| December 2005
Politics & Government: Elections | The Supreme Court |
Government Initiatives: Health Care | Homeland Security | Social Security & Welfare | Tax
Reform |
Politics & Government:
C1 - Winning Election Reform in the United States: Can
Reformers Take Advantage of New Capacity and Interest in Making
Democracy work?
Pillsbury, Richard
National Civic Review, Fall 2005, v94, #3, p29-
"With all expectations of reform after the 2000 election,
little had changed by 2004 save the mixed debut of new voting
equipment and provisional ballots intended for voters whose names
did not appear on the voter rolls. Three key areas need to be
addressed to successfully surmount the obstacles to electoral
reform and greater democracy in the US: Policy, message and base."
George Pillsbury is director of the Center for Non-Profits and
Voting. Order Article
C2 - The Third Way Middle Class Project: The Politics
of Polarization
Galston, William and Elaine Kamarck
Third Way, October 2005, 68p
The report "examines the recent past, the present, and the
foreseeable future of modern-day electoral politics." The
report's thesis about American politics today "is that the
party faithful are more polarized than before, meaning that both
Republicans and Democrats are more likely to support their party's
candidate no matter what." William Galston and Elaine
Kamarck are both former advisers to President Clinton. Fulltext
C3 - Do Early Birds Get the Worm? Improving Timeliness
of Presidential Nomination Forecasts
Adkins, Randall E. and Andrew J. Dowdle
Presidential Studies Quarterly, December 2005, v35, #4, p646-,
15 p
"This research explores whether data on polling, campaign
expenditures, and cash reserves of campaigns collected in the
year prior to the presidential election can produce accurate predictions
of party nominees." Randall E. Adkins is associate professor
of political science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Andrew
J. Dawdle is assistant professor of political science at the University
of Arkansas. Fulltext
C4 - Political Television Advertising in Campaign 2000
Airne, David and William L Benoit
Communication Quarterly, October 2005, v53, #4, p473-, 20
p
"Most studies of political advertising focus on presidential
television spots. However, far more commercials are broadcast
for other races. This study applies the functional theory of political
campaign discourse to 584 television spots from presidential,
gubernatorial, senatorial, house, and local races in the 2000
election." David Airne is an Instructor at the University
of Alabama College of Communication & Information Services,
Department of Communication Studies. Fulltext
C5 - Judge Samuel Alito's Opinions in Freedom of Speech
Cases
Cohen, Henry
CRS Report for Congress, December 9, 2005. 18p
"Judge Samuel Alito, who has been nominated by President
Bush to take retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat as associate
justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, has been a judge on the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit since 1990. This report
examines his major judicial opinions, both for the majority and
in dissent, in freedom of speech cases. It also briefly discusses
some cases in which he joined the opinion for the court but did
not write it. This report examines Judge Alito's free speech opinions
by subject area." Henry Cohen, Legislative Attorney,
American Law Division for the Congressional Research Service,
The Library of Congress. Fulltext
C6 - Introducing Sam Alito...
Hinderaker,John and Scott Johnson
National Review, November 21, 2005, v57, #28, p28-
"The Alito nomination, together with John Roberts's accession
to the post of chief justice, marks a generational changing of
the guard. The talented, principled conservatives who began their
legal careers in the aftermath of the Warren Court have served
their apprenticeships in the executive branch, in private practice,
and on the lower federal courts. In those positions, their influence
has been real but limited... There is every reason to believe
that Samuel Alito will prove the kind of Supreme Court justice
that Republican presidents have promised, but rarely delivered,
since 1969, and that the Court will shift in a more conservative
direction as a result." Abortion opponents may be disappointed
by Alito's technical and dispassionate dissent. The opinion conveys
no hint of Alito's own views on the topic of abortion, or even
of his opinion as to how (if at all) the Constitution should bear
on the subject of abortion. John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson
are Minneapolis attorneys and contributors to the weblog Power
Line. Fulltext
C7- The Ten Commandments Mish-Mosh: The Supreme Court
Finesses the Decalogue
Stephen B. Presser
American Spectator, October 2005, v38, #8, pp12-17
"Presser examines the "arbitrariness" with which
the modern Supreme Court interprets the role of religion in American
society. While the First Amendment prohibits Congress from respecting
the establishment of religion, Presser asks why the Court allows
states to begin their sessions with a prayer but prohibits high
schools from beginning a game with the same prayer...... Ultimately,
Presser presents a case for returning to a stricter interpretation
of the constitution and a return to "justices committed to
leaving the making of law to the legislative branches...rather
than a shifting five-person coalition on the court."
Stephen B. Presser is the Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History
at Northwestern University School of Law and the legal affairs
editor of "Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture".
