Search

Discretion is fundamental to understanding interbranch interactions in the US separation-of-powers system. Yet, measuring discretion is challenging. The few existing measures have difficulty capturing both delegation and constraint in a consistent way over time. In this article, we propose a novel measure of executive discretion based on legislative appropriations to all agencies, weighted by spending limitations imposed by Congress in appropriations committee reports. We provide evidence for the validity of the measure, including a test of the ally principle to establish construct validity. Finally, we demonstrate the wider utility of the measure by employing it to evaluate hypotheses about how political control over the bureaucracy influences congressional policy making in the context of discretion. We show that agency design and presidential control are important factors in congressional decisions. Overall, we present a versatile measure of discretion that researchers can use to explore a variety of questions in American politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the relationship between economic inequality and US congressional agendas. Longstanding insights into the influence of political spending on public policy suggest that money can narrow the scope of policy conflicts. I argue that rising inequality should intensify these negative-agenda forces as wealthy interests gain a political advantage relative to other social groups and use this advantage to protect their socioeconomic position by donating to candidates who pursue less disruptive agendas. The expectation is that economic inequality narrows the purview of policymaking and that this is manifest through a reduction in the diversity of the congressional agenda. Empirical analysis supports this position. Error-correction models show that rising inequality is associated with a reduction in the diversity of congressional hearings, bill introductions, and laws. Moreover, it is legislators who are heavily dependent on deep-pocketed donors and political action committees that engage with a narrower range of policy topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

bjectives. To evaluate the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) program’s progress toward meeting public health preparedness capability standards in state, local, and territorial health departments. Methods. All 62 PHEP awardees completed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s self-administered PHEP Impact Assessment as part of program reviewmeasuring public health preparedness capability before September 11, 2001 (9/11), and in 2014.We collected additional self-reported capability self-assessments from 2016. We analyzed trends in congressional funding for public health preparedness from 2001 to 2016. Results. Before 9/11, most PHEP awardees reported limited preparedness capabilities, but considerable progress was reported by 2016. The number of jurisdictions reporting established capability functions within the countermeasures and mitigation domain had the largest increase, almost 200%, by 2014. However, more than 20% of jurisdictions still reported underdeveloped coordination between the health system and public health agencies in 2016. Challenges and barriers to building PHEP capabilities included lack of trained personnel, plans, and sustained resources. Conclusions. Considerable progress in public health preparedness capability was observed frombefore 9/11 to 2016. Support, sustainment,andadvancementof publichealth preparedness capability is critical to ensure a strong public health infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Obama Administration's controversial exchange of five Taliban detainees for a captured U.S. soldier in May 2014 reignited a heated debate over the proper scope of wartime executive authority. From a legal perspective, the primary issue centers on the constitutional balance of power between congressional appropriations and the President's power as Commander in Chief. A complete analysis incorporates both judicial and historical precedent to evaluate the conflict within the broader context of prisoner recovery efforts. This Note argues that, regardless of the validity of legislative restrictions on the transfer of Guantánamo detainees, the President possessed sufficient authority to conduct the prisoner exchange. Commanders in Chief have retained exclusive control over recovery efforts since the Revolutionary War, often exchanging nontraditional detainees for regular servicemembers without any congressional opposition. Furthermore, as this Note concludes, Congress elsewhere granted the President ample discretion over notification and defense spending to legally conduct the exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given increased state hostility to minority-language use and states' ever-changing, though at times inadequate, methods of accommodating English-language learners, federal intervention is necessary to protect vulnerable linguistic minorities. But, fueled by the Supreme Court and Congress since the early 2000s, the federal government has increasingly accorded greater deference to state legislatures and local school districts in the area of English-language-learner (ELL) education. This growing acceptance of "deference not deserved" ignores evidence of state failure in education of ELLs and irresponsible state experimentation with the rights of students with limited English proficiency. It also marks a decided departure from historical practice in the area of ELL education, though federal involvement in funding and shaping state education policy is more firmly entrenched than ever. Vindicating the ability of ELLs to access a meaningful education may undercut traditional notions of state control