaboratively by nurse leaders. Without a strong, unified voice, the forces that oppose allowing professional nurses to work to the full extent of their education and experience will divide and conquer. If that happens, it isn't just nursing that loses; it is every citizen of the state who needs to access health care. Colorado nursing organizations and leaders are working to create a new and cohesive path to build strong and open partnerships designed to ensure that nursing retains and, in some ways, gains a stronger level of control over the future of the profession. This article tells how that story is beginning and how it may create an example for all states to build a cohesive legislative agenda designed to support, not only nursing leadership, but also the patients nurses serve.

Political Institutions and the Legislative Success of Brazilian Presidents: an Analysis of the Cardoso, Lula and Rousseff Governments

It is known that Brazilian presidents are able to approve most of their own legislative bills. However, it is still unclear what factors influence and explain the variation in presidents' level of legislative success between different governments and even within an individual term. Seeking to understand this phenomenon, this article analyzes the legislative success of Brazilian presidents, based on the governments of Cardoso, Lula and Rousseff. More precisely, I examine the impact of prerogatives and exclusive policy matters on presidents and political contexts in determining legislative success. The results point to prerogatives and exclusive matters having a positive influence on success rates, such as provisional measures and administrative and budgetary matters. They also indicate that legislative success is enhanced during the honeymoon period, that is, the further away a government is from an electoral period, and there is significant positive variation as the size of the governing coalition increases. However, the results show that skill does not impact significantly on success, and popularity has a negative effect, thus not contributing to Brazilian presidents' legislative success.

The South African Regulatory System: Past, Present, and Future.

The drive for improved regulatory systems and the establishment of a more effective regulatory framework in South Africa has been evident for the past two decades but despite political intentions and legislative revisions success has been limited to date. Efforts to address the increasing volume of applications that have been received have to date failed and resources have been stretched to capacity resulting in the development of a significant backlog and extended timelines for product registration. The promulgation of the recently amended Medicines and Related Substance Act of 1965 triggered the establishment of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) as a separate juristic person outside of the National Department of Health to replace the former medicine regulatory authority the Medicines Control Council (MCC). The aim of this review is to provide the historical context supporting the new regulatory environment in South Africa and the transition from the MCC to SAHPRA. Key recommendations to SAHPRA to ensure the full potential of the new regulatory environment in South Africa include: establishing a quality management system to safeguard accountability, consistency and transparency and to streamline the implementation of good review practices including quality decision-making practices and benefit-risk assessment; the measurement and monitoring of regulatory performance, targets for overall approval time and key review milestones to instill a culture of accurate metrics collection and measurement of key performance indicators and their continuous improvement and the employment of a risk-based approach to the evaluation of medical products and codify the use of facilitated regulatory pathways in policy and culture. The application of a risk-based approach to regulatory review commensurate with a product’s risk to patients will facilitate the application of increased resources for pharmacovigilance activities and to support the reliance and recognition of reference agencies.