Fulltext
C8 - Still Standing: Annals of Law
Jeffrey Toobin
The New Yorker, November 28, v81, # 37, pp70-
Few Supreme Court decisions have generated as much discussion
as the Roe vs. Wade decision. The author describes some of the
criticism that has been leveled against the decision over the
past three decades. He focuses on the current interest in the
case as the Judiciary Committee prepares to begin hearings on
the nomination of Samuel A. Alito, Jr to replace Sandra Day O'Connor,
who has played a central role in determining the abortion jurisprudence
of the Court. Alito's record in abortion cases as an appeals-court
judge is controversial. In a 1985 application for a promotion
in President Reagan's Justice Department, Alito wrote that he
was "particularly proud" to have participated in writing
a brief to the Supreme Court arguing that "the Constitution
does not protect a right to an abortion. Jeffrey Toobin is
a staff writer at The New Yorker and the legal analyst at ABC
News. Fulltext
C9 - Guantanamo Detainees: Habeas Corpus Challenges in
Federal Court
Elsea, Jennifer K. and Kenneth Thomas
CRS Report for Congress, December 7, 2005. 28p
“After the U.S. Supreme Court held that U.S. courts have jurisdiction
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to hear legal challenges on behalf
of more than 500 persons detained at the U.S. Naval Station in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in connection with the war against terrorism
(Rasul v. Bush), the Pentagon established administrative hearings,
called “Combatant Status Review Tribunals” (CSRTs), to allow the
detainees to contest their status as enemy combatants, and informed
them of their right to pursue relief in federal court by seeking
a writ of habeas corpus… This report provides an overview of the
CSRT procedures, summarizes court cases related to the detentions
and the use of military commissions.” Jennifer K. Elsea and
Kenneth Thomas, Legislative Attorneys, American Law Division for
the Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress.
Fulltext
Government Initiatives:
C10- New System Needed to Measure and
Report Health Care Performance
Institute of Medicine of the National Academies Report, November
2005, Executive Summary, 31p. Full text, 294 p.
"If pay-for-performance initiatives and public reporting
systems are to be effective in improving the quality of health
care in the United States, a comprehensive, universally accepted
system is needed to measure and report on the performance of health
care providers and organizations, says a new report from the Institute
of Medicine of the National Academies. ... Requested by Congress,
this report is the first in a series that will focus on the redesign
of health insurance to accelerate the pace of quality improvement
efforts in the United States." The Institute of Medicine
is a private, nonprofit institution that provides health policy
advice under a congressional charter granted to the National Academy
of Sciences. Fulltext
C11 - On the Front Line: American Cities and the Challenge
of Homeland Security Preparedness
Gerber, Brian J. et al.
Urban Affairs Review, November 2005, v41, #2, pp182-210
Municipal governments' efforts in preparing for possible terrorist
events are critical to effective homeland security. Using data
gathered from a nationwide sample of municipal officials, the
authors identify determinants of homeland security preparedness
in U.S. cities, across several attitudinal and behavioral indicators.
The authors find that perceptions of terror threat vulnerability
and response capacity are tied to factors such as city size and
budgetary constraints. Perhaps more important, the authors show
that administrative capacity demonstrates consistent explanatory
power for both perceived policy commitment and specific preparedness
actions. From these analyses, the authors outline several key
policy implications for homeland security policy making. Brian
Gerber is a professor at West Virginia University. Order
Article
C12 - The End of Pensions?
Lowenstein, Roger
New York Times Magazine, October 30, 2005, p56-, 11p
Lowenstein discusses America's broken pension system, explaining
that corporations were happy to offer rich retirement plans to
their workers as long as accounting tricks and federal insurance
made it easy to delay the day of reckoning. Corporate executives
and state legislatures found it easier to pay off unions with
benefits tomorrow rather than with wages today. But today, the
game is up. The amount of underfunding in corporate pension plans
totals $450 billion, and the pension plans of companies that fail
will become the responsibility of the government's pension insurer,
the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Fulltext
C13 - A Preliminary Evaluation of the Tax Reform Panel's
Report
Gale, William G.; Burman, Leonard E.
Urban Institute, web-posted December 5, 2005, online summary
(full text in pdf format, 272p)
"The report, prepared by the nine-member panel with the technical
assistance of Treasury Department staff, unanimously endorses
two options for reforming the tax system: a simplified income
tax (SIT) and a hybrid consumption and income tax called the "growth
and investment tax" (GIT).2 The plans have many features
in common. In a nutshell, the plans would repeal the alternative
minimum tax, cut back on existing deductions, credits, exclusions,
and exemptions, and reduce the tax rate on capital income."
Leonard E. Burman is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.
William G. Gale is the Arjay and Frances Fearing Miller chair
at the Brookings Institution. The authors are codirectors of the
Urban Brookings Tax Policy Center. Fulltext
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