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This paper documents the link between political voice and economic decision-making. Combining the repeal of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as a shock to the enfranchisement of black Americans with granular data on the US mortgage market, we document a 14% decline in mortgage origination for black Americans. This is driven by their self-selection out of the mortgage market rather than a change in denial rate. Additionally, we observe a flight of black demand to black lenders, indicating an increase in racial homophily. Our results indicate that disenfranchisement reduces demand directly by increasing uncertainty, violence, and borrowing constraints and indirectly by increasing the threat of rejection.

The Oxford Companion to Irish History’s entry on “Catholic Emancipation” credits the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 with having repealed the “remaining disabilities” in the anti-Catholic legal code. This is slightly misleading. The 1829 Act completed the process of repeal of an earlier generation of Catholic legislation, which had begun in the late seventeenth and insert: early eighteenth centuries, by removing the bar on Catholics sitting in Parliament and on holding civil and military office. But it also slipped in a secondary set of anti-Catholic laws. This later code involved the imposition of a further set of “disabilities”. The severe criminal penalties, imposed by the 1829 Act on recruitment by religious orders, were clearly “disabilities”; the ban in the Catholic Relief Act 1829 on Catholic bishops using their titles was a “disability”; the prohibition, included in the Catholic Relief Act 1829, on Roman Catholic clergy performing religious rites in public was a “disability”. These second-generation penal laws served a different objective to the security concerns which underlay the first-generation penal laws; the nineteenth century laws were more symbolic and cultural in intent.

We investigate the heterogeneous impact of the US federal mortgage interest deduction (MID) on households’ location and tenure decisions. We develop a spatial general-equilibrium model at the county level featuring an endogenous itemization of housing subsidies. We find that repealing the MID decreases homeownership rates more strongly in central areas because owner-occupiers migrate to the countryside. Welfare increases because positive externalities arising from less congested housing markets and undistorted tenure decisions outweigh productivity losses. A MID repeal is preferred to an increase of standard tax deductions as implemented in 2018 by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The chapter addresses questions of international law implicated by Sentenza 238/2014. It begins by revisiting the longstanding debate about state immunity and its limits, arguing that notwithstanding decades of discussion, a ‘grave breaches’ exception has never had more than marginal support in positive international law. Against that background, it comes as no surprise that the Italian Constitutional Court (ItCC), in Judgment 238/2014, did not assert the existence of a grave breaches exception as a matter of international law. Instead, the ItCC relied on what might be termed a ‘foreign relations law’ approach, holding that Italian constitutional law required it not to give domestic effect to the international law of state immunity. This ‘foreign relations law’ approach offers a last line of defence for those seeking to limit the reach of rules of state immunity. As is set out in this chapter, it is an effective line of defence because international law does not ‘by itself, possess the force to amend or repeal internationally unlawful domestic (…) acts’ (Antonio Cassese). At the same time it is a dangerous line, as it risks weakening international law generally and not just in the area of immunity. This chapter suggests that, when read as a foreign relations law decision, Sentenza 238/2014 is not as such unusual: it is one of many decisions accepting some form of ‘constitutional override’ that limits the effects of international law within domestic legal orders. However, Sentenza 238/2014 stands out because—unlike other decisions—it seems to refuse international law any place in the construction of constitutional law: in the ItCC’s ‘separatist treatment’ (Kolb) international law is denied a directive function (‘Orientierungswirkung’); it is not factored into the equation. Seen in that light, Sentenza 238/2014 (counter-intuitively, for a ‘Roman’ decision) has a ‘Lutheran’ quality; it is informed by a stubborn ‘here I stand, I can do no other’ aspect, which limits the potential for a constructive dialogue between domestic and international judiciaries.

Proceedings on the repeal of an Act before the Constitutional Court, with focus on the review of whether the Act was adopted in the constitutionally prescribed procedure Abstract The thesis deals with the judicial control of constitutionality with a specific focus on the review of the constitutionality of the legislative procedure. The first part of the thesis deals with the general definition of the constitutional judiciary, the position of the Constitutional Court in constitutional system of the Czech Republic and the definition of basic concepts that must be unconditionally known for the next parts of the thesis. The first part of the thesis concludes with a reflection on the topic whether the Constitutional Court really maintains its role as a predominantly negative legislator. In the second part, the thesis focuses on the description of the current legislation on court proceedings of the repeal of an Act or its individual provisions. The main topic of the second part of the thesis deals are the special effects of the decisions of the Constitutional Court in this type of proceedings and the question about binding nature of its reasoning. The author describes, for example, the specific effects of these decisions in horizontal relations or their effects on the specific proceedings from which the proposal...

