As the U.S. Congress has steadily evolved since the Founding of our nation, so too has our understanding of the institution. The second edition of New Directions in Congressional Politics offers an ...accessible overview of the current developments in our understanding of America's legislative branch. Jamie L. Carson and Michael S. Lynch help students bridge the gap between roles, rules, and outcomes by focusing on a variety of thematic issues: the importance of electoral considerations, legislators' strategic behavior to accomplish objectives, the unique challenges of Congress as a bicameral institution in a polarized environment, and the often-overlooked policy outputs of the institution.
This book brings together leading scholars of Congress to provide a general overview of the entire field. Each chapter covers the cutting-edge developments on its respective topic. As the political institution responsible for enacting laws, the American public regularly looks to the U.S. Congress to address the important issues of the day. The contributors in this volume help explain why staying atop the research trends helps us better understand these issues in the ever-changing field of American politics.
New to the Second Edition
New and updated chapters highlighting party recruitment, redistricting, women in Congress, the nationalization of Congressional elections, and the reassertion of Congressional oversight.
A first look at Congressional-executive relations in the Trump era.
Updated data through the 2018 Midterm elections.
To what extent is party loyalty a liability for incumbent legislators? Past research on legislative voting and elections suggests that voters punish members who are ideologically "out of step" with ...their districts. In seeking to move beyond the emphasis in the literature on the effects of ideological extremity on legislative vote share, we examine how partisan loyalty can adversely affect legislators' electoral fortunes. Specifically, we estimate the effects of each legislator's party unity—the tendency of a member to vote with his or her party on salient issues that divide the two major parties—on vote margin when running for reelection. Our results suggest that party loyalty on divisive votes can indeed be a liability for incumbent House members. In fact, we find that voters are not punishing elected representatives for being too ideological; they are punishing them for being too partisan.
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a 40% high-fat diet (HFD) supplemented with a dietary attainable level of quercetin (0.02%) on body composition, adipose tissue (AT) ...inflammation, Non-Alcoholic Fatty-Liver Disease (NAFLD), and metabolic outcomes. Diets were administered for 16 weeks to C57BL/6J mice (n = 10/group) beginning at 4 weeks of age. Body composition and fasting blood glucose, insulin, and total cholesterol concentrations were examined intermittently. AT and liver mRNA expression (RT-PCR) of inflammatory mediators (F4/80, CD206 (AT only), CD11c (AT only) TLR-2 (AT only), TLR-4 (AT only), MCP-1, TNF-α, IL-6 (AT only), and IL-10 (AT only)) were measured along with activation of NFκB-p65, and JNK (western blot). Hepatic lipid accumulation, gene expression (RT-PCR) of hepatic metabolic markers (ACAC1, SREBP-1, PPAR-γ), protein content of Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) Stress markers (BiP, phosphorylated and total EIF2α, phosphorylated and total IRE1α, CHOP), and hepatic oxidative capacity were assessed (western blot). Quercetin administration had no effect at mitigating increases in visceral AT, AT inflammation, hepatic steatosis, ER Stress, decrements in hepatic oxidative capacity, or the development of insulin resistance and hypercholesterolemia. In conclusion, 0.02% quercetin supplementation is not an effective therapy for attenuating HFD-induced obesity development. It is likely that a higher dose of quercetin supplementation is needed to elicit favorable outcomes in obesity.
Nationalization and the Incumbency Advantage Carson, Jamie L.; Sievert, Joel; Williamson, Ryan D.
Political research quarterly,
03/2020, Letnik:
73, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Legislative scholars have investigated both the growth in the incumbency advantage since the early 1970s and its decline in recent decades, but there are several unanswered questions about this ...phenomenon. In this paper, we examine the incumbency advantage across a much wider swath of history to better understand its connection with changing levels of electoral nationalization. Based on an analysis of U.S. House elections extending back to the antebellum era, we find that the incumbency advantage fluctuates in predictable ways over time with changes in nationalization, which can be a product of both institutional and political conditions. We also demonstrate that the increased influence of local forces in congressional elections may not be strictly necessary nor sufficient for the existence of an incumbency advantage.
To what extent are local races across the country being increasingly driven by politics at the national level? In this article, we examine the nationalization of elections for state executive ...branches' primary front line legal actors in the criminal courts—local prosecutors. We seek to better understand the factors influencing prosecutor election outcomes and why these types of elections have become more nationalized in recent years. More specifically, we aim to evaluate what effect this greater nationalization has had on the electoral fates of incumbent prosecutors seeking re-election. To date, there is a paucity of scholarship on prosecutor election outcomes within political science despite their importance historically and in light of recent events. This article seeks to fill an important gap in our understanding of what drives prosecutor elections in the United States. More broadly, we believe this research helps us better understand how even these local elections can be impacted by national events.
Our article investigates the role of congressional candidates during the era of party ballots in nineteenth-century congressional elections. We examine how these candidates contributed to the overall ...quality of the party ballot and the means by which nationalization of elections served to mitigate candidate attributes. In our analysis, we take advantage of two unique features of elections during this era. First, election timing was quite variable before 1872, as many House races were not held concurrently with presidential elections. Second, House candidates’ position on the ballot varied depending on whether a presidential or gubernatorial race was also being contested at the same time. To investigate these factors, we examine House elections prior to the adoption of the Australian ballot and find strong evidence of candidate effects during this period. Our findings raise important implications about candidate influence and electoral accountability in a more party-centered era.
