The polarization of the judiciary

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 657-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A Sennewald ◽  
Kenneth L Manning ◽  
Robert A Carp
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Bimodal Distribution ◽  
The United States ◽  
District Court ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
District Courts ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The 1960S

The polarization of political parties in the United States is a well-documented phenomenon. This paper considers polarization of the judicial branch and relates it to the evolution of the parties. In this paper we define polarization specifically as movement from a modal distribution (of votes, attitudes, or decisions) to a bimodal distribution along a liberal-conservative spectrum over time. Using data compiled from 90,000 United States District Court decisions published in the Federal Supplement between 1934 and 2008, we find that the judiciary began to polarize in the 1960s and has remained polarized. We consider a number of competing explanations for the polarization of the district courts, including a top-down view that emphasizes presidential power and a bottom-up view that focuses on the sorting of elites that form the pool of potential judges.

U.S. Government Burdens on the Exercise of Traditional Religions: Two Cases Provide Conflicting Interpretations

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-396
Author(s):  
Thomas F. King
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
District Court ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Circuit Court ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
Traditional Religions ◽  
Indigenous Religions

AbstractTwo court decisions highlight divergent opinions as to what constitutes a “substantial burden” on the practice of traditional indigenous religions in the United States. One decision, in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, effectively defines the term in such a way as to discriminate against indigenous religious practices; the other, by a district court in the 10th Circuit based on other holdings by that circuit court, gives much more latitude for protecting such practices and the landscapes they often involve.

Jimmo and the Improvement Standard: Implementing Medicare Coverage Through Regulations, Policy Manuals and other Guidance

2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer E. Gladieux ◽  
Michael Basile
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
District Court ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Medicare Reimbursement ◽  
Outpatient Therapy ◽  
Administrative Procedure ◽  
Medicare Coverage ◽  
Summary Judgment ◽  
Therapy Treatment

In Jimmo v. Sebelius, the plaintiffs alleged that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regularly and improperly denied Medicare reimbursement for outpatient therapy treatment when the beneficiary did not show a likelihood of improvement. These denials, based on policy manuals and other guidance, appear to contradict the government's own regulations, which specifically prohibit coverage denials based solely on the so-called “Improvement Standard.” In Jimmo, the United States District Court for the District of Vermont found that CMS' use of the Improvement Standard may have violated the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and denied CMS' motion for summary judgment. Subsequently, the parties settled out of court.In the settlement, CMS agreed to revise its policy manuals to clarify that the Improvement Standard was not an acceptable basis on which to deny Medicare coverage. CMS declined to defend its policies even though courts often grant deference to agency interpretations. The settlement implies that the agency feared that it would not have received such deference. It also implies that future Supreme Court decisions may give less deference to agency interpretations.

Winning May Not Be Everything, But It's More than We Thought: Presidential Party Activists in 1980

1983 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 945-956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter J. Stone ◽  
Alan I. Abramowitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Strong Preference ◽  
Partial Replication ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Presidential Nomination ◽  
National Convention ◽  
Party Activists ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The 1960S

Recent studies of party activists in the United States have shown an influx of issue-oriented activists into the presidential nominating process since the 1960s. These new activists are described as dogmatic ideologues more interested in promoting their issue concerns than in nominating an electable candidate. Based on our survey of 17,628 delegates attending party conventions in 11 states during the 1980 Democratic and Republican presidential nomination campaigns, we show that activists in both parties weighed electability more heavily than ideology in choosing a party nominee. This finding is in sharp contrast to a strong preference among these same activists for ideological purity over electability when they are presented with questions, typical of past studies, that pose the trade-off only in very general and abstract terms. A partial replication using data from the CPS survey of delegates to the 1972 Democratic national convention supports our findings and leads us to assert that previous studies have underestimated the concern of contemporary party activists with winning.

Migration and the Internet

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas John Cooke ◽  
Ian Shuttleworth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Unobserved Heterogeneity ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Using Data ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Dynamics Models

It is widely presumed that information and communication technologies, or ICTs, enable migration in several ways; primarily by reducing the costs of migration. However, a reconsideration of the relationship between ICTs and migration suggests that ICTs may just as well hinder migration; primarily by reducing the costs of not moving.  Using data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics, models that control for sources of observed and unobserved heterogeneity indicate a strong negative effect of ICT use on inter-state migration within the United States. These results help to explain the long-term decline in internal migration within the United States.

Having Their Say, Leaving Their Mark

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-153
Author(s):  
Adolphus G. Belk ◽  
Robert C. Smith ◽  
Sherri L. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Adverse Conditions ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Independent Organization

In general, the founders of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists were “movement people.” Powerful agents of socialization such as the uprisings of the 1960s molded them into scholars with tremendous resolve to tackle systemic inequalities in the political science discipline. In forming NCOBPS as an independent organization, many sought to develop a Black perspective in political science to push the boundaries of knowledge and to use that scholarship to ameliorate the adverse conditions confronting Black people in the United States and around the globe. This paper utilizes historical documents, speeches, interviews, and other scholarly works to detail the lasting contributions of the founders and Black political scientists to the discipline, paying particular attention to their scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and civic engagement. It finds that while political science is much improved as a result of their efforts, there is still work to do if their goals are to be achieved.

Congress and the Political Expansion of the United States District Courts

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M.P. de Figueiredo ◽  
Gerald S. Gryski ◽  
Emerson H. Tiller ◽  
Gary Zuk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
District Courts

scholarly journals Challenges in Bridge Health Monitoring: A Review

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 4336
Author(s):  
Piervincenzo Rizzo ◽  
Alireza Enshaeian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Monitoring ◽  
Highway Bridges ◽  
The United States ◽  
Anomalous Behavior ◽  
Existing Structures ◽  
Bridge Health Monitoring ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Many ◽  
Major Factors

Bridge health monitoring is increasingly relevant for the maintenance of existing structures or new structures with innovative concepts that require validation of design predictions. In the United States there are more than 600,000 highway bridges. Nearly half of them (46.4%) are rated as fair while about 1 out of 13 (7.6%) is rated in poor condition. As such, the United States is one of those countries in which bridge health monitoring systems are installed in order to complement conventional periodic nondestructive inspections. This paper reviews the challenges associated with bridge health monitoring related to the detection of specific bridge characteristics that may be indicators of anomalous behavior. The methods used to detect loss of stiffness, time-dependent and temperature-dependent deformations, fatigue, corrosion, and scour are discussed. Owing to the extent of the existing scientific literature, this review focuses on systems installed in U.S. bridges over the last 20 years. These are all major factors that contribute to long-term degradation of bridges. Issues related to wireless sensor drifts are discussed as well. The scope of the paper is to help newcomers, practitioners, and researchers at navigating the many methodologies that have been proposed and developed in order to identify damage using data collected from sensors installed in real structures.

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