over education policy generally. But historical practice strongly supports the federal government's ability to protect vulnerable linguistic groups by conditioning federal dollars on the satisfaction of federal education standards. The spirit of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, Supreme Court precedent regarding access to education, and the Common Core State Standards Initiative's federalization of school curricula all suggest that Congress should leverage its control over state education funds to protect ELLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past, the United States' satellite export control regime has acted as a barrier to entry for the commercial space industry and has stifled the growth of space startups that are beginning to become more common as access to space becomes more affordable. Within the span of two decades, agency responsibility for satellite exports has changed hands multiple times for economic, political, and national security reasons. In 2013, Congress passed a bill authorizing the President of the United States to determine which regulations govern satellite exports. President Obama, the State Department, and the Commerce Department are taking full advantage of this congressionally granted leeway and are proposing rules that could have a significantly positive impact on the American commercial satellite industry, especially on fledgling space startups. In light of the potential positive benefits of America's updated satellite export control regime, this Comment assesses the implications of this legislative update, the potential for positive economic impacts on the American satellite industry, and what the update could mean for entrepreneurs who are beginning to look toward the stars for their next venture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the costs associated with several U.S. federal and state pilot projects which are funded annually by the U.S. Congress and various state legislatures, and it provides suggestions for pilot project requirements that will permit policy makers in America to better analyze the potential benefits of these pilot programs. Projects initiated by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Transit Administration are mentioned, along with contractors and government regulations.

This Essay examines two alternative designs for hierarchical institutions: "bounded" and "unbounded." In a bounded structure, a principal decides on a bounded aggregate numerical allocation, and then an agent makes the allocation to an underlying subject population while complying with the bound. In an unbounded structure, the principal provides no aggregate numerical cap, but instead provides some other form of guidance to the agent regarding allocation. An example of a bounded institution is grading to a pre-arranged curve ("X students receive As"), while an example of an unbounded institution is granting a particular grade to each student who meets a particular threshold ("each student who displays mastery of the material receives an A"). Bounded and unbounded institutions are common in many legal contexts and differ in their strengths and weaknesses. From the principal's perspective, bounded institutions are increasingly desirable to the extent that (a) there is a homogeneous and large subject population, (b) the agent is likely to be biased or to make systematic errors, and (c) it is difficult to devise other rules to guide the agent's decision. If agents are biased but otherwise share preferences with the principal-and the principal knows the underlying subject population's traits-then bounded institutions can produce the precise outcome that the principal wants even though neither the principal nor the agent is fully informed or free of error. The Essay applies these insights to government appropriations, environmental law, and administrative law (among other areas). Consider, for example, funding scientific research through the National Science Foundation (NSF). Congress should give the NSF a fixed (bounded) budget if it thinks the NSF is biased in favor of funding scientific research and the distribution of quality of scientific research proposals is relatively predictable from year to year. If the NSF always wants to fund the same projects that Congress would, by contrast, then Congress should tell the NSF to fund all research projects the NSF deems worthy, thereby giving the NSF an unbounded source of funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government agencies use public relations (PR) to promote their standing with public opinion as a way to achieve autonomy. In turn, Congress has engaged in multiple efforts to control agency PR. This article examines a heretofore unreported major effort by Congress in the 1950s to control military PR spending, as well as a minor follow-up in the 1970s and -80s. The previous literature has documented the relative ineffectiveness of other Congressional efforts to control agency PR. This historical recounting confirms the generalizations of the extant literature, namely that legislative efforts to control agency PR are largely ineffective. This confirmation contributes to increased documentation of patterns of governing authority in the literature of American Political Development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses independent agencies in the U.S. as of May 2012, focusing on the control exerted over them by the U.S. President and the U.S. Congress through the appropriations process, as well as an analysis of the weakness of budgetary control substitutes. The issue of self-funding for independent agencies is also examined. The U.S. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act's creation of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is analyzed.