Tumor-associated macrophages are associated with poor prognosis in certain cancers. Monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) is thought to be the most important chemokine for recruitment of ...macrophages to the tumor microenvironment. However, its role on tumorigenesis in a genetic mouse model of colon cancer has not been explored. We examined the role of MCP-1 on tumor-associated macrophages, inflammation, and intestinal tumorigenesis. Male Apc(Min/+), Apc(Min/+)/MCP-1(-/-) or wild-type mice were euthanized at 18 wk of age and intestines were analyzed for polyp burden, apoptosis, proliferation, β-catenin, macrophage number and phenotype, markers for cytotoxic T lymphocytes and regulatory T cells, and inflammatory mediators. MCP-1 deficiency decreased overall polyp number by 20% and specifically large polyp number by 45% (P < 0.05). This was consistent with an increase in apoptotic cells (P < 0.05), but there was no change detected in proliferation or β-catenin. MCP-1 deficiency decreased F4/80-positive cells in both the polyp tissue and surrounding intestinal tissue (P < 0.05) as well as expression of markers associated with M1 (IL-12 and IL-23) and M2 macrophages (IL-13, CD206, TGF-β, and CCL17) (P < 0.05). MCP-1 knockout was also associated with increased cytotoxic T lymphocytes and decreased regulatory T cells (P < 0.05). In addition, MCP-1(-/-) offset the increased mRNA expression of IL-1β and IL-6 in intestinal tissue and IL-1β and TNF-α in polyp tissue (P < 0.05), and prevented the decrease in SOCS1 expression (P < 0.05). We demonstrate that MCP-1 is an important mediator of tumor growth and immune regulation that may serve as an important biomarker and/or therapeutic target in colon cancer.
: ICU clinicians regularly care for patients who lack capacity, an applicable advance directive, and an available surrogate decision-maker. Although there is no consensus on terminology, we refer to ...these patients as "unrepresented." There is considerable controversy about how to make treatment decisions for these patients, and there is significant variability in both law and clinical practice.
: This multisociety statement provides clinicians and hospital administrators with recommendations for decision-making on behalf of unrepresented patients in the critical care setting.
: An interprofessional, multidisciplinary expert committee developed this policy statement by using an iterative consensus process with a diverse working group representing critical care medicine, palliative care, pediatric medicine, nursing, social work, gerontology, geriatrics, patient advocacy, bioethics, philosophy, elder law, and health law.
: The committee designed its policy recommendations to promote five ethical goals:
) to protect highly vulnerable patients,
) to demonstrate respect for persons,
) to provide appropriate medical care,
) to safeguard against unacceptable discrimination, and
) to avoid undue influence of competing obligations and conflicting interests. These recommendations also are intended to strike an appropriate balance between excessive and insufficient procedural safeguards. The committee makes the following recommendations:
) institutions should offer advance care planning to prevent patients at high risk for becoming unrepresented from meeting this definition;
) institutions should implement strategies to determine whether seemingly unrepresented patients are actually unrepresented, including careful capacity assessments and diligent searches for potential surrogates;
) institutions should manage decision-making for unrepresented patients using input from a diverse interprofessional, multidisciplinary committee rather than
by treating clinicians;
) institutions should use all available information on the patient's preferences and values to guide treatment decisions;
) institutions should manage decision-making for unrepresented patients using a fair process that comports with procedural due process;
) institutions should employ this fair process even when state law authorizes procedures with less oversight.
: This multisociety statement provides guidance for clinicians and hospital administrators on medical decision-making for unrepresented patients in the critical care setting.
In examining the factors that contribute to electoral success in congressional elections, legislative scholars often consider the actions of elected representatives; however, other research suggests ...that one must consider what challengers are (or are not) doing as well. For instance, inexperience and poor funding can significantly inhibit challenger success. We expand this list of potential shortcomings by arguing that ideological congruence with a constituency may be another factor in explaining challenger defeat. Using ideology measures derived from campaign contributions, we find that unsuccessful challengers in the U.S. House are generally more extreme than those who win, but ideological extremity is not a disadvantage to those seeking to represent an extreme constituency. More importantly, our existing political institutions may actually serve to mitigate the already high levels of partisan polarization in Congress.
Dopamine, the major neurotransmitter depleted in Parkinson disease, can be synthesized and regulated in vivo with a combination of intrastriatal AAV-hAADC gene therapy and administration of the ...dopamine precursor l-Dopa. When tested in MPTP-lesioned monkeys, this approach resulted in long-term improvement in clinical rating scores, significantly lowered l-Dopa requirements, and a reduction in l-Dopa-induced side effects. Positron emission tomography with (18)FFMT confirmed persistent AADC activity, demonstrating for the first time that infusion of AAV vector into primate brain results in at least 6 years of transgene expression. AAV-hAADC restores the ability of the striatum to convert l-Dopa into dopamine efficiently. Introduction of this therapy into the clinic holds promise for Parkinson patients experiencing the motor complications that result from escalating l-Dopa requirements against a background of disease progression.
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