Category Archives: Policy

The Politics of Punishment: Doing Time in Hard Times

Posted on June 21, 2010 by | 2 Comments

This is the title of a new APSA Working Group that will meet during this year’s meeting in DC. If you are not familiar with what a working group is, see the APSA description.

Here is the description of the agenda for this group. For a link to the page and instructions for registering (you must register to participate) look here.

“For quite some time, the number of political scientists working in the area of punishment/ incarceration has been small – both in absolute terms and relative to our cognate discipline of sociology. In the last 5-10 years, however, the number of political science graduate students and young faculty interested in the politics of punishment has grown markedly. The annual meeting panels, regrettably, have not yet reflected this growing interest and energy—given the limited numbers of proposals that can be accommodated within each of the relevant annual meeting sections. So over the last several years, a number of us have broached with each other the possibility of trying to initiate a working group to bring visibility to this burgeoning area of scholarship and to forge intellectual connections among the diverse individuals and groups of scholars writing on incarceration and punishment. This interest has crystallized this year and we are excited to propose a working group on the politics of punishment for the 2010 annual conference. Continue reading →

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Posted in Policy, Richard Fording, War on Drugs

New Data on Immigration Prosecutions

Posted on June 17, 2010 by | Comments Off

From TRAC:

After several months of moderation, U.S. federal immigration prosecutions have returned to the high levels of last summer. According to the most recent figures released by the Department of Justice, there were 8,287 immigration prosecutions in March 2010, up 30 percent from February and more than in any month since July 2009.

What’s the over/under on the “Arizona effect”? A year? Less?

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Posted in Andy, Data, Policy

Politics and state punitiveness …

Posted on June 11, 2010 by | Comments Off

Since Richard is guest blogging this summer, I thought it might be a good time to highlight some of our co-authored work. Below is the abstract of an article we wrote a while back; you can download the article here. We plan to do some follow up research on this topic in the near future.

Politics and State Punitiveness in Black and White

Abstract:
Recent findings from the literature on imprisonment policy suggest that in addition to traditional social and economic variables, imprisonment rates are also strongly related to changes in the state political environment. In this study, we extend this literature by testing a theory of state punitiveness which posits that (1) the political environment of states influences the degree to which they incarcerate their citizens, and (2) the political determinants of state punitiveness may be conditional upon the racial sub-population being incarcerated. Our results suggest that increases in state political conservatism in recent decades have contributed to increases in both the growth in black imprisonment rates and black imprisonment disparity (relative to whites), but that these effects are, to a degree, tempered by countervailing political conditions.

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Posted in Academia, Data, Jeff, Law, Policy, politics, Richard Fording, War on Drugs

Standards of legal proof reach new low …

Posted on June 4, 2010 by | Comments Off

At least in Ohio on speeding cases – check it out:

In Ohio, if a cop says it looked like you were speeding, he can write you a ticket – no proof needed. Makes things so much easier for law enforcement if they don’t have to be bothered with the burden of proof. True story.

The state’s supreme court ruled five-to-one that independent verification of a driver’s speed isn’t necessary… things like laser guns or radar or actually clocking how fast you’re going. The court says an officer’s visual estimate will work as long as the officer is trained, certified by a training academy and experienced in finding speeders.

Supporters say that officers undergo extensive training where they have to visually estimate the speed of vehicles within one or two miles per hour of the actual speed.

Nonetheless, law enforcement officials insist they won’t be getting rid of their speed guns; and that it’s rare for officers to give tickets based solely on their observations. But the state’s highest court says if they want to, it’s quite all right.

More here.

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Posted in Jeff, Law, Policy, politics

Gaining the Upper (White) Hand on Craigslist

Posted on June 3, 2010 by | Comments Off

In 1978, one of my favorite social scientists – William J. Wilson – published “The Declining Significance of Race” in which he argued that class barriers had become a more important obstacle to black progress than intentional racial discrimination. Perhaps this is true, but thirty years later, well-designed social science studies continue to report evidence of racial discrimination in various dimensions of social and economic life.

The latest evidence comes from a clever study by Jennifer Doleac and Luke Stein of Stanford, who investigated whether including photos of white, black or tattooed hands holding new iPod Nanos in online classified ads on Craigslist has an effect on the offers that prospective buyers make. The short answer: yes.

Read this very interesting story on AOL News (with a link to the original study)

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Posted in Policy, Richard Fording

Mass Imprisonment as a Public Health Concern?