All members of Congress utilize their official resources, even if the electoral effect is minimal. Congressional reforms in 1995 created the Members Representational Allowance, providing members with more flexibility in deploying their official resources. However, these reforms also created a zero-sum game where a dollar spent on travel is a dollar not available for sending mass mail or paying staff salaries. Using a newly created dataset, we argue and find evidence that members allocate resources to support their particular representational goals, which change throughout the course of a member's career (Fenno 1973; 1978). We conclude that the re-election motive alone cannot explain how members run their offices and technological changes increasingly make the district-Washington dichotomy a false one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As chartered by the U.S. Constitution, the office of the vice president of the United States had nebulous legal and institutional status, and was otherwise largely unappreciated and underutilized for approximately 150 years. Innovative presidents, responding to changing circumstances regarding the role and mission of the federal government, both domestically and internationally, created new roles for the vice president during the early years of the twentieth century. Among these were admission to the cabinet, membership on temporary advisory committees, and special roles in service to the president, resulting in the institutionalization of the Executive Office of the Vice President, which came to be redefined under Richard B. Cheney. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly all studies of pork-barrel politics in the U.S. Congress focus on the House, biasing our conception of how politics influences federal spending and skewing our attention toward factors that are active in the House. This article highlights differences between the Senate and House in how pork is allocated. We identify four important differences between the House and Senate, generate hypotheses regarding how each difference should influence the distribution of pork projects, and test these hypotheses using data from earmarks in the Appropriations bills passed by the two chambers for fiscal year 2008. The results support three of our four hypotheses, suggesting that senators are driven by different motivations than House members. These results imply that theoretical accounts of pork-barrel spending need to account for these interchamber differences. Our findings also highlight how studies of legislative behavior, more generally, need to account for important differences in legislative structure and organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Department of Defense (DoD) has long played a role in U.S. efforts to assist foreign populations, militaries, and governments. The use of DoD to provide foreign assistance stems in general from the perception that DoD can contribute unique or vital capabilities and resources because it possesses the manpower, materiel, and organizational assets to respond to international needs. Over the years, Congress has helped shape the DoD role by providing DoD with its mandate for such activities through a wide variety of authorities. The historical DoD role in foreign assistance can be regarded as serving three purposes: responding to humanitarian and basic needs, building foreign military capacity and capabilities, and strengthening foreign governments' ability to deal with internal and international threats through state-building measures. The United States and the U.S. military benefit from DoD foreign assistance activities in several ways. U.S. diplomacy benefits from the U.S. military's capacity to project itself rapidly into extreme situations, such as disasters and other humanitarian emergencies, enhancing the U.S. image as a humanitarian actor. Humanitarian assistance, military training, and other forms of assistance also provide opportunities to cultivate good relations with foreign populations, militaries, and governments. U.S. military personnel have long viewed such activities as opportunities to interact with foreign militaries as part of their professional development. Since the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 1 iL 2001, DoD training of military forces and provision of security assistance have been an important means to enable foreign militaries to conduct peacekeeping operations and to support coalition operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. DoD's perception of the appropriate non-combat role for the U.S. military has evolved over time. Within the past few years, the perceptions of DoD officials, military officers, and defense analysts have coalesced around a post-9/11 strategy that calls for the use of the U.S. military in preventive, deterrent, and preemptive activities. This strategy involves DoD in the creation of extensive international and interagency "partnerships," as well as an expanded DoD role in foreign assistance activities. Critics point to a number of problems with an expanded DoD role in many activities. Indeed, a key DoD document acknowledges that state-building tasks may be "best performed by indigenous, foreign, or U.S. civilian professionals." Nevertheless, although reluctant to divert personnel from combat functions, DoD officials believe that the U.S. military must develop its own capacity to carry out such activities in the absence of appropriate civilian forces. In the second session of the 110th Congress, members have faced several choices regarding