Majority Leader Research Articles

The Tea Party is Half Right

My liberal friends—and I have some left, at least until this article is published—tell me that the Tea Party followers are a bunch of racist, homophobic, know-nothing, white, lower-class, gun-toting hicks. About the nicest adjective penned by liberals about the Tea Party is calling them a “libertarian mob.” But drawing on 50 years of sociological study of American society, I urge one and all not to dismiss in this way a major part of the American public. The Tea Party is viewed favorably by more Americans (41%) than either the Democrats (35%) or the Republicans (28%) according to a 2009 public opinion poll. And, according to exit polls, Tea Party’s supporters numbered about four out of every ten voters in the 2010 midterm elections. The Tea Partiers obviously played a significant role in the 2010 elections, and are likely do so again in the 2012 election, starting as soon as the GOP nomination battle takes off. True, in the longer run, I predict they will go the way of once-feared groups such as the John Birch Society and the Moral Majority—both of which were once considered a major threats to American democracy, and both of which changed the course of the nation to some extent, but were eventually absorbed by it. I find it particularly surprising that several observers hold that the Tea Party is an artificially-generated force, funded by shadowy conservative donors and whipped into a frenzy by right-wing media personas like Glenn Beck and select other demagogues. Thus, Paul Krugman writes that “the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.” However, there are several strong reasons for large segments of the American public to be very angry, frustrated, and worried about the future. The media is locked into a misleading figure when it keeps referring to the unemployed as roughly 10% of the labor force. Actually, this number reflects only those who actively seek work. One must add to this the millions who have stopped looking for work and those who find less work then they feel they need. If one includes these groups, the actual proportion of the population which is unemployed, underemployed, or discouraged is closer to 16%. Also, one should take into account that many have experienced unemployment, finally found some work— albeit for less pay and with fewer benefits than they previously had—and still live with the fear of falling back

SENATE REJECTS HOUSE BUDGET CUTS

THE SENATE REJECTED two proposals for completing the 2011 federal budget last week, one that was passed by the Republican-led House of Representatives that included deep cuts and a second plan of more modest cuts proposed by Senate Democrats. Both measures would have reduced discretionary spending, including federal R&D spending, for the remaining months of the fiscal year. The defeat of these measures means that Republicans and Democrats will have to restart budget negotiations. The federal government is operating on a short-term continuing resolution that expires on March 18 (C&EN, March 7, page 8). If Congress cannot pass a budget for the rest of the year by that date, or pass another continuing resolution, the government will shut down. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) blasted Republican spending plans as “reckless” and said that it’s time for GOP legislators to work with Democrats on a “responsible, long-term solution that funds our government for ...

Undercutting the Grant Process

The house majority leader for the 112th U.S. Congress, Rep. Eric Cantor (R–VA), has proposed an experiment in which citizens decide how to reduce federal spending through voting on various programs, an idea he has cleverly named “YouCut.” Most recently, he has proposed applying “YouCut” to awards granted by the National Science Foundation (NSF). On his Web site ( ), he encourages people to search through NSF awards and report “questionable” research. From those grants deemed questionable, the House will vote on which grants deserve to have their funding revoked. The research that receives funding from the NSF has been evaluated by those who are qualified to judge the scientific merit of the research. Only about one-quarter of submitted proposals receive funding ([ 1 ][1]). It is ridiculous to ask the general populace to evaluate the merit of research based on searching the NSF database for “questionable” proposal titles. ![Figure][2] CREDIT: TIM ABRAMOWITZ/[ISTOCKPHOTO.COM][3] It is equally ridiculous to pretend that allowing the American people to vote on NSF grants does anything more than provide a false sense of security about mitigating the national debt. I agree with Rep. Cantor's sentiment; the American public should be educated about exactly what our tax dollars support. However, our legislature should not pretend that, in this case, it is for our economic benefit. The 2010 budget for the NSF was $7 billion ([ 2 ][4]); this is 0.5% of the $1.4 trillion federal discretionary budget ([ 3 ][5]). Even if the entire NSF were eliminated, 99.5% of the discretionary budget is ignored in such a cutback program. It is clear that the primary goal of YouCut is to reduce funding for science. The U.S. scientific community needs to take a stand and let the House know that YouCut is both unwarranted and a waste of resources. 1. [↵][6]National Science Foundation, About Funding ([www.nsf.gov/funding/aboutfunding.jsp][7]). 2. [↵][8]National Science Foundation, FY 2010 Budget Request ([www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2010/index.jsp][9]). 3. [↵][10]Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables ([www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/][11]). [1]: #ref-1 [2]: pending:yes [3]: http://ISTOCKPHOTO.COM [4]: #ref-2 [5]: #ref-3 [6]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [7]: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/aboutfunding.jsp [8]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text [9]: http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2010/index.jsp [10]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3 in text [11]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/

