Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism

Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism PDF Author: Thad Kousser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521839858
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines how legislature rules affect the behavior of its members and policies.

Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism

Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism PDF Author: Thad Kousser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521839858
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines how legislature rules affect the behavior of its members and policies.

Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism

Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism PDF Author: Thad Kousser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521548731
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines how legislature rules affect the behavior of its members and policies.

The Power of American Governors

The Power of American Governors PDF Author: Thad Kousser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139576933
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Get Book Here

Book Description
With limited authority over state lawmaking, but ultimate responsibility for the performance of government, how effective are governors in moving their programs through the legislature? This book advances a new theory about what makes chief executives most successful and explores this theory through original data. Thad Kousser and Justin H. Phillips argue that negotiations over the budget, on the one hand, and policy bills on the other are driven by fundamentally different dynamics. They capture these dynamics in models informed by interviews with gubernatorial advisors, cabinet members, press secretaries and governors themselves. Through a series of novel empirical analyses and rich case studies, the authors demonstrate that governors can be powerful actors in the lawmaking process, but that what they're bargaining over – the budget or policy – shapes both how they play the game and how often they can win it.

Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress

Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress PDF Author: Craig Volden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521761522
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores why some members of Congress are more effective than others at navigating the legislative process and what this means for how Congress is organized and what policies it produces. Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman develop a new metric of individual legislator effectiveness (the Legislative Effectiveness Score) that will be of interest to scholars, voters, and politicians alike. They use these scores to study party influence in Congress, the successes or failures of women and African Americans in Congress, policy gridlock, and the specific strategies that lawmakers employ to advance their agendas.

Adapting To Term Limits

Adapting To Term Limits PDF Author: Bruce E. Cain
Publisher: Public Policy Instit. of CA
ISBN: 9781582131016
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 109

Get Book Here

Book Description


Institutional Change in American Politics

Institutional Change in American Politics PDF Author: Karl T. Kurtz
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472024787
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
Legislative term limits adopted in the 1990s are in effect in fifteen states today. This reform is arguably the most significant institutional change in American government of recent decades. Most of the legislatures in these fifteen states have experienced a complete turnover of their membership; hundreds of experienced lawmakers have become ineligible for reelection, and their replacements must learn and perform their jobs in as few as six years. Now that term limits have been in effect long enough for both their electoral and institutional effects to become apparent, their consequences can be gauged fully and with the benefit of hindsight. In the most comprehensive study of the subject, editors Kurtz, Cain, and Niemi and a team of experts offer their broad evaluation of the effects term limits have had on the national political landscape. "The contributors to this excellent and comprehensive volume on legislative term limits come neither to praise the idea nor to bury it, but rather to speak dispassionately about its observed consequences. What they find is neither the horror story of inept legislators completely captive to strong governors and interest groups anticipated by the harshest critics, nor the idyll of renewed citizen democracy hypothesized by its more extreme advocates. Rather, effects have varied across states, mattering most in the states that were already most professionalized, but with countervailing factors mitigating against extreme consequences, such as a flight of former lower chamber members to the upper chamber that enhances legislative continuity. This book is must reading for anyone who wants to understand what happens to major institutional reforms after the dust has settled." ---Bernard Grofman, Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor of Economics, School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine "A decade has passed since the first state legislators were term limited. The contributors to this volume, all well-regarded scholars, take full advantage of the distance afforded by this passage of time to explore new survey data on the institutional effects of term limits. Their book is the first major volume to exploit this superb opportunity." ---Peverill Squire, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Iowa Karl T. Kurtz is Director of the Trust for Representative Democracy at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Bruce Cain is Heller Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, and the Director of the University of California Washington Center. Richard G. Niemi is Don Alonzo Watson Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester.

Deliberate Discretion?

Deliberate Discretion? PDF Author: John D. Huber
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521520706
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explains the different approaches legislators use when they write laws.

It's Even Worse Than It Looks

It's Even Worse Than It Looks PDF Author: Thomas E. Mann
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465096735
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
Acrimony and hyperpartisanship have seeped into every part of the political process. Congress is deadlocked and its approval ratings are at record lows. America's two main political parties have given up their traditions of compromise, endangering our very system of constitutional democracy. And one of these parties has taken on the role of insurgent outlier; the Republicans have become ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, and ardently opposed to the established social and economic policy regime.In It's Even Worse Than It Looks, congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein identify two overriding problems that have led Congress -- and the United States -- to the brink of institutional collapse. The first is the serious mismatch between our political parties, which have become as vehemently adversarial as parliamentary parties, and a governing system that, unlike a parliamentary democracy, makes it extremely difficult for majorities to act. Second, while both parties participate in tribal warfare, both sides are not equally culpable. The political system faces what the authors call &"asymmetric polarization," with the Republican Party implacably refusing to allow anything that might help the Democrats politically, no matter the cost.With dysfunction rooted in long-term political trends, a coarsened political culture and a new partisan media, the authors conclude that there is no &"silver bullet"; reform that can solve everything. But they offer a panoply of useful ideas and reforms, endorsing some solutions, like greater public participation and institutional restructuring of the House and Senate, while debunking others, like independent or third-party candidates. Above all, they call on the media as well as the public at large to focus on the true causes of dysfunction rather than just throwing the bums out every election cycle. Until voters learn to act strategically to reward problem solving and punish obstruction, American democracy will remain in serious danger.

Elbridge Gerry's Salamander

Elbridge Gerry's Salamander PDF Author: Gary W. Cox
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521001540
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book Here

Book Description
Publisher Description.

State Legislatures Today

State Legislatures Today PDF Author: Peverill Squire
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538123371
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Get Book Here

Book Description
A concise and provocative introduction to state legislative politics, State Legislatures Today is designed as a supplement for state and local government courses and upper level courses on legislative politics. The book examines state legislatures and state lawmakers, putting them in historical context, showing how they have evolved over the years, and differentiating them from Congress. It covers state legislative elections (including the impact of redistricting, candidate recruitment, etc.), the changing job description of state legislators, legislatures as organizations, the process by which legislation gets produced, and the influences upon legislators.