the DoD role in foreign assistance. The Bush Administration has proposed legislation to make permanent two controversial DoD authorities. It has also proposed legislation to enable U.S. government civilian personnel to perform some of the tasks currently carried out by the U.S. military, as well as to form a civilian reserve corps for that purpose. Congress may also consider options to improve DoD coordination with civilian agencies on foreign assistance activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars attempting a positive reappraisal of Warren G. Harding's presidency claim that his political beliefs changed markedly during his short administration. This article concurs but suggests that revisionist writers underestimate the crucial part played in this metamorphosis by the president's clashes with Congress over cash compensation for war veterans. These confrontations shattered Harding's belief that the presidency and Congress could return to a cooperative working relationship after the tensions of the Roosevelt-Wilson era. The bonus clashes are, therefore, the defining moments of Harding's administration—eroding his partisan loyalty and forcing him to adopt the assertive, interventionist executive posture he had once criticized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the political economy of U.S. federal highway demonstration grant allocations. Demonstration grants are a rapidly growing segment of federal highway grants directly earmarked for a congressional district by Congress, unlike the majority of highway grants where Congress determines a formula and allocates funds accordingly to states. Our empirical analysis, considering the period 1983-2003, suggests that a state's ability to attract demonstration project grants is positively influenced by its contributions to the highway trust fund and political variables, and it is not affected by the formula highway aid and vehicle miles traveled in a state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the role of proposal power in the allocation of congressionally earmarked transportation projects across congressional districts in the U.S. in 1991 and 1998. Congressional negotiations over the allocation of transportation funds are well-suited to an empirical test of predictions from noncooperative bargaining models. The U.S. House of Representatives authorized $5 billion for earmarked transportation projects in 1991 and $8 billion in 1998. In order to maximize their own payoffs, the proposal committee has an incentive to use the entire budget, restrict the coalition size to that required for passage, make the proposal support condition for noncommittee members binding and offer an allocation that will be approved.

Emerging theories of civil-military relations take a more nuanced look at the role of the actors involved, particularly noting the critical role of the legislature in modern democracies. An important tool of control for the legislature is the power of the purse+ so circumstances of delegated spending authority by the legislature to the military are worthy of study. This study investigates a series of supplemental appropriations enacted by the U.S. Congress to pay for the war on terrorism and situates the story in the current literature on civil-military relations. The case describes an episode in which the legislature was willing to delegate authority, how the executive responded, and the circumstances under which the legislature returned to traditional forms of oversight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the politics of fiscal adjustment in a bicameral system when parties prefer different scales of taxes and public spending. Data from 33 non-southern American states for the years 1952-1995 show that Democrats nearly everywhere target a larger share of state incomes for the public budget than Republicans, though exact party positions vary from state to state. Republicans react more strongly to budget surpluses by reducing revenues than do Democrats. Unified governments adjust faster than divided ones. A party having unified control can shift fiscal scale one-quarter to one-third of the way toward its ideal share of income within two years. When each party controls a different branch of government, the legislative party shifts fiscal scale in its desired direction; but when each party controls one legislative chamber, there is a smaller shift in the direction preferred by the governor's party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we ask what the pattern of distributive spending has been during the 104th Congress, in which Republicans have been in the majority, compared to the preceding Congress when Democrats were the majority party. We seek to understand the patterns of change in light of four alternative explanations of distributive spending. The changes in the content and recipients of federal domestic outlays between the 103rd and 104th Congresses are suggestive of a partisan influence. Republican control of Congress does not appear to have significantly altered the politics of domestic spending. However, Republican control has influenced the content of domestic public policy. The House under Republican control produced significantly more contingent liability obligations than the 103rd Congress--programs that are ideologically and politically compatible with the interests of Republican representatives. Evidence suggests that Republican control has produced a partial shift in the interests that are rewarded by federal spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]