Posted on May 27, 2010 by | Comments Off

At least that is the claim made by Christopher Wildeman, a sociologist at Yale University who has been conducting research on this topic for the last two years as a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar at the University of Michigan. While political scientists are generally more interested in the politics of imprisonment, a much larger literature now exists on the “spillover” or “collateral” effects of the imprisonment boom in the United States. Many studies have documented the effects of imprisonment on those who have been imprisoned. But Wildeman’s research suggests that these effects may go far beyond the lives of the prisoners, and may also include their families and children. The general argument is not new – many studies have documented the significant economic and psychological consequences of having a spouse and/or parent incarcerated. Indeed, it is not difficult to believe that having the father of your children imprisoned can cause significant financial and emotional stress for a young mother. But Wildeman’s research is the first to show that mass imprisonment can kill – literally. Continue reading →

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Posted in Courts, Policy, War on Drugs

Terrorism Enforcement Declines

Posted on May 25, 2010 by | Comments Off

New from TRAC:

The dramatic post 9/11 surge in prosecutions that the government categorized as terrorism has undergone a four-fold decline, according to TRAC’s analysis of data from the Department of Justice. The data show that terrorism and internal security filings in court have dropped from an average of about 100 a month at their peak shortly after the attacks to a current level of just under 25 a month.

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Posted in Andy, Data, Policy

A Nightmare During a Perfect Storm on Wall Street

Posted on May 12, 2010 by | Comments Off


The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
A Nightmare on Wall Street
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

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Posted in Andy, Policy

Sex, marriage, and divorce – red/blue style

Posted on May 2, 2010 by | Comments Off

In the National Journal Magazine, Jonathan Rauch discusses a new book on such socioeconomic trends in the states – Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture, by Naomi Cahn and June Carbon (Oxford University Press). Here’s an excerpt:

The country’s lowest divorce rate belongs to none other than Massachusetts, the original home of same-sex marriage. Palinites might wish that Massachusetts’s enviable marital stability were an anomaly, but it is not. The pattern is robust. States that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in both 2004 and 2008 boast lower average rates of divorce and teenage childbirth than do states that voted for the Republican in both elections. (That is using family data for 2006 and 2007, the latest available. Continue reading →

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Posted in Courts, Data, Jeff, Policy, politics, Pop Culture, Uncategorized

On the relationship between doctors and insurance companies

Posted on May 1, 2010 by | Comments Off

The NY Times carries an intriguing story on the increasingly uneasy relationship between doctors and the insurance companies who pay for their services. This comes on the heels of a revealing study which indicates that doctors are not pleased with the way their ability to practice medicine is affected by third parties. Some excerpts:

One colleague told me late one night, just a few months before she left medicine altogether, that she was proud of being a conscientious doctor who spent time with patients and thus could often avoid costly tests and referrals. “But look at me,” she said, the anger in her voice nearly palpable over the phone. “I’m at the office late every night taking care of mindless paperwork, just so the insurance companies can deny payment.”

For nearly three decades, editorials, online posts and surveys have noted this rising frustration and anger among practicing physicians. But over the last two years, the pot of emotions seems to have boiled over. In all the recent discussions about health care reform, what had heretofore played out only beyond earshot of the exam room suddenly was very public: the tangled, uneasy and often antagonistic relationship between practicing doctors and the insurance companies who pay for the services they deliver.

As a primary care doctor posted recently on Sermo, among the nation’s largest online physician communities: “We are our own worst enemies, as we have allowed insurance companies and Medicare to set the value of our services. Clearly those values they impose have nothing to do with our contribution to the health of our patients or the cost savings we bring about.”

and then there’s the administrative red tape:

These canaries may be right. Last year, a study published in the health policy journal Health Affairs found that physicians in private practice on average spent nearly three weeks in time and $68,000 in staffing per year dealing with the particular administrative constraints of third-party payers. Doctors who were specialists could better afford to support these costs; but primary care physicians devoted as much as a third of their average yearly income (including benefits) to these interactions with the various health plans.

Check out the rest here.

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Posted in Jeff, Policy, Uncategorized

Free market higher ed?

Posted on March 17, 2010 by | Comments Off

The NYTimes has an interesting story on trade schools – it is especially interesting in a time in which state higher education system are being criticized and have suffered at the hand of state legislatures. Here’s an excerpt:

At institutions that train students for careers in areas like health care, computers and food service, enrollments are soaring as people anxious about weak job prospects borrow aggressively to pay tuition that can exceed $30,000 a year.

But the profits have come at substantial taxpayer expense while often delivering dubious benefits to students, according to academics and advocates for greater oversight of financial aid. Critics say many schools exaggerate the value of their degree programs, selling young people on dreams of middle-class wages while setting them up for default on untenable debts, low-wage work and a struggle to avoid poverty. And the schools are harvesting growing federal student aid dollars, including Pell grants awarded to low-income students.

