| June 2005
Politics & Government: Elections | Congress | Supreme Court
Government Initiatives: Health Care | Social Security & Welfare | Tax
Reform
Politics & Government:
C1 - What Price Justice(s)? Understanding Campaign Spending
in State Supreme Court Elections
Bonneau, Chris W.
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, Summer 2005, v5, #2, pp107-126
While election for seats on the states’ supreme courts are among
the least-researched American elections, they are arguably some
of the most important political positions in the states. Campaign
spending in these races has increased visibly in the past 20 years.
However, spending varies greatly among them. The author discovered
“that state supreme court campaign spending is driven by the characteristics
of the race, institutional arrangements, and the electoral and
state supreme court context.” Chris W. Bonneau is Assistant
Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Fulltext
C2 - In 2008, Will It Be Mormon in America?
Eastland, Terry
The Weekly Standard, Jun 6, 2005, v10, #36, pp16-23
Terry Eastland discusses one of the potential candidates of the
2008 presidential election, Mitt Romney, the Republican governor
of Massachusetts. If Romney, who is a Mormon, runs, “voters will
be confronted not with Mormonism in general but with a particular
Mormon. His prospects can't be fully assessed without coming to
grips with this fact: Most Americans are affiliated with churches
that--notwithstanding important differences among Catholics, mainline
Protestants, and evangelical Protestants--stand in the same line
of historic or traditional Christianity.” Terry Estland is
publisher of The Weekly Standard. Fulltext
C3 - The First Debate over the Debates: How Kennedy and Nixon
Negotiated the 1960 Presidential Debates
Self, John W.
Presidential Studies Quarterly, June 2005, v35, #2, pp361-376
“The 1960 presidential campaign was historic for a number of reasons,
most notably for the first-ever set of general election televised
presidential debates between the two major-party candidates. Much
like any political campaign event, the 1960 debates were carefully
planned and negotiated before the candidates showed up that September
night in a Chicago television studio.” The author explains how
the 1960 debates were negotiated between the Nixon and Kennedy
campaigns as well as the broadcast network sponsors. John
W. Self is Assistant Professor of Communications at Truman State
University. Fulltext
C4 - Redistricting Reform
Mann, Thomas E.
The National Voter, June 2005
“Authority for redrawing legislative district boundaries after
each decennial census—in the U.S. House of Representatives and
in state legislatures—is lodged with political bodies in most
of the fifty states. [This] has long been a prominent and much-criticized
feature of American politics. Redistricting is a deeply political
process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk
to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional
seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders). But several
recent developments have lent a new urgency to this issue and
precipitated the most serious effort to reform redistricting processes
in many years.” Thomas E. Mann is W. Averell Hariman Chair
and Senior Fellow for Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution. Fulltext
C5 - Where and When Was the First Modern Democratic Election?
Smith, J.
Geographical, June 2005, v77, #6, p16
“Smith discusses in what countries the first democratic elections
were held. Depending on how one defines a modern democracy, the
first elections were held in France, the United Kingdom, the U.S.,
and New Zealand although some citizens were ineligible to vote.” Order article
C6 - Partisan Gerrymandering and Disaggregated Redistricting
Cox, Adam B.
Supreme Court Review, 2004, pp409-452.
“For nearly two decades, the Supreme Court, as well as commentators,
has been explicitly divided over the answer to the question of
whether federal courts should police partisan gerrymandering.
Cox challenges the conventional view that federal congressional
and state legislative political gerrymanders are functional equivalents.
Moreover, he elaborates on the analytic difference between state
and congressional redistricting and shows that the courts and
commentators have been inattentive to this basic conceptual point.”
Adam B. Cox is Assistant Professor of Law at the University
of Chicago Law School. Fulltext
Supreme CourT
C7 - The Rehnquist Court
Stuart Taylor, Jr.
National Journal, May 21, 2005, pp. 1532-39
A portrait of the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist. "William Rehnquist has at least one attribute of greatness: the esteem of his colleagues. But how doe he fare on other measures?" Stuart Taylor Jr. is a senior writer and columnist for National Journal and a contributing editor at Newsweek. Fulltext
Government Initiatives:
C8 - Health Information Technology: HHS is Taking Steps to
Develop a National Strategy
United States Government Accountability Office (GAO),
May 27, 2005
(Web-posted May 31, 2005), 92 pages http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05628.pdf
To prevent medical errors, reduce costs, improve quality, and
produce greater value for health care expenditures, President
Bush has called for the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) to develop and implement a strategic plan to guide the nationwide
implementation of health information technology in both the public
and private health care sectors. Health Information Technology
(IT) is used to support health care quality and efficiency by
providing tools to improve patient care and to reduce administration
overhead. This report is an overview of HHS's recent efforts to
develop a national health IT and to identify lessons learned from
DOD's, VA's, and other countries' experiences in implementing
health IT. Fulltext
C9 - Retirement Income: The Crucial Role of Social Security
Weller, Christian and Edward N. Wolff
Economic Policy Institute, May 2005
In EPI's major follow-up study to its 2002 report Retirement Insecurity,
the authors argues that a truly accurate assessment of Americans'
retirement adequacy must consider all forms of wealth, including
private pensions, housing, and financial assets in addition to
Social Security, and how they have changed over time for different
groups. This latest study finds that Social Security is more necessary
than ever—not only is the program nearly universal, but its value
has risen faster than other forms of retirement savings for households
that need additional retirement benefits the most. Christian
Weller is a senior economist at the Center for American Progress.
He has also worked among others at the Center for European Integration
Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany and in the Department
of Public Policy of the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C. Edward N.
Wolff is professor of economics at New York University and a Senior
Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. He is
a research associate with the Economic Policy Institute as well
as with the National Bureau of Economic Research. Fulltext
Tax Reform
C10 - Tax Policies to Help Working Families in Cities
Berube, Alan; William G. Gales; Tracy Kornblatt
Brooking Institution, June 2005, online edition, 40p
"This paper examines ways that federal tax policy could improve
the economic prospects of low- and middle-income working families
in cities. We show how existing federal tax rules affect these
families, and that a variety of public policies are available
to provide better economic opportunities and incentives for these
households. The significant link between federal tax policies
and the welfare of households in cities is an area of growing
awareness and increasing importance and should receive the attention
of both urban leaders and federal policy makers in the future." Fulltext
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