Governing through the Senate

The Senate is often the institutional pivot for political conflict in the United States, so this issue of The Forum focuses on ‘governing through the Senate’. Charles O. Jones considers its inherent peculiarities as the institution meant to ‘go second’ in a separated system; Sarah Binder argues that the modern Senate is moving away from its constitutional role; Frances Lee considers the role of party competition in shaping senatorial behavior; Barry Burden asks about the influence of senatorial polarization and party balance within the bicameral context; and Daniel DiSalvo contrasts partisan polarization with divided government as influences on senatorial behavior. Randall Strahan observes one particular senator negotiating this complicated framework; Wendy Schiller and Jennifer Cassidy consider the dynamics of cooperation (or not) among same-state senators; and Andrea Hatcher contrasts a majority leader who lost re-election with another who won. Ryan Black, Anthony Madonna, and Ryan Owens examine a very private form of senatorial obstruction, ‘blue slip behavior’; Gregory Koger examines what is surely the best-known form of obstruction, the filibuster; Eric Schickler and Gregory Wawro argue that, whatever its collective impact, senators have multiple reasons to protect this filibuster; and James Wallner closes with a substantive realm, budgeting, where the absence of policy action by the Senate is critical. In book reviews, Joseph Cooper uses Matthew N. Green, The Speaker of the House: A Study in Leadership, to think about the study of Congress more generally, and Matthew Green responds; Amnon Cavari reviews B. Dan Wood, The Myth of Presidential Representation; and Philip Brenner reviews Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.

The Electoral Risks of Senate Majority Leadership, or How Tom Daschle Lost and Harry Reid Won

Senate majority leaders risk electoral defeat despite advantages of incumbency. In 2010, according to conventional wisdom, Harry Reid seemed likely to lose re-election, as had his predecessor. Nevertheless, he won a decisive victory. This paper seeks to answer the basic question—how did Reid escape electoral defeat?—as a means of elucidating the conditions under which Senate majority leaders lose re-elections. This research can be couched in a broader study of Senate majority leadership that understands the role as one that balances the constraints of multiple constituencies of state, party, Senate, and president. In these terms, and based on the cases of Tom Daschle and Harry Reid, I hypothesize that Reid’s electoral victory was no surprise in light of his state’s ideological position and support of President Barack Obama. As a rule, a Senate majority leader faces an electoral threat when he opposes a president that his state has supported, but gains electoral security when he serves a president his state has supported.

The Institute of Pacific Relations and Research on Issues of Northeast China

The Institute of Pacific Relations was an international non-governmental organization in the Asian-Pacific region after the First World War. Chinese Institute of Pacific Relations was an intellectual group with strong liberalism color converted from a desultory organization with Christianism color. In order to investigate the practical condition of Japanese power in Northeast China from all aspects, Northeast China PTPI played an important role. At the same time, major leaders of Northeast China PTPI were present at the international Pacific academic conference, and discussed the following issues: historical origin of northeast China, foundation of treaties signed by foreign countries about their rights in northeast China, and economic interest and railway issues of big powers in northeast China, etc. At the conference, Chinese delegates made known to the world the secret of Japanese imperialism invasion in China and the world, namely, “Tanaka Memorial”.

Revisiting Sunday Morning Apartheid: The Politics of Color Blindness and Racial Formation in the Harry Reid Controversy