As an aside, I had no idea that trade schools charged that much for tuition. See the rest of the story here.

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Posted in Academia, Jeff, Policy, politics

Trust in government and real income increases

Posted on February 21, 2010 by | Comments Off

The Monkey Cage has an interesting post on this relationship – here’s an excerpt:

Of course the economy is not the only important factor. But it gets far less attention than it deserves when the hand-wringing begins. So, sure, perhaps we can and should tinker with the political process. Clip lobbyists’ wings. Get leaders to make nicey-nicey with the opposite party. But the process is less important than outcomes. More people will trust the government again when times are good, even if government ain’t.

See the rest of the post here. I’d be willing to trust in government more for some real income increase – that and maybe changing a few other things that annoy me ;-)

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Posted in Data, Jeff, Policy, politics

Getting elected – what Google can do for you (or to you)

Posted on February 19, 2010 by | Comments Off

Want to get elected? Get the power of Google behind you – just ask Scott Brown of Massachusetts.  As elections become increasingly web dependent, Google is poised to be a power player and offers some compelling advantages given its top spot in the search engine marketplace. See more on this on Madisonian.net blog. Want more? Check out the Google Policy Blog’s top 5 strategies for political campaigns: Continue reading →

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Posted in Data, Jeff, Policy, politics, Pop Culture, Uncategorized

Unemployment is Only Part of the Problem

Posted on February 16, 2010 by | Comments Off

Calculated Risk has an excellent graphic on the unemployment/underemployment/reserve labor force problem by income band.

Tell me a story about the political implications of this breakdown. My guess: big loss of seats at midterm. Check out the gradient on intrade’s “Republicans to control the House after 2010 elections” graphic.

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Posted in Andy, Policy, politics

Can the economic crises permanently affect behaviors and prospects?

Posted on February 14, 2010 by | Comments Off

Of course it can … one need only consult parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents who came up during the Great Depression to witness such enduring behaviors. A recent study detailed in The Atlantic provides more systemic evidence:

But in fact a whole generation of young adults is likely to see its life chances permanently diminished by this recession. Lisa Kahn, an economist at Yale, has studied the impact of recessions on the lifetime earnings of young workers. In one recent study, she followed the career paths of white men who graduated from college between 1979 and 1989. She found that, all else equal, for every one-percentage-point increase in the national unemployment rate, the starting income of new graduates fell by as much as 7 percent; the unluckiest graduates of the decade, who emerged into the teeth of the 1981–82 recession, made roughly 25 percent less in their first year than graduates who stepped into boom times. Continue reading →

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Posted in Jeff, Policy, Pop Culture

Poverty and Public Policy

Posted on February 12, 2010 by | Comments Off

A request in the inbox:

Dear colleagues,

We would like to kindly ask for your signature in support of the establishment of a Poverty and Public Policy Caucus to be registered as one of the independent groups related to the American Political Science Association. This effort comes in conjunction with the launching of one of our newest journals, Poverty and Public Policy, under the editorship of Dr. Max Skidmore at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and published for us by Berkeley Electronic Press. The journal is available online at www.psocommons.org/ppp

Having an organized group around the topic of Poverty and Public Policy will enable us to have panel allocations and other events at the annual meetings of the APSA, which we hope will in turn raise awareness and increase the flow of material concerning public policy and its key role in fighting poverty worldwide.

If you are a registered APSA member and wish to add your signature in support of establishing the Poverty and Public Policy Caucus, please send an email with your contact information to Dr. Skidmore at skidmorem@everestkc.net

Sincerely,

Dr. Paul Rich
President
Policy Studies Organization
Washington DC

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Posted in Andy, Policy

DIY Tax Auditing Prediction

Posted on February 3, 2010 by | Comments Off

Via Bargaineering:

In 2006, they published a page on the IRS.gov website that details exactly how they determined which tax returns to audit. It comes down to these four main ways (for individuals):

  • Computer Scoring – I listed this one first because it’s the most interesting of the four reasons. Tax returns are “scored” using two systems – Discriminant Function System (DIF) and Unreported Income DIF (UIDIF). The Discriminant Information Function System (DIF) score gives the IRS an indication of the potential for change in tax due, based on past IRS experience. The Unreported Income DIF (UIDIF), as you can imagine, scores the return on the potential for unreported income. The higher the score, for either, the more likely the return will be reviewed.
  • Information Matching – This is an obvious reason because it’s the easiest to catch. The IRS receives the same W-2s and 1099s that you do, so it’s trivial for them to compare the two totals. If they don’t match, they investigate.
  • Related Examinations – Beware who your friends/business contacts are! If their returns are audited and their return includes transactions with you, your return may be audited as well.
  • Potential participants in abusive tax avoidance transactions – The IRS may get information about promoters of and participants in various schemes and select a return for audit based on that information.

