Cosponsoring and Cashing In: US House Members’ Support for Punitive Immigration Policy and Financial Payoffs from the Private Prison Industry

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jason L. Morín ◽  
Rachel Torres ◽  
Loren Collingwood
Keyword(s):  
Immigration Policy ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Immigration Legislation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Private Prison ◽  
Immigrant Detention ◽  
Bill Cosponsorship ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Prison Industry

Abstract The private prison industry is a multi-million-dollar industry that has increasingly profited from the detention of undocumented immigrants. As a government contractor, therefore, the industry has a natural interest in government decision making, including legislation that can affect its expansion into immigrant detention. In this article, we examine the relationship between campaign donations made on behalf of the private prison industry and an untested form of position taking—bill cosponsorship—in the US House of Representatives. We hypothesize the private prison industry will reward House members for taking positions that benefit the industry. We also hypothesize the private prison industry will also reward House members who incur greater political risk by taking positions out of sync with the party. To test our hypotheses, we focus on punitive immigration legislation that has the potential to increase the supply of immigrant detainees over the course of eight years. We find support for our second hypothesis, that private prison companies are more likely to reward House Democrats who cosponsor punitive immigration policies even after accounting for possible endogeneity. The findings have important implications regarding the relationship between House members and private interests.

Private Prisons and the Shift in Marketplace From the War on Drugs to the War on Terror

2018 ◽  
pp. 86-101
Author(s):  
Karina Moreno
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Support ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Private Prisons ◽  
Drug Law ◽  
Private Prison ◽  
States Immigration ◽  
Immigrant Detention ◽  
Prison Industry

This paper outlines the emergence of a new marketplace in the United States, immigration detention, especially after September 11th. This phenomenon is not limited to the United States, but is also observable in other countries as the result of the globalized economy. This paper first explains how the private prison industry adapted from shaping harsh drug law sentencing during the War on Drugs to now sponsoring legislative bills that target immigrants, the new “cash crop” for the private prison industry. Because of the securitization of immigration governance, politics of fear are easily used to justify and build public support for a tough stance on immigration. The end result is that immigrant detention is a highly lucrative and record-breaking profitable enterprise for private prison corporations, with little accountability in its treatment of immigrants and with more and more power in sponsoring and shaping legislation beneficial to their bottom line. Implications now that Trump, who ran a very xenophobic presidential campaign especially hostile to Mexicans and Muslims, are discussed.

Sweating the Vote: Heat and Abstention in the US House of Representatives

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (01) ◽  
pp. 74-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Cohen
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Voting Turnout ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
Summer Heat ◽  
The Us ◽  
Elite Level ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractSeveral recent studies noted systematic links between weather conditions and voting turnout amid the mass public. This article extends this logic to the elite level by exploring the relationship between summer heat and abstentions in the US House of Representatives. In controlled multivariate regressions, heat is a significant predictor of abstentions across all votes held between 1991 and 2000. This finding provides new insight into legislative behavior as well as the motivation behind some abstentions, which could inform the understanding of the literature on legislative shirking.

Private Prisons and the Shift in Marketplace From the War on Drugs to the War on Terror

2019 ◽  
pp. 260-275
Author(s):  
Karina Moreno
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Support ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Private Prisons ◽  
Drug Law ◽  
Private Prison ◽  
States Immigration ◽  
Immigrant Detention ◽  
Prison Industry

This paper outlines the emergence of a new marketplace in the United States, immigration detention, especially after September 11th. This phenomenon is not limited to the United States, but is also observable in other countries as the result of the globalized economy. This paper first explains how the private prison industry adapted from shaping harsh drug law sentencing during the War on Drugs to now sponsoring legislative bills that target immigrants, the new “cash crop” for the private prison industry. Because of the securitization of immigration governance, politics of fear are easily used to justify and build public support for a tough stance on immigration. The end result is that immigrant detention is a highly lucrative and record-breaking profitable enterprise for private prison corporations, with little accountability in its treatment of immigrants and with more and more power in sponsoring and shaping legislation beneficial to their bottom line. Implications now that Trump, who ran a very xenophobic presidential campaign especially hostile to Mexicans and Muslims, are discussed.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Role of the Speaker: Power, Institutional Development, and the Myth of the “Impartial Moderator” in the Early US House of Representatives