Revisiting Sunday Morning Apartheid:The Politics of Color Blindness and Racial Formation in the Harry Reid Controversy Doug E. Julien Governor Kaine, a new book on the 2008 campaign called Game Change says of Senate majority leader Harry Reid—let's put it up—he was wowed by Obama's rhetorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama, a, quote, "light-skinned African-American with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one, as he said privately." Governor Kaine, does that kind of language have any place in the leadership of the Democratic Party? And should he step down? —Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday, 10 January 2010 I don't think there's a scintilla of racism in what Harry Reid said. At long last, Harry Reid has said something that no one can disagree with, and he gets in trouble for it. —George Will, This Week, 10 January 2010 The year 2010 opened with revelations on the television screen about private comments made in 2008 by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin about Barack Obama's electability as a black man in America. Late Friday night on 8 January 2010 this passage from Game Change was leaked to the press: "He [Harry Reid] was wowed by Obama's rhetorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama—a 'light-skinned' African-American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' as he said privately. Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination." Reid's use of "light-skinned" and "Negro dialect" in those comments opened what many envisioned as a political and social maelstrom that would play out in the multimedia of the twenty-first century. The maelstrom never developed. Reid's belief that Obama was electable because he was "light-skinned" and had "no Negro dialect" was never directly discussed. Instead, the discussion was limited to Reid's choice of the words "light-skinned" and "Negro," not the accuracy of his statement. The maelstrom turned into a minor storm and merely a question of Reid's language, not a dialogue on the way Americans see race. Why the maelstrom never erupted owes less to the individual pundits that appeared on the Sunday morning talk show stage and more to the manufactured discourse of color blindness that continues to mark twenty-first-century America. The way Americans view race is through the ideology of color blindness that Michael Omi and Howard Winant refer to as a hegemonic racial politics that marks the racial formation of America in their seminal text Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. Leaning heavily on the work of Antonio Gramsci, Omi and Winant argue that the discourse on race in America is typically not about opposing categories, stereotypes, or oppression by engaging in a discussion about the formation of race or by refusing the ideology of color blindness. Instead, they delineate the historic, continuing movement of America from a state-constructed racial formation built upon coercion to one that is more often ideologically constructed upon a "common sense" of race or a formation built through the consent of the people. While common, this construction makes little sense outside of the hegemonic, color-blind ideology that pervades the American discourse on race. Similarly, what viewers witnessed in the Harry Reid controversy was an example of the way the discussions on Sunday morning talk shows contribute to a continued, manufactured consent of the American people to a discourse of color blindness. The aim of this project is to provide a discourse analysis of the most influential Sunday morning talk shows (Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week, and Fox News [End Page 57] Sunday) that makes plain the hegemonic, color-blind ideology of American discourse on race as understood through Omi and Winant's theoretical frame of racial formation. I argue that the Sunday morning talk shows powerfully contribute to America's understanding...

YouCut Citizen Review of the National Science Foundation

<xhtml:span xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> Eric Cantor (R-VA), who'll become House majority leader when the next US Congress convenes in January, is launching an experiment. Called <a href="http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/Review.htm">YouCut Citizen Review</a>, Cantor's web-based initiative seeks the public's advice in cutting federally funded projects. Perhaps because NSF's awards database is online and open to the public, Cantor and his colleagues picked America's science agency for its first target.</xhtml:span>

Spatially quantifying the leadership effectiveness in collective behavior

Among natural biological flocks/swarms or mass social activities, when the collective behavior of the followers has been dominated by the direction or opinion of one leader group, it seems difficult for later-coming leaders to reverse the orientation of the mass followers, especially when they are in quantitative minority. This paper, however, reports a counter-intuitive phenomenon, i.e. Following the Later-coming Minority, provided that the later-comers obey a favorable distribution pattern that enables them to spread their influence to as many followers as possible within a given time and to be dense enough to govern these local followers they can influence directly from the beginning. We introduce a discriminant index to quantify the whole group's orientation under competing leaderships, with which the eventual orientation of the mass followers can be predicted before launching the real dynamical procedure. From the application point of view, this leadership effectiveness index also helps us to design an economical way for the minority later-coming leaders to defeat the dominating majority leaders solely by optimizing their spatial distribution pattern provided that the premeditated goal is available. Our investigation provides insights into effective leadership in biological systems with meaningful implications for social and industrial applications.

SWEEPING CHANGES FOR CONGRESS

IN ONE OF THE NATION’S most expensive and divisive elections, the Republican Party took over the House of Representatives, gaining at least 60 seats and an advantage of 239 to 186. When C&EN went to press, the outcome of 10 seats was still undecided. In the Senate, the Democrats retained the majority by a slim margin, 52 to 46, with two seats undecided. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) retains the Senate helm, but Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will be replaced as Speaker of the House by Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). House committee leaderships for next year are currently in flux as senior Republican members jockey for control. A key decision for Republicans is who will chair the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee, with jurisdiction over climate, energy, and pollution laws. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), an oil industry backer and EPA critic, is the committee’s top Republican and former chairman. However, Barton ...