For those interested in a more scientific approach, see this classic in the JEL from Andreoni, et al.

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Posted in Andy, Law, Policy

Introducing guest blogger Eileen Braman

Posted on November 16, 2009 by | Comments Off

Eileen Braman

 

Please welcome to the Voir Dire blog, our guest, Professor Eileen Braman. Eileen is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Indiana, Bloomington. She earned her J.D. at Fordham University School of Law in 1996 and her Ph.D. at the Ohio State University in 2004. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Politics, the American Journal of Political Science, and Politics & Religion, among other outlets. She has recently published Law, Politics, and Perception: How Policy Preferences Influence Legal Reasoning with the University of Virginia Press. We look forward to reading her posts :-)

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Posted in Academia, Courts, Jeff, Law, Policy, politics

Evidence based medicine?

Posted on November 8, 2009 by | Comments Off

If you can pry yourself away from C-Span and the healthcare debate for a moment, the NYT Magazine has an article this week that addresses, arguably, an even more fundamental aspect of medicine – how it’s performed and how care decisions are made. The recent rise in interest in “evidence based medicine” has been perhaps curiously controversial (at least to me) since the inverse situation would seem to be “non-evidence based medicine”. Okay, to be fair, it would more likely be “intuition and personal experience”.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Data, Jeff, Policy, politics

FDIC Independence

Posted on November 5, 2009 by | 1 Comment

The Park National shutdown occurred after several Illinois congressmen, including Reps. Bobby Rush and Danny Davis and Sen. Roland Burris, called the FDIC asking it to delay closing the bank for at least a week, said Marilyn Katz, a bank spokeswoman.

and

Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.) told [FDIC Chairwoman] Ms. Bair he wasn’t “convinced that the FDIC isn’t contributing to the awful problems that we’re having” in his state, where 20 banks have failed in 2009. The banks “dot every ‘i’ and they cross every ‘t’ and then the knock comes on the door on Friday afternoon,” he told her.

HT CalculatedRisk.

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Posted in Andy, Policy

Introducing the new US Supreme Court Database Website!

Posted on November 3, 2009 by | Comments Off

Washington University professor Andrew Martin and his collaborators have recently released their US Supreme Court Database website. It updates, enhances, and streamlines Spaeth’s original data set. This project looks to be a significant development in the field and  a very useful and reliable resource for law and courts scholars interested in studying SCOTUS. The website can be found here, and Andrew’s formal announcement is available below the fold.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Academia, Courts, Data, Grants, Jeff, Law, Methods, Policy, politics

Introducing guest blogger, Melinda Gann Hall

Posted on October 27, 2009 by | Comments Off

Dear Voir Dire readers, please join me in welcoming professor Melinda Gann Hall to our blog. While she needs     no introduction, I’ll provide a little bio information for anyone who is doesn’t follow law and courts or state           politics work and is therefore unfamiliar with her scholarship. Melinda earned her Ph.D. at the University of    New  Orleans    in 1983 and is now Professor and Distinguished Faculty at Michigan State University, department  of  political  science.

Her publications, awards, and professional leadership positions are too numerous to list here, but you can find her vitae here. She (along with Chris Bonneau) has recently penned a book, In Defense of Judicial Elections and she is also a co-creator (with Paul Brace) of the well-known State Supreme Court Data Project, funded by NSF. We look forward to her posts and I am sure that you will enjoy her insights.

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Posted in Academia, Courts, Data, Grants, Jeff, Law, Policy, politics

Hawaii and healthcare

Posted on October 17, 2009 by | Comments Off

The New York Times reports on the Hawaii healthcare system and how it compares against the rest of the nation. Since 1974 the state has required all employers to provide healthcare benefits to any employee working twenty hours a week or more. As the chart at the left indicates this situation has not led to an explosion in health care costs.

“But perhaps the most intriguing lesson from Hawaii has to do with costs. This is a state where regular milk sells for $8 a gallon, gasoline costs $3.60 a gallon and the median price of a home in 2008 was $624,000 — the second-highest in the nation. Despite this, Hawaii’s health insurance premiums are nearly tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country, and Medicare costs per beneficiary are the nation’s lowest.

Hawaii residents live longer than people in the rest of the country, recent surveys have shown, and the state’s health care system may be one reason. In one example, Hawaii has the nation’s highest incidence of breast cancer but the lowest death rate from the disease.”