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
DANIEL PEART
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Party Government ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe early Speakers of the US House of Representatives, most historians and political scientists have agreed, aspired only to facilitate legislative business; the office served as an “impartial moderator,” its functions were “largely ceremonial,” and its occupants of no more consequence than a mere “traffic cop.” This article challenges that conclusion by presenting episodes from the tenures of four early Speakers—Jonathan Dayton, Theodore Sedgwick, Nathaniel Macon, and Joseph B. Varnum—to illustrate their contributions to debates that still occupy us today: the relationship between Congress and president; the scope of federal power; the extent of constitutional freedoms; and the functions and limitations of party government. At a moment when scholars are showing renewed interest in the historical mechanics of lawmaking, this article argues for reinserting the Speakership back into the heart of that process, where it has always belonged.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

Interaction of Ukrainian Diaspora and the USA Government Regarding Celebration of Ukrainian Independence Day on January 22

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (47) ◽  
pp. 136-145
Author(s):  
Halyna Shchyhelska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
The United States ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
The Public ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Us ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The Usa

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of Ukrainian independence. OnJanuary 22, 1918, the Ukrainian People’s Republic proclaimed its independence by adopting the IV Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada, although this significant event was «wiped out» from the public consciousness on the territory of Ukraine during the years of the Soviet totalitarian regime. At the same time, January 22 was a crucial event for the Ukrainian diaspora in the USA. This article examines how American Ukrainians interacted with the USA Government institutions regarding the celebration and recognition of the Ukrainian Independence day on January 22. The attention is focused on the activities of ethnic Ukrainians in the United States, directed at the organization of the special celebration of the Ukrainian Independence anniversaries in the US Congress and cities. Drawing from the diaspora press and Congressional Records, this article argues that many members of Congress participated in the observed celebration and expressed kind feelings to the Ukrainian people, recognised their fight for freedom, during the House of Representatives and Senate sessions. Several Congressmen submitted the resolutions in the US Congress urging the President of United States to designate January 22 as «Ukrainian lndependence Day». January 22 was proclaimed Ukrainian Day by the governors of fifteen States and mayors of many cities. Keywords: January 22, Ukrainian independence day, Ukrainian diaspora, USA, interaction, Congress

From Competition to Cooperation: A History of Canada–US National Park Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Young ◽  
Alan MacEachern ◽  
Lary Dilsaver
Keyword(s):  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Settler Societies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
The Relationship

This essay explores the evolving international relationship of the two national park agencies that in 1968 began to offer joint training classes for protected-area managers from around the world. Within the British settler societies that dominated nineteenth century park-making, the United States’ National Park Service (NPS) and Canada’s National Parks Branch were the most closely linked and most frequently cooperative. Contrary to campfire myths and nationalist narratives, however, the relationship was not a one-way flow of information and motivation from the US to Canada. Indeed, the latter boasted a park bureaucracy before the NPS was established. The relationship of the two nations’ park leaders in the half century leading up to 1968 demonstrates the complexity of defining the influences on park management and its diffusion from one country to another.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE US FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD AND THE INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING STANDARD SETTERS: 1973–2008

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Kirsch
Keyword(s):  
Accounting Standards ◽  
Financial Accounting ◽  
Working Relationships ◽  
International Accounting ◽  
International Accounting Standards ◽  
Financial Accounting Standards Board ◽  
Accounting Standard ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACT Utilizing archival materials as well as personal interviews and correspondence with personnel of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Committee/Board (IASC/B), including former Board chairmen and staff members, this paper examines the development of the working relationships between the FASB and the IASC/B from their earliest interactions in 1973 through the transformation of the IASC into the IASB and the Convergence Program rooted in the 2002 Norwalk Agreement up to 2008.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Grare
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Slow Pace ◽  
Centre Of Gravity ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
The Relationship

India’s relationship with the United States remains crucial to its own objectives, but is also ambiguous. The asymmetry of power between the two countries is such that the relationship, if potentially useful, is not necessary for the United States while potentially risky for India. Moreover, the shift of the political centre of gravity of Asia — resulting from the growing rivalry between China and the US — is eroding the foundations of India’s policy in Asia, while prospects for greater economic interaction is limited by India’s slow pace of reforms. The future of India-US relations lies in their capacity to evolve a new quid pro quo in which the US will formulate its expectations in more realistic terms while India would assume a larger share of the burden of Asia’ security.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document