Statements of Power: Presidential Use of Statements of Administration Policy and Signing Statements in the Legislative Process

In 1997, Republican congressional leadership thought they had President Bill Clinton trapped into accepting something he did not want in order to get something he did. The foreign relations authorization bill for fiscal year 1998 provided the vehicle. They included payment of back dues owed to the United Nations in the bill, but to get it, Clinton would also have to assent to another provision, one he vehemently opposed--restrictions on foreign aid to any family planning programs that performed or advocated abortion. Can you imagine vetoing 100 percent of what you want because someone got 10 percent of what they want [that] you disagree with? That would be a foolish choice, stated House majority leader Dick Armey (Pomper 1998). Foolish or not, Clinton made the choice and vetoed the bill, using the tool the Constitution gave him to block bills he opposed. He had another tool, though, at his disposal, one not included in the Constitution but one he used more than 40 times in the last four years of his presidency, and had he used it in this circumstance, things could have turned out differently. Instead of vetoing the bill, he could have signed it and attached a signing statement, announcing his intention to interpret the provision restricting funding to international family planning programs as merely advisory or as violating his constitutional powers to conduct foreign affairs, and therefore it would be disregarded or reinterpreted in a manner consistent with those powers. Valid reasoning or not, it could have given him exactly what he wanted--payment of the UN dues and no restrictions on aid to international family planning programs. But such a use could hardly escape notice. Clinton's signature on a bill allowing such restrictions would have outraged many of his supporters and violated a promise. In fact, the president would have faced strong incentives to draw attention to a signing statement announcing his intention to disregard the provision. But that would have brought this type of use of the signing statement to center stage and surely would have drawn congressional ire. Vetoing the bill, despite the fact that it would mean UN dues would remain unpaid, represented his best political option. Two years later, Clinton and the Republican Congress again clashed over the foreign affairs reauthorization bill, but the game changed slightly. The United States was now faced with an embarrassing loss of its seat in the UN General Assembly if it failed to pay back dues. The bill eventually presented to Clinton was a consolidation of multiple appropriations and authorization bills that not only included the payment of the dues, but also substantially weakened the restrictions on funding to international family planning programs, allowing Clinton to waive them. Clinton signed the bill but attached a signing statement that included the following language: Unfortunately, the bill also includes a provision on international family planning that I have strongly opposed throughout my Administration. This is a one-time provision that imposes additional restrictions on international family planning groups. However, I insisted that the Congress allow for a Presidential waiver provision, which I have exercised today. (Clinton 1999a) After outlining positions on several other provisions in the signed bill, the section on the Foreign Operations portion also included the following: This legislation includes a number of provisions in the various Acts incorporated in it regarding the conduct of foreign affairs that raise serious constitutional concerns. These provisions would direct or burden my negotiations with foreign governments and international organizations, as well as intrude on my ability to maintain the confidentiality of sensitive diplomatic negotiations. Similarly, some provisions would constrain my Commander in Chief authority and the exercise of my exclusive authority to receive ambassadors and to conduct diplomacy. …

CLIMATE CHANGE: Health Scenarios for a Warming World

CLIMATE CHANGE: Health Scenarios for a Warming World

Partisan Efficiency in an Open-Rule Setting: The Amending Process in the U.S. Senate, 1865-1946

Although amendments can fundamentally alter the substantive content of legislative proposals in Congress, we know surprisingly little about their use relative to final passage and rules votes. This is especially important in the U.S. Senate given the historically open amending process in the upper chamber. Utilizing a new data set consisting of all amendments receiving recorded roll call votes in the Senate from 1865-1946, we examine amending activity and draw several conclusions. First, majority leaders appear to be successful at reigning in party extremists from offering divisive amendments on the floor despite not having control over the agenda. Second, amendments proposed by majority party senators are more likely to be adopted relative to their counterparts in the minority. However, chamber majorities cannot restrict minority party members from offering numerous amendments designed to force them to cast uncomfortable votes and delay the legislative process. Finally, moderates within the minority party still enjoy considerable success in getting their amendments adopted.