But the system is certainly not perfect:

“There are clear problems with Hawaii’s system. Hospitals on the outer islands are small and losing money. With unemployment rising, so, too, are the ranks of the uninsured — which is now 10.7 percent of nonelderly adults. Only Massachusetts has a lower share of uninsured adults, and the national share is 20.4 percent. And there is growing evidence that as the economy has slowed and premiums have risen, employers have hired more part-time workers who are ineligible for benefits.”

It might be interesting to hear what Hawaiian policy makers think of the proposals currently circulating in DC. Given the state’s success, it is rather surprising that other states haven’t done more experimenting with such a system.

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Posted in Jeff, Law, Policy, politics, Presidency

Enron Redux

Posted on September 24, 2009 by | Comments Off

A 2001 paper worth reading from Vince Kaminski and John Martin:

And in what may well be a unique feature in corporate America, Enron’s top management today uses its human capital flows to guide its allocations of financial capital.

Gotta love hindsight. Kaminski was a main quant at Enron. Some say he tried, but ultimately failed, to avert Enron’s collapse.

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Posted in Andy, Policy

Protecting insurance companies ‘PSA’

Posted on September 23, 2009 by | Comments Off

A good ‘public service announcement’ from the folks at “Funny or Die” with a lot of TV faces you might recognize. Somehow it’s kind of funny to see ad executive Don Draper taking a poke at insurance executives – still works though – but doesn’t everything John Hamm seem just a little better? [hat tip Rorie Spill Solberg on FB]

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Posted in Jeff, Law, Policy, politics, Pop Culture, Presidency

Coming to a City Near You

Posted on September 19, 2009 by | Comments Off

Podcars and Skytrans.

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Posted in Andy, Policy

Richard Florida on the Geography of Income Change

Posted on September 18, 2009 by | Comments Off

Richard Florida blogs on the geography of income change.

On the other hand, two states saw income losses of 10 percent or more – Vermont (-10.3 percent) and New Jersey (-10.1 percent); and incomes declined by more than five percent in two others – Georgia (-6.4 percent) and Tennessee (- 5.1 percent).

Ouch. Florida and California took big hits, too, but the hits were small relative to the base. Imagine if those states took sizeable income hits – and then the impending Option ARM crisis happened? Yikes, we’d be looking at >40% foreclosures in that market segment, and 40% is bad enough.

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Posted in Andy, Data, Policy

More Nudging

Posted on September 14, 2009 by | Comments Off

The WSJ talks about nudges for making society better (and making money for businesses):

Since April 2008, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District has told 35,000 customers in their monthly bills how their energy use compares with neighbors’, and with the district’s most-efficient customers. Customers who received the additional information cut their energy use by 2%, compared with a similar group of users who didn’t get comparison data.

Last month, the district expanded the test to cover 50,000 households. Ali Crawford, a district project manager, says officials want to see if the comparison approach reduces energy use more than direct appeals to consumers’ wallets, such as offering rebates on the purchase of energy-efficient appliances.

2% is a big effect for a very cheap intervention.

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Posted in Andy, Policy

Apparently things aren’t *too* bad at some state universities

Posted on September 10, 2009 by | 1 Comment

In the midst of furloughs and massive cut backs at many state schools, the University of Alabama’s announcement of Nick Saban’s 42.35 million dollar coaching contract is almost humorous … almost. The Faculty Lounge details the announcement here. But college sports pay for everything else at the university, right? As you may recall we already dealt with this question.

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Posted in Academia, Jeff, Policy, Pop Culture, Uncategorized

Holding narratives accountable

Posted on September 1, 2009 by | Comments Off

Professor Linda Edwards (UNLV Law) has recently posted “Once Upon a Time in Law: Myth, Metaphor, and Authority” on SSRN. In the paper, she evaluates the use of narratives in legal authority and suggests that narratives are pervasive in the law and that we should learn to recognize their presence and hold them accountable by probing and questioning their factual accuracy, appropriateness, and utility. It is likely that her basic approach would provide useful leverage in analyzing domestic policy making, international politics, and even interpersonal relationships — all environments in which the use of narratives are plentiful — and perhaps sometimes questionable. [hat tip to Legal Theory Blog] The abstract is provided below the fold.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Academia, Courts, Jeff, Law, Methods, Policy, politics, Pop Culture

Decriminalization in Mexico

Posted on August 24, 2009 by | Comments Off

Apparently Mexico is experimenting with drug decriminalization and a number of popular drugs are legal to possess – as depicted in the above photo (showing roughly the amount you can legally possess). More here.

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Posted in Jeff, Law, Policy, politics

A “grass” roots movement for marijuana legalization?

