Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

True Believers Or Moral Absolutists, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The recent American presidential elections brought to the fore the question of what place moral values have in public decision-making when traditional moral values are not espoused by all in a pluralist society. Even if traditional values - seen as absolutist - are imposed on others through a democratic electoral process, that imposition, particularly in hot button issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, remains difficult to accept.

Unlv Magazine, Holly Ivy De Vore, Nancy Syzdek, Patrice E.M. Hollrah, Douglas Unger, Eugene Moehring, Gillian Silver, John F. Gallagher, Lori Bachand, Gian Galassi, Hal Rothman, Mark Hoversten, Phil Hagen, Donna Mcaleer, Suzan Dibella

UNLV Magazine

No abstract provided.

L.A. Race Woman: Charlotta Bass And The Complexities Of Black Political Development In Los Angeles, Regina Freer

Regina Freer

Using her platform as owner and editor of Los Angeles's prominent black newspaper the California Eagle from 1912-1951, L.A. race woman Charlotta Bass was at the center of black political life of the city. This article examines her life and political activism as they offer a lens into the history of black community response to the particular demography, geography, politics and economics of Los Angeles and African American's expectations of what life should be like in the city. While black Angelenos confronted pitched job market competition and familiar white resistance to black advancement, blacks in L.A. did experience a form …

The Constitutionality Of The Filibuster, Michael J. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Personality Of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Aubrey Immelman, Jamie Thielman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of U.S. Supreme Court associate justice Clarence Thomas, from the conceptual perspective of Theodore Millon.

Information concerning Justice Thomas was collected from biographical sources, speeches, and published reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM-IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Justice …

Three Affiliated Tribes Health Facility Compensation Act, United States Congress, Us House Of Representatives

US Government Documents related to Indigenous Nations

This report from the United States (US) House Committee on Resources, dated June 3, 2004, was written to accompany US Senate Bill 1146 which proposed the construction of a rural health care facility on the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota. The estimated cost for construction of said facility is 20 million dollars. This facility is part of a continued attempt by the US government to compensate for loss of property, infrastructure, and way of life for the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara people who were forced off their land on the Fort Berthold Reservation due to the construction of the Garrison …

Modern Bootlegging And The Prohibition On Fair Prices: Last Call For The Repeal Of Pharmaceutical Price Gouging, Luke W. Cleland

ExpressO

This article discusses the recent passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Modernization and Improvement Act of 2003, and the executive and judicial decisions affecting the ability of the general public to access foreign pharmaceutical markets. The article examines the recent actions taken by the U.S. government, explore various state movements within the United States aimed at reducing pharmaceutical drug prices, outline the process of pharmaceutical drug prices in foreign countries, and advocate for a workable integration of all available mechanisms to feasibly reduce prescription drug prices for the benefit of both U.S. consumers and U.S. drug companies. As avenues to …

Securing Truth For Power: Informational Strategy And Regulatory Policy Making, Cary Coglianese

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

What Is Fiscal Responsibility? Long-Term Deficits, Generational Accounting, And Capital Budgeting, Neil H. Buchanan

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

This article assesses three basic approaches to assessing the future effects of the government’s fiscal policies: traditional measures of the deficit, measures associated with Generational Accounting, and measures derived from applying Capital Budgeting to the federal accounts. I conclude that Capital Budgeting is the best of the three approaches and that Generational Accounting is the least helpful. Acknowledging that there might be some value in learning what we can from a variety of approaches to analyzing fiscal policy, I nevertheless conclude that Generational Accounting is actually a misleading or--at best--empty measure of future fiscal developments. The best approach to providing …

Mixed Signals: Reconsidering The Political Economy Of Judicial Deference To Administrative Agencies, Matthew C. Stephenson

ExpressO

This paper investigates rational choice explanations for patterns of Supreme Court decision-making with respect to the appropriate level of judicial deference to administrative agency decisions. In particular, I assess empirically the thesis that the Supreme Court expands deference when the Supreme Court is ideologically closer to the executive than to the circuit courts, and contracts deference when the opposite is true. I find little to no evidence supporting this "rational choice" theory of judicial deference. Given this surprising null finding, I offer alternative explanations for the data and suggest directions for future research.