CAP AND TRADE DIES IN SENATE

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) last week introduced what clean energy advocates had hoped would be energy legislation that put a price on carbon. But a so-called cap-and-trade energy bill, Reid said, would garner too few votes to pass. Instead, the bill mainly addresses the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It carries just a few energy-related provisions that encourage electric and natural-gas-fueled vehicles and provide funds for residential energy-efficiency renovations. Reid’s bill would have little if any impact on greenhouse gas emissions because it both fails to put a price on carbon and lacks provisions to support development of renewable energy. The legislation is a far cry from climate-change legislation that passed the House of Representatives a year ago or from energy provisions that had been discussed over the past year in the Senate. “The simple matter is I did it because I had to,” Reid says, referring to the introduction ...

From the Science Policy Blog

Science Insider reported this week that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) declared the effort to pass a mandatory cap on comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions dead as he couldn't muster a bipartisan supermajority of 60 lawmakers, among other stories.

DOUBTFUL FUTURE FOR ENERGY BILL

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA continued pressing reluctant senators to pass climate and energy legislation this year during a 90-minute meeting last week with some two dozen of them. The President remains committed to provisions “putting a price on pollution,” he said in a statement after the closed-door meeting. But the statement noted that “not all of the senators agreed with this approach” and that the President welcomes other ideas to cut “dependence on oil, create jobs, strengthen national security, and reduce atmospheric pollution.” The fate of energy and climate legislation in the Senate is likely to turn on several draft bills under consideration and the ability of Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to meld provisions that are popular enough to draw the support needed to reach a 60-vote majority and bring a bill to the floor. Reid says he hopes to produce such a bill this summer, but floor action may have to wait until ...

House Passes Landmark Health Reform Legislation

Back to table of contents Next article Government NewsFull AccessHouse Passes Landmark Health Reform LegislationMark MoranMark MoranSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:2 Apr 2010https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.45.7.psychnews_45_7_002AbstractAfter a flurry of legislative maneuvering, the U.S. House of Representatives on March 21 approved a health care reform bill mandating far-reaching changes in the way Americans will be insured for health—and mental health—coverage. The bill went directly to President Obama, who signed it on March 23.The events occurred as Psychiatric News was going to press; extensive coverage of the law—and the complicated jockeying that led to its passage—will appear in the next issue.In a move that is being hailed by many as historic, the House approved the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590) by a vote of 219-212. A separate bill, the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act (HR 4872), contains changes to HR 3590 and at press time was awaiting Senate action.Earlier on the day of the vote, APA Director of Government Relations Nicholas Meyers alerted APA leaders to the imminent vote and outlined the legislation's key provisions to expand health insurance to some 30 million currently uninsured Americans and significantly improve coverage for those already insured. The law•. Requires health insurance coverage for virtually all Americans.•. Subsidizes insurance costs for low-income families.•. Permits dependents to be covered on parents' insurance to age 26.•. Bars coverage exclusions based on preexisting conditions.•. Prevents insurers from dropping enrollees who become ill.•. Bans lifetime coverage limits and sharply restricts annual coverage limits.•. Sets up health insurance exchanges to improve access to individual and small-group insurance.The reform package also has a number of elements related to psychiatric care: coverage for mental illness, including substance use disorders, must be offered in the basic package of all plans marketed in the exchanges, and federal mental health parity regulations apply to those plans. Notably for APA members, the 5 percent bump in payment for psychiatric codes that expired in January has been extended to the end of calendar year 2010.Further, the reform package expands Medicaid eligibility, closes the Medicare Part D “donut hole,” increases funding for community mental health centers, ensures that patients with psychiatric illness are not excluded from medical home demonstrations and permits demonstration projects for co-location of primary and behavioral health care services, and authorizes grants beginning in Fiscal 2011 to establish “depression centers of excellence.”APA President Alan Schatzberg, M.D., expressed qualified support for the bill in a March 20 letter to President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Meyers, in his memorandum to APA leaders, pointed out some of the bill's elements that APA and the AMA have concerns about. These include provisions regarding an independent Medicare payment commission, public reporting on physician performance, and required participation of physicians in quality-reporting initiatives.Most importantly, he noted, the legislation does not address long-standing problems with the Medicare payment formula—although at press time legislators were jockeying around separate legislation to deal with an imminent 21 percent across-the-board cut in Medicare payment (see See also: Medicare Physician Fees in Flux).While widely regarded as a landmark event, passage of the reform bill was anything but easy—the bill received no Republican support—and even ardent supporters say the bill is far from perfect. Moreover, much rides on what the Senate will do with the reconciliation bill. Under reconciliation rules, the Senate needs only a one-vote margin to pass it, and even a 50-50 vote would suffice, since Vice President Biden would then cast the decisive tie-breaking 51st vote to pass the bill.“The passage of health reform is an important event, but is really a beginning, not an end,” said APA Medical Director James H. Scully Jr., M.D. “Many critical details need to be addressed, and we still need to see what happens with the reconciliation bill. So while we are aware of the historic action that has occurred, there is now an enormous task ahead.”AMA President J. James Rohack, M.D., said, “While the House-passed bill isn't perfect, we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good when it comes to something as important as the health of Americans.” ISSUES NewArchived