Posted on August 11, 2009 by | 1 Comment

David Simon comments on the growing movement on Prawfs Blawg. Perhaps most interesting is his observation that since the medical marijuana laws require ailments for which almost everyone over 45 qualifies, marijuana could soon become an old person’s drug. Maybe this movement needs to start holding town hall meetings on legalization. They could be held at the same time as the healthcare policy town hall meetings – side by side. At the end of the day, we’d have no healthcare policy, but no one would care and they’d all be a little hungry and giggly.

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Posted in Jeff, Law, Policy, politics, Pop Culture

Getting bang for your (academic degree) buck

Posted on July 19, 2009 by | Comments Off

In which states is it most useful to get a college degree? Paul Caron blogs on the relative productivity of state  higher education programs here. But below is the handy dandy chart:

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Posted in Academia, Jeff, Policy

‘For the times they are a changin’ – explaining justice drift

Posted on July 15, 2009 by | Comments Off

I recently posted on SSRN a paper by myself and two Georgia graduate students, Brian Levey and Justin Moeller. The title is: “For The Times They Are A Changin: Explaining U.S. Supreme Court Justices’ Voting Through Identification of Micro-Publics.” The abstract is available below the fold:

Continue reading →

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Posted in Academia, Courts, Data, Jeff, Law, Methods, Policy, politics

The Place of Women on the Court

Posted on July 12, 2009 by | Comments Off

In today’s New York Times Magazine, Emily Bazelon has a very interesting interview with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – a small sample below the fold:

Continue reading →

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Posted in Courts, Jeff, Law, Policy, politics, Pop Culture, Presidency

Howard Dean on American healthcare …

Posted on July 8, 2009 by | Comments Off

… in Esquire magazine. A sample below the fold.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Jeff, Policy, politics, Presidency

On the new legal economy

Posted on June 30, 2009 by | Comments Off

Two interesting things to examine on the new legal economy:

First, Bill Henderson has a very interesting post on ELS. Check out the differences in salary distribution in 1991 and 2007 that he documents and discusses:

Second, a very intriguing take on the latest developments of the legal economy downturn for big firms and the downturn’s ramifications can be found on Law Shucks (hat tip Nancy Rapoport). The site describes itself as “a self-deprecating look at life in and after BigLaw.”

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Posted in Jeff, Law, Other, Policy

Lack of Judges Caused Immigration Backlog

Posted on June 20, 2009 by | Comments Off

We don’t often talk about case processing issues in the courts, but TRAC cares about it. Their new report finds:

that the failure to increase immigration judges — promised by the Bush Administration in the summer of 2006 — contributed to a substantial jump in the number of backlogged cases in the Immigration Courts.

and

that the waiting time required to dispose of the cases — many of them involving detained aliens — has grown much longer.

Here’s the report.

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Posted in Andy, Courts, Law, Policy

The Joy of Less

Posted on June 12, 2009 by | Comments Off

In the NYT this week:

If you’re the kind of person who prefers freedom to security, who feels more comfortable in a small room than a large one and who finds that happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs, then running to stand still isn’t where your joy lies. In New York, a part of me was always somewhere else, thinking of what a simple life in Japan might be like. Now I’m there, I find that I almost never think of Rockefeller Center or Park Avenue at all.

The return of simplicity? I think it’s a hollow hope. Credit will return, eventually.

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Posted in Andy, Policy

Data from Nixon’s Agency

Posted on June 9, 2009 by | Comments Off

From TRAC:

In cases where the DEA is the lead investigative agency, there are significant geographic variations in the rates at which individuals convicted of criminal offenses get sent to prison. According to Justice Department data obtained and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse and just published on TRAC’s DEA website, in the Northern District of West Virgina (Wheeling) 65.6% of convictions in such cases resulted in prison terms in 2008. In New York West (Buffalo) the rate was 71.1%.

On the other hand, in nine districts fully 100% of all convictions in such cases resulted in prison terms. These were: Alabama Middle (Montgomery), Illinois South (East St. Louis), Illinois Central (Springfield), Michigan West (Grand Rapids), Nebraska (Omaha), North Dakota (Fargo), Oklahoma East (Muskogee), Rhode Island (Providence) and Wisconsin West (Madison). Nationally, the rate was 94.6%.

Note that in determining whether prison sentences are imposed in such cases, key factors include the kinds of matters the DEA investigators recommended for prosecution and the resulting agreements reached by the defendants and the assistant U.S attorneys about the charges that ultimately are brought against them. In other words, the discretionary powers of the district judges may be much less important than is generally understood.

