Policy Research, Policy Instruments

One time only -- Tuesday's class will be virtual:

https://cmc-its.zoom.us/j/92228697468

Meeting ID: 922 2869 7468

For Tuesday, read Stone ch. 16, Schuck, ch. 8.

In-person class resumes on Thursday, October 14, when we shall discuss Schuck, ch. 9.

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One-stop platform for policy reports, briefs, academic studies, and other policy resources: https://policycommons.net/ (You need to set up an account, but it is free.)
 
Researching federal policy:

• Get background from CQ Library .
• CRS reports here and here

Other possible sources include:

• Statements of Administration Policy -- indications of whether POTUS will sign or veto.
• Congress.gov (http://www.congress.gov/) -- official site for bill summary and status
• GovTrack (http://www.govtrack.us/) – unofficial site for congressional information
• ProQuest Congressional (http://congressional.proquest.com/profiles/gis/search/basic/basicsearch ). -- many congressional documents including searchable Congressional Record. If your computer will not accept this URL, go through the library web page (http://library.claremont.edu). Click “databases,” then the letter “P,” then “ProQuest Congressional.”)
• Committee web pages, which usually contain testimony and text of reports. See http://www.house.gov/committees/ or https://www.senate.gov/committees/index.htm
• ProPublica tools and websites at https://projects.propublica.org/represent/

California and General State Politics

• Public Policy Institute of California -- California surveys and policy analysis
• California bills and laws
• LAO -- Legislative Analyst's Office -- analysis of CA issues
• NCSL -- National Conference of State Legislatures -- analysis and data on state issues
• Partisan compositon of legislatures
• Open States -- bill information for all state legislatures

Review from September 9:

Which instrument?  "A policy may be cost-ineffective because it uses the wrong tool" (Schuck, 54).

• Direct bureaucratic administration (public schools)
• Government corporations and GSEs (Postal Service)
• Regulation (admin. rules)
• Insurance (FDIC; FSLIC and RTC)
• Information (websites)
• Taxes and Tax expenditures (mortgage interest)
• Grants and contracts (see the true size of government)
• Loans and loan guarantees (SBA)
• Vouchers
• Private cause of action

Rules in general (Stone 299):  

• Simplicity v. precision
• Flexibility v. stability
• Neutrality v. justice

Not a new problem.  With eerie prescience, James Madison foresaw current problems when he wrote Federalist 62:

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed? 

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY.

Problems with Judicial policymaking.  

Knowledge: "At the bottom of the information chain are judges, who typically know little or nothing about the policy considerations, technical concepts, and political values that underlie the legal texts that they review" (Schuck, p. 171)

• Example: Courts and the teen brain.
• Remedy: specialized courts and special masters

Adjudication is focused, piecemeal, and reactive and involves rights.

Instruments of policy affect one another. Special education is a good illustration:

• 1972: The U.S. District Court, District of Columbia rules in Mills v. Board of Education that DC could not exclude disabled children from the public schools. The U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in PARC v. Pennsylvania struck down various state laws excluding disabled children from the public schools.
• 1973: The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 bans discrimination in federal programs and services and all other programs or services receiving federal funds. Section 504 says: “No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States, shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
• 1975: With the Mills and PARC cases as a template, The Education of All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142) requires free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive setting. This Act later gets a new name: The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The law s authorizes the federal promise to provide 40 percent of the excess costs of serving students with disabilities, but during the next 36 years, Congress never appropriates more than 20 percent.
• 1977: After a year an a half, Bureau for the Education of the Handicapped issues regulations implementing the law. Meanwhile, Congress holds oversight hearings and passes additional legislation.
• 1977-82: States and local educational agencies issue their own regulations on special education.
• 1982: In the Rowley case (458 U.S. 176 (1982)), the US Supreme Court rules that "free appropriate public education" means only "some educational benefit."
• 2017: In the Endrew F. Case (580 US _ (2017)), SCOTUS rules that school districts must offer children an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that is reasonably calculated to enable each child to make progress appropriate for that child’s circumstances.