The Effects Of Ballot Position On Election Outcomes, Jonathan G.S. Koppell, Jennifer A. Steen

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

This article presents evidence of name-order effects in balloting from a study of the 1998 Democratic primary in New York City, in which the order of candidates' names was rotated by precinct. In 71 of 79 individual nominating contests, candidates received a greater proportion of the vote when listed first than when listed in any other position. In seven of those 71 contests, the advantage to first position exceeded the winner's margin of victory, suggesting that ballot position would have determined the election outcomes if one candidate had held the top spot in all precincts.

Resolving Sovereign Debt: Collective Action Clauses Or The Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism, Shalendra Sharma

Politics

When sovereign debt restructuring or debt reduction becomes unavoidable, what is the appropriate regime that can provide for an orderly restructuring, while at the same time protecting the rights of both creditors and the debtor? The recent wave of sovereign default has underscored the limits of the current market-based regime. Recently two alternative approaches propose a "contractual approach" by way of the introduction of collective action clauses (CAC) in bond contracts, and a "statutory approach" put forward by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which calls for the establishment of an international debt restructuring mechanism (called the sovereign debt restructuring mechanism …

John F. Kennedy And West Virginia, 1960-1963, Anthony W. Ponton

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, a wealthy New England Catholic, traveled to a rural, Protestant state to contend in an election that few thought he could win. While many scholars have examined the impact of Kennedy’s victory in the West Virginia primary, few have analyzed the importance that his visit to the state in 1960 and his ensuing administration had on West Virginia. Kennedy enacted a number of policies directed specifically toward relieving the poverty that had plagued West Virginia since statehood. The Kennedy administration funded highway construction, worker training programs, and area development at levels the state had never …

The Timing, Intensity, And Composition Of Interest Group Lobbying: An Analysis Of Structural Policy Windows In The States, John M. De Figueiredo

Faculty Scholarship

This is the first paper to statistically examine the timing of interest group lobbying. It introduces a theoretical framework based on recurring “structural policy windows” and argues that these types of windows should have a large effect on the intensity and timing of interest group activity. Using a new database of all lobbying expenditures in the U.S. states ranging up to 25 years, the paper shows interest group lobbying increases substantially during one of these structural windows in particular--the budgeting process. Spikes in lobbying during budgeting are driven primarily by business groups. Moreover, even groups relatively unaffected by budgets lobby …

E-Rulemaking: Information Technology And The Regulatory Process, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

In order to channel interest in e-rulemaking toward effective and meaningful innovations in regulatory practice, the Kennedy School of Government's Regulatory Policy Program convened two major workshops, bringing together academic experts from computer sciences, law, and public management along with key public officials involved in managing federal regulation. This paper summarizes the discussions that took place at these workshops and develops an agenda for future research on information technology and the rulemaking process. It highlights the institutional challenges associated with using information technology in the federal regulatory process and suggests that in some cases existing rulemaking practices may need to …

Bankruptcy's Home Economics, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay began its life as a commentary on Elizabeth Warren’s article “The New Economics of the American Family” at the American Bankruptcy Institute's 25th Anniversary Symposium of the Bankruptcy Code in 2003. (Both the Warren article and my commentary were published in the symposium in the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review.) “The New Economics of the American Family” was drawn in many respects from then-Professor Warren’s co-authored book, The Two Income Trap. The essay refers to both, though it puts particular emphasis on the article. The essay begins by briefly describing the basic thesis of the article-- …

Racism As 'The National Crucial Sin': Theology And Derrick Bell, George H. Taylor