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Posted in Andy, Data, Policy

Issue agenda setting on SCOTUS

Posted on June 8, 2009 by | Comments Off

Our paper, “Agenda Setting, Issue Priorities and Organizational Maintenance: The U.S. Supreme Court, 1955 to 1994″ (c0-authored with William Gillespie) is now available for download on Social Science Research Network here. The abstract is available after the jump:

Continue reading →

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Posted in Academia, Courts, Data, Jeff, Law, Methods, Policy, politics, Presidency

Jack Donaghy on Detroit

Posted on May 23, 2009 by | Comments Off

On the Huffington Post,  Jack “30 Rock” Donaghy (ok, actually it’s just Alec Baldwin) goes off on Detroit automakers and Congress. It’s quite informative and entertaining. Here’s a taste:

The heads of these corporations did not spend the last thirty years lying in bed each night, sleepless. They did not turn their spouses in the wee hours and say, “How do I serve the automotive needs of the American public and better protect their health and safety AND help them conserve energy?” They never said that.

Instead, they spent billions of dollars attempting to bribe the Congress to avoid putting in seat belts and air bags, installing catalytic converters and reaching more ambitious fuel efficiency standards. For the most part, they succeeded. Congress approached those issues with the same combination of sentiment, fealty and fear that Detroit’s customers accepted. It was said to be “bad for Detroit.” Little did we know that falling for that bull for so long was what was bad for Detroit. Now, the American automotive industry, once the industrial pride of this country and a source of so many great paying jobs that changed the economic fortunes of millions of Americans in assembly, parts, dealerships and service, is about to go away.

But what would Kenneth do?

In the interest of balanced media I present Kim Jong-il’s view of Mr. Baldwin:

But I must give Baldwin the chance to respond (look for it at about 1:25 into the clip):

[hat tip to Law and Letters Blog]

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Posted in Jeff, Policy, politics, Pop Culture

Dorf on the future of graduate/professional programs and “Great Research Universities”

Posted on April 27, 2009 by | Comments Off

Michael Dorf’s blog includes an interesting post that touches on a lot of related, yet distinct concerns (grad school, tenure, viability of Great Research Universities, etc.). I will touch on just two. First, the referenced NYT article makes an important point about the graduate school model and its possible need of revision. Especially compelling is this idea that you are taking graduate students’ time, effort, and possibly money and they are left largely unemployable.

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Posted in Academia, Jeff, Law, Policy, politics

On the future of state courts research

Posted on April 17, 2009 by | Comments Off

I recently posted on SSRN an early version of a short essay that is forthcoming at Justice System Journal, “On The Future of State Courts Research.” The essay emanates from a panel at last year’s American Political Science Association meeting in which the participants discussed trends and concerns in the study of state courts. The panel was put together by Steve Wasby (SUNY Albany) and included myself, Melinda Gann Hall (MSU), Matthew Kleiman (National Center For State Courts),David Steelman (National Center For State Courts), Matthew Streb (NIU), and Alan Tarr (Rutgers-Camden). Here’s a small excerpt below the fold:

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Posted in Academia, Conferences, Courts, Jeff, Law, Methods, Policy, politics

Recent shift in racial incarceration disparity

Posted on April 15, 2009 by | Comments Off

A recent study found that the nation is experiencing a shift in racial incarceration disparity – minority incarceration rates are down and white incarceration rates are up. The primary reasons cited are the development of drug courts and the recent escalation of meth use and dealing. See the Faculty Lounge for more on this. However, the study might want to consider the effects of policy agenda setting and enforcement examined in our recent paper on racial enforcement disparity or another paper  of mine that focuses on legal changes in the war on drugs that differentially affect immigrants. (See also, a subsequent opinion by SCOTUS on this topic).

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Posted in Academia, Courts, Data, Jeff, Law, Policy, politics

What is the “King of Careers” now?

Posted on April 12, 2009 by | Comments Off

A New York Times article questions what will take the place of finance for the nation’s “best and brightest” after the fall of Wall Street. Apparently, the economic downturn has driven more undergraduates into public administration  and government programs than in days past: 

Graduate schools of government and public policy are seeing a surge of applications. In a survey of its members released last week, the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration found that 82 percent reported an increase in applications this year, and many saw the largest percentage jumps in several years, or ever. The most-cited reason was the expectation by students that government will be hiring.

Still, the appeal of public sector careers extends beyond job openings, say school officials. The laissez-faire presumption that government is not the solution but the problem, dating back to the Reagan era, has been cast aside, they say.

The government’s need to step in with financial bailouts and recovery programs to steady the economy is seen as the immediate proof, they say, but not the only one. The environment, energy and health care also pose huge, complex challenges. “Young people today understand that government has a powerful role to play in solving these problems,” said Sandra Archibald, dean of the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, where applications this year are up 26 percent.

Government school officials also point to an Obama effect: his election as an endorsement of government activism.

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Posted in Academia, Jeff, Policy, politics

Building a better legal profession?