Energy Security and Climate Change

There is a broad agreement in the international academic community as well as among the major political leaders in the world that burning fossil fuels is a major cause for global warming. This article focuses, first, on the linkage between energy security and climate change; second, on the responsibilities of national governments on the one hand and the responsibilities of the international community on the other hand; and third, on the importance of the role of leaders in today’s globalising world, especially with respect to energy security and climate change. The hypothesis of this article is that a globalising world requires global governance. To create global governance mechanisms, we need leadership. Leadership, however, requires not only leaders but also followers, as well as an understanding of the challenges to and the opportunities for the world we are living in.

Was Vital Component Omitted From Health Care Reform?

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Government NewsFull AccessWas Vital Component Omitted From Health Care Reform?Rich DalyRich DalySearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:5 Feb 2010https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.45.3.psychnews_45_3_010AbstractThe use of defensive medicine—long dismissed as a myth by some lawyer groups—is a major driver of medical costs, and efforts to reduce the practice through tort reform could yield billions of dollars in health care savings, a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded.The report was released last December in follow-up to an initial report in October 2009 on tort-reform legislative proposals. Although the report did not use the term “defensive medicine,” it described the impact of clinicians ordering more tests or procedures than are necessary solely to protect themselves from lawsuits.The CBO researchers concluded that medical-liability reform proposals at the federal level would save at least $54 billion over 10 years, in part by reducing the need for physicians to use defensive medicine.Lisa Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, called the finding on cost savings “momentous.”“Neglecting to include medical liability reform [in the health care overhaul] benefits only the plaintiffs' lawyers,” stated Pickard in a written statement. “Including it benefits every American participating in our health care system.”Advocates for tort reform contend that the CBO estimate of cost savings from such legislation is likely an underestimate. Previous studies have concluded that the real cost of defensive medicine is between $151 billion and $210 billion annually. That cost could be reduced or eliminated, they maintain, through reforms such as caps on noneconomic damages and the creation of protections from lawsuits for physicians who utilize best medical practices.President Obama spoke positively in the summer of 2009 about the incorporation of legal protections for physicians who adhere to best-practice guidelines within health care reform, although he rejected caps on noneconomic damages that former President George W. Bush supported. However, Democratic leaders in Congress have kept nearly all tort-reform proposals out of the health care reform legislation. For example, Democrats in the Senate rejected an amendment to the health reform bill by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) that would have established caps on noneconomic damages.“The whole premise of a medical malpractice ‘crisis’ is unfounded,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in a frequently cited Senate floor speech on tort reform in 2006.Likewise, trial-lawyer advocates have minimized the impact and even the existence of defensive medicine as a response to the threat of lawsuits.“To the extent that defensive medicine does exist, research has found that the motivation behind it is not liability but rather a desire to simply help a patient or, in some cases, boost physician income,” according to a statement by the American Association for Justice, a national attorney advocacy group.Conversely, physician groups—including APA—have advocated for the inclusion of tort-reform provisions within the health care overhaul effort as an important way to reduce the rise of ever-increasing health care costs.While the cost of malpractice insurance for psychiatrists ranks among the lowest in medicine, the price is still high: the average psychiatrist malpractice policy costs over $6,000 each year, according to a leading psychiatrist insurer.The CBO tort reform analysis is posted at <www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10872/12-29-Tort_Reform-Braley.pdf>. ISSUES NewArchived

A Man for All Seasons

In this article, I examine the roll-call voting behaviour of U.S. Senate Majority Leaders, finding that Leaders generally locate around the ideological mean and median of their party at selection and at the beginning of their tenure but move toward the partisan extreme as their leadership progresses. Statistical analysis links this movement to size of majority; that is, as their partisan majority increases, their roll-call voting becomes more extreme. These findings, then, contribute a new interpretation of the existing literature’s ‘middleman’ theory of congressional party leadership.