Articles

The Article probes a paradox that lies at the heart of the work of critical race scholar Derrick Bell. Bell claims on the one hand that racism is permanent, and yet on the other he argues that the fight against racism is both necessary and meaningful. Although Bell's thesis of racism's permanence has been criticized for rendering action for racial justice unavailing, the Article advances an understanding of Bell that supports and defends the integrity of his paradox. The Article draws upon the work of Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and Niebuhr's paradox that social action is both necessary and meaningful …

A Global Convention On Choice Of Court Agreements, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This article reviews the work of the Special Commission of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, which meet during the first nine days of December 2003 to consider a Draft Text on Choice of Court Agreements. Negotiations originally sought a rather comprehensive convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments, with a preliminary draft convention being prepared in October 1999, and further revised at the first part of a Diplomatic Conference in June 2001. When it became clear that some countries, particularly the United States, could not agree to the convention being considered, negotiations were redirected at …

Atypical Pneumonia And Ambivalent Law And Politics: Sars And The Response To Sars In China, Jacques Delisle

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Judicial Appointment Power Of The Chief Justice, Theodore Ruger

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Politics And Policy In Television Regulation, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

This article is a reply to Thomas Hazlett’s commentary on my article entitled, “Rethinking the Commitment to Free, Local Television.” Although politics and public choice theory represent an important approach for analyzing government actions, economic policy still exercises some influence over the regulation of television. On the one hand, we agree that the regulatory preference of free television and local programming is more a reflection of political considerations than economic policy and that the importance of promoting communities of interest over geographic communities, and the potential for new services such as Digital Audio Radio Services to benefit consumers. On the …

The Conceptual Jurisprudence Of The German Constitution, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Peoples Union For Civil Liberties V Union Of India: Is Indian Democracy Dependent On A Statute?, Shubhankar Dam

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

What is the status of a right to vote in the Indian legal system? Is the right a constitutional/fundamental right? Or is it simply a statutory right? Contrary to the decisions of the Supreme Court in the last five decades, this paper argues that the right to vote is a constitutional right: its textual foundation may be located in Article 326. And, in this sense, the Supreme Court has erred in construing the right to vote as a statutory right under the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951. Interpreting the right to vote as a statutory right has larger implications for …

Courts As Forums For Protest, Jules Lobel

Articles

For almost half a century, scholars, judges and politicians have debated two competing models of the judiciary's role in a democratic society. The mainstream model views courts as arbiters of disputes between private individuals asserting particular rights. The reform upsurge of the 1960s and 1970s led many to argue that courts are not merely forums to settle private disputes, but can also be used as instruments of societal change. Academics termed the emerging model the hein"public law" or "institutional reform" model.

The ongoing debate between these two views of the judicial role has obscured a third model of the role …

The Expulsion Of The Jews From France In 1306: A Modern Fiscal Analysis, Stéphane Mechoulan

Stéphane Mechoulan

In 1306, at the peak of a severe financial and monetary crisis, Philippe the Fair expelled the Jews from his kingdom, declared himself creditor of their debts, seized their property and auctioned it off. Was this a clever move, financially speaking? Did Philippe gain more, by killing the goose that laid the golden egg, than by securing a steady flow of taxes? Taking discounting into account, conservative bounds on the sum collected through the seizures over the years that followed the expulsion challenge the traditional view that it was a bad deal. Still, the windfall brought by the relative success …

The Political Economy Of The Production Of Customary International Law: The Role Of Non-Governmental Organizations, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Increasingly, United States courts are recognizing various treaties, as well as declarations, proclamations, conventions, resolutions, programmes, protocols, and similar forms of inter- or multi-national “legislation” as evidence of a body of “customary international law” enforceable in domestic courts, particularly in the area of tort liability. These “legislative” documents, which this Article refers to as customary international law outputs, are seen by some courts as evidence of jus cogens norms that bind not only nations and state actors, but also private individuals. The most obvious evidence of this trend is in the proliferation of lawsuits against corporations with ties to the …