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Judicial protection of disfavored minorities against oppressive legislation in majoritarian separation-of-power systems raises a puzzle: Why don't legislative majorities enacting discriminatory legislation curb judicial power when judges use their power to protect minorities and stymie the legislation? We answer this question by showing that judicial protection of disfavored minorities can emerge as an unintended by-product of majoritarian politics. We develop a model that includes the two aspects of judicial review Alexander Hamilton discusses in The Federalist No. 78: Judicial protection of disfavored minorities against hostile popular majorities, and judicial protection of majority interests against legislative depredation. It is the institutional linkage between these functions that induces popular majorities, within limits, to side with judges against legislatures even when those judges protect minorities that popular majorities want to oppress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information regarding empirical determinants of bicameral sequence in state legislatures. In a simple spatial setup with no uncertainty, the bicameral chamber that originates legislation will typically realize policy outcomes closer to the preference of its median member than will the chamber that votes second on enacted legislation. The existence of this first-mover advantage in the bicameral process implies, first, that substantive policy outcomes will differ depending on which bicameral chamber originates a given piece of legislation.

Focuses on the impact of bicameralism on legislative production of laws. Comparison between bicameralism and unicameralism; Assessment of historical data from four U.S. states that have experienced cameral transitions; Percentage of bills adopted by one chamber and adopted and rejected by the other chamber in state legislatures of the U.S.

'Congruent' bicameralism exists when two chambers are similarly constituted and are expected generally to share the same house preferences. Many com-mentators have wondered whether there is any purpose for having a second chamber if it has the same house preferences as the first chamber, and hold that divergent house preferences are a necessary condition to justify bicameralism. Other commentators have argued that even if the chambers and their respective house preferences are congruent, the informational interaction between the chambers is sufficient for bicameralism to improve the quality of legislation relative to unicameralism. Developing a game theoretic model with informational uncertainty and with identically congruent bicameral chambers, the analysis demonstrates that the informational interaction of acoustically separated chambers can nonetheless improve the objective quality of legislation relative to legislation enacted by a unicameral legisla-ture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Develops a simple signaling game in which a Legislature and a Court interact in seeking their own policy goals. Sources of uncertainty faced by the Legislature when legislating; Informational productivity of the Court; Effect of the possibility of informative judicial review on the quantity and informational quality of legislation enacted by the Legislature.

Presents information on a study conducted which examined the relationship between informational and bicameral legislatures. What is voting sequence; Role of informational expertise in sequential strategies adopted by bicameral chambers; How do bicameral chambers vote on legislative bills.