Posted on April 10, 2009 by | Comments Off

Simple Justice blog reports a recent conference on the “building a better legal profession” movement. Here’s an excerpt (quote from the National Law Journal) that briefs it well:

Gathering at Stanford Law School over the weekend, about 50 students from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford and other premier law schools were part of Building a Better Legal Profession’s National Conference of Student Leaders. The two-day event focused on changing what were often painted as the evil ways of big law firms and included presentations and discussion from well-known practitioners and professors. 

The goal of Building a Better Legal Profession (BBLP) is to create collective action among students and associates from top schools to prod large law firms to implement what it says are significant changes needed in billable hour requirements, diversity and the commitment to pro bono work. Their hope is that students and associates from the best schools will not accept jobs at firms that do not change their ways.

I don’t know quite what to make of this – the goals are laudable, change is needed and I like collective action (when it suits me of course), but the timing is very odd and it seems a bit self important and “whiner-ish”. Does this group really have that much leverage? Are they willing to accept lower pay for some of these goals? Are clients willing to subsidize pro bono work?

Perhaps more central to the situation is the matter of diversity? How broadly do they define it? If you want true diversity, then it probably entails recruiting from more than just 15 schools – thus undercutting these students’ leverage.

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Posted in Academia, Conferences, Courts, Jeff, Law, Policy

Race in the War on Drugs: The Social Consequences of Presidential Rhetoric

Posted on April 3, 2009 by | Comments Off

The Voir Dire team has recently publicly posted on the Social Science Research Network their paper from the Empirical Legal Studies conference, “Race in the War on Drugs: The Social Consequences of Presidential Rhetoric.”  The abstract is available below the fold.

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Posted in Academia, Andy, Conferences, Courts, Data, Jeff, Law, Methods, Other, Policy, politics, Presidency

Judicial decision making and the “Foxermeasaluppycat”

Posted on April 1, 2009 by | 1 Comment

Last week I attended the “What’s Law Got To Do With It?” conference on judicial decision making, hosted by Indiana School of Law. I encourage you to check out the above hyperlinked website for the conference since it provides many of the papers that were presented. The conference was put together by Charlie Geyh and others at Indiana law  and Charlie also acted as the conference master of ceremonies. In providing some introductory comments for the conference Charlie suggested an aggregated judicial animal to represent the different schools of thought on the nature of judicial decision making. His animal is named the Foxermeasaluppycat.

I imagine some explanation is in order. I will only give a very brief explanation here, Charlie can chime in if he’d like. 

The Fox = the strategic judicial actor who seeks to get his or her preferred outcomes brought to fruition through sophisticated, forward thinking actions.

The Ermine = the judicial actor who seeks to follow the rule of law. The idea here is that in jolly old England a number of politicians wore robes, but only the judges had ermine trimmed robes – suggesting that they were different from other government actors and above politics – they faithfully followed the requirements of law and outcomes reflected their understanding of what the law demands.

The Weasel = the judicial actor whose decision making reflects their underlying world views or attitudes (aka the Attitudinal model). As we know, an ermine is just the fancier type of the lowly weasel. Whether this means that judges see facts and law through the colored lens of their world view (and decide accordingly) or simply seek to implement their policy preferences through their position of power (perhaps “low politics”?) is debatable, but the idea is that outcomes are correlated with judicial ideology.

The Puppy = This judicial actor cares very much about how he or she is perceived and regarded. Like the young dog, they want to know that others think well of them and are concerned with providing decisions that foster good will with the public and other political actors.

The Cat = This judicial actor cares about their specific self interest and personal advancement. This view is rooted in economic theories of judicial behavior and is distinguishable from the Fox. So, for instance, a judge might rule in a certain way so as to facilitate their advancement in the judicial ranks.

And there you have it … the Foxermeasaluppycat. Certainly, not everyone will agree with any given one or combination of these theories of how judges make decisions. Indeed, one of the high points of the conference was the opportunity to hear some esteemed judges thoughtfully respond to academics’ ideas of how judicial decisions are made. While, unfortunately, their remarks are not available on the webpage, I will assure you that they made some very, very good points and were also quite entertaining. In the end I hope that both judges and academics learned something valuable.

Update: I understand that the videotaped conference proceedings may be made available on the conference website in the near future and that the papers and judge remarks will be forthcoming in book form.

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Posted in Academia, Conferences, Courts, Data, Jeff, Law, Methods, Policy, politics

Your brain on the War on Drugs

Posted on March 10, 2009 by | Comments Off

This is a really funny cartoon attached to an interesting post on the ACS Blog. To be fair, I think that you could insert just about any government policy you wanted in the second panel of the cartoon and it would be just as funny.

 

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Posted in Jeff, Policy, Pop Culture, Presidency