Law Commons^™

Running For Cover: The Brac Commission As A Model For Spending Reform, Jerry Brito

Jerry Brito

With record spending and deficits come calls for reform. Spending reform, however, is easier said than done, and independent commissions are often suggested as a way to tackle intractable political problems. Not all commissions are created the same, however. While baseball and basketball both employ balls, they are entirely different animals. The same applies to congressionally created commissions. The Base Realignment and Closing (BRAC) commissions of the late 80s and early 90s were successful because of their peculiar structure—not simply because they were independent commissions. In this Article we first look at the roots of BRAC’s success and then compare …

Transparency And Performance In Government, Jerry Brito

Jerry Brito

The legal literature on transparency is generally divided into two categories: the study of transparency as a solution to political corruption and scholarship looking at transparency in the context of corporate disclosure requirements. The former is concerned with preventing government malfeasance that can lead to serious societal problems, especially in the developing world. The latter focuses on the disclosure of corporate performance to fully inform markets. However, these two insights on transparency never meet. In this article, we hope to show that just as mandatory transparency can improve corporate performance, it may help improve government performance as well.

Part I …