Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania, Volume 1, 1682-1709


Book Description

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.




Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania: 1682-1709


Book Description

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.




Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress


Book Description

This book explores why some members of Congress are more effective than others at navigating the legislative process and what this means for how Congress is organized and what policies it produces. Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman develop a new metric of individual legislator effectiveness (the Legislative Effectiveness Score) that will be of interest to scholars, voters, and politicians alike. They use these scores to study party influence in Congress, the successes or failures of women and African Americans in Congress, policy gridlock, and the specific strategies that lawmakers employ to advance their agendas.




Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania, Volume 2, 1710-1756


Book Description

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.




Congressional Record


Book Description




Unorthodox Lawmaking


Book Description

Most major measures wind their way through the contemporary Congress in what Barbara Sinclair has dubbed “unorthodox lawmaking.” In this much-anticipated Fifth Edition of Unorthodox Lawmaking, Sinclair explores the full range of special procedures and processes that make up Congress’s work, as well as the reasons these unconventional routes evolved. The author introduces students to the intricacies of Congress and provides the tools to assess the relative successes and limitations of the institution. This dramatically updated revision incorporates a wealth of new cases and examples to illustrate the changes occurring in congressional process. Two entirely new case study chapters—on the 2013 government shutdown and the 2015 reauthorization of the Patriot Act—highlight Sinclair’s fresh analysis and the book is now introduced by a new foreword from noted scholar and teacher, Bruce I. Oppenheimer, reflecting on this book and Barbara Sinclair’s significant mark on the study of Congress.




Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania


Book Description

The Biographical Dictionary of Pennsylvania Legislators is proud to announce publication of Volume 3 of its multi-volume series, Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. Volume 3, distributed by the Penn State University Press, covers the Assembly terms from 1757 through 1775, a period that witnessed the French and Indian War, the expansion of Pennsylvania, with the addition of Bedford, Northumberland, and Westmoreland counties, the Stamp Act crisis, the development of extra-legal committees, the creation of county militias, and the eventual overthrow of the colonial government. Among the legislators profiled in Volume 3 are Benjamin Franklin, William Allen, Joseph Galloway, Daniel Roberdeau, George Bryan, John Armstrong, William Thompson, Henry Keppele, Isaac Norris, Israel Pemberton, James Pemberton, George Taylor, George Ross, Emanuel Carpenter, John Morton, Nathaniel Pennock, Israel Jacobs, Robert McPherson, Edward Biddle, John Potts, Samuel Potts, Thomas Potts, Samuel Miles, Michael Hillegas, and Thomas Willing. Also included are a series of introductory essays focusing on such topics as the rules and procedures of the Assembly, the Pennsylvania Iron Industry, the legislators and civic improvement, the Quaker party, and the prelude to revolution. The volume also contains 16 charts, two maps, a complete sessions list for those years, and numerous appendices that highlight such topics as the religious affiliations and residences of the legislators, laws enacted in Pennsylvania, and committee assignments by speaker.




How Women Legislate


Book Description

The number of women in public office increased dramatically in recent elections, especially in state legislatures where one-fifth of the seats are now held by women. How Women Legislate offers a uniquely comprehensive and timely study of the effects women have had on legislation and thelawmaking process, analyzing the differences between women's and men's backgrounds before entering public office, and differences in their agendas, priorities, working styles, and leadership once they are in office. Arguing that there is a significant difference in legislative outcomes when thenumber of women in a given legislature reaches a certain threshold, the author provides one of the first analyses of the overall effects of women on the laws that are passed and on the way legislative business is done.




American Government 3e


Book Description

Black & white print. American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens. In order to help students understand the ways that government, society, and individuals interconnect, the revision includes more examples and details regarding the lived experiences of diverse groups and communities within the United States. The authors and reviewers sought to strike a balance between confronting the negative and harmful elements of American government, history, and current events, while demonstrating progress in overcoming them. In doing so, the approach seeks to provide instructors with ample opportunities to open discussions, extend and update concepts, and drive deeper engagement.




The Right of Instruction and Representation in American Legislatures, 1778 to 1900


Book Description

The Right of Instruction and Representation in American Legislatures, 1778 to 1900 provides a comprehensive analysis of the role constituent instructions played in American politics for more than a hundred years after its founding. Constituent instructions were more widely issued than previously thought, and members of state legislatures and Congress were more likely to obey them than political scientists and historians have assumed. Peverill Squire expands our understanding of constituent instructions beyond a handful of high-profile cases, through analyses of two unique data sets: one examining more than 5,000 actionable communications (instructions and requests) sent to state legislators by constituents through town meetings, mass meetings, and local representative bodies; the other examines more than 6,600 actionable communications directed by state legislatures to their state’s congressional delegations. He draws the data, examples, and quotes almost entirely from original sources, including government documents such as legislative journals, session laws, town and county records, and newspaper stories, as well as diaries, memoirs, and other contemporary sources. Squire also includes instructions to and from Confederate state legislatures in both data sets. In every respect, the Confederate state legislatures mirrored the legislatures that preceded and followed them.