This Article considers whether federal student loan borrowers can bring successful legal challenges if Congress retroactively repeals the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (“PSLF”) program. It addresses whether borrowers at litigation could rely on analogies to the promissory estoppel doctrine or assert equitable estoppel claims to challenge the repeal. In doing so, the Article explores the intersection of estoppel and government contract law with sovereign immunity theories in a way that has never been done before. This topic has been given very little attention in prior literature, so I aim to present its legal issues in a clear way while paying tribute to its nuance. The Article addresses the hurdles of sovereign immunity and the Sovereign Acts Doctrine, which the borrowers would encounter at litigation. It concludes that, despite likely overcoming these hurdles, in many cases, the plaintiff-borrowers’ government contract law claims would likely still fail to win on their merits. The Article similarly contends that most if not all equitable estoppel claims would likely fail before a court. The Article then offers an alternative proposal to Congress, which would avoid the issues that would arise at litigation, while solving the problems associated with the program and protecting the most vulnerable members of society negatively impacted by a repeal.

This chapter compares the evolution of fiscal systems in Andean and Nordic countries between 1850 and 2010. It does so through the lens of the “fiscal contract”: because tax revenues are in some degree voluntary, citizens who pay them would expect state services in return, and have incentives and leverage to fiscalise the use of public funds. The structure of payments could therefore impact both the direction and efficiency of state spending. We argue that Norway and Sweden developed universal fiscal contracts, while narrow ones emerged in Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. This would be consistent with higher, if unstable, use of revenues from natural resources in the Andean countries—a type of revenue which is normally relatively easy to administer, and requires bargaining with few localised agents (Peres-Cajias et al., in Resource abundance and public finances in five peripheral economies, 1850–1939, 2020). We illustrate the emergence of these different fiscal contracts through the timing and nature of four tax transitions: the repeal of the Ancien Regime taxes and their replacement with liberal ones, the decline of trade taxes, the expansion of income taxation, and finally the appearance of general consumption taxes. Through the chapter, the emphasis is on the introduction and development of modern, broad-based forms of taxation, that require greater administrative capacity, and voluntary compliance.

Feststellungsbescheide gem. § 188 BAO sind Grundlagenbescheide für die Einkommen- bzw. Körperschaftsteuerfestsetzung der Beteiligten einer Personengemeinschaft. Im Feststellungsverfahren sind Rechtsmittel gegen den Grundlagenbescheid zu richten. Abgeleitete Bescheide bleiben daher idR unangefochten und erwachsen in Rechtskraft, wenn ein Grundlagenbescheid bekämpft wird. Rechtsmittelverfahren dauern regelmäßig sehr lange und es kommt häufig vor, dass sich erst am Ende eines solchen ein Grundlagenbescheid als Nichtbescheid (somit als nichtig) herausstellt. Ein Nichtbescheid liegt beispielsweise vor, wenn die Adressierung des Bescheides mangelhaft ist. Eine gegen einen Nichtbescheid gerichtete Beschwerde ist zurückzuweisen, da es sich um einen nichtigen Verwaltungsakt handelt. Trifft dieser Fall zu, stützen sich die abgeleiteten Bescheide zu Unrecht auf einen Nichtbescheid. Der Gesetzgeber hat daher mit § 295 Abs 4 BAO eine Möglichkeit geschaffen, solche rechtswidrigen Bescheide auf Antrag der Partei aufheben zu lassen. Für den Antrag war bis zum 31.12.2020 die Frist des § 304 BAO maßgeblich, d.h. der Abgabepflichtige hatte im Wesentlichen bis zum Eintritt der Verjährung der abgeleiteten Abgabe für die Antragsstellung Zeit. Sehr oft stellte sich der Umstand, dass ein Grundlagenbescheid ein Nichtbescheid ist, jedoch erst nach Eintritt der Verjährung heraus. Ein Antrag auf Bescheidaufhebung war somit in sehr vielen Fällen faktisch unmöglich und der rechtswidrige Bescheid konnte nicht beseitigt werden. Der VfGH hob diese Frist daher als verfassungswidrig auf. Mit 8.1.2021 trat die Neufassung des § 295 Abs 4 BAO in Kraft, welche für den Antrag auf Bescheidaufhebung eine Frist von einem Jahr ab Rechtskraft des Zurückweisungsbescheides vorsieht und beseitigt damit die verfassungsrechtlichen Bedenken. Damit auch die Abgabenfestsetzung sichergestellt ist, sieht die Neufassung eine Rechtskraftdurchbrechung vor. Die Behörde kann dadurch Abgaben trotz Eintritt der Verjährung festsetzten, solange dies innerhalb eines Jahres ab Aufhebung erfolgt und die Feststellungen aus dem den Nichtbescheid ersetzenden Bescheid übernommen werden. Damit sollten unsachliche Ergebnisse im Feststellungverfahren in Zukunft vermieden werden. Assessment notices according to paragraph 188 BAO are the basis for the personal or corporate income tax assessment of the participants of an association. Legal remedies must be directed against the basic assessment. Derived tax assessments therefore usually remain unchallenged and become res judicata if the basic notice is contested. Appeal proceedings regularly take a very long time and it is often the case that a basic assessment only turns out to be null and void at the end of such proceedings. A null and void assessment exists, for example, if the addressing of the assessment is defective. An appeal against such an null and void tax assessment has to be rejected. If this is the case, the derived assessments are wrongly based on a null and void assessment, but have nevertheless become legally valid. Therefore, the legislator has created a possibility in paragraph 295 (4) BAO to annul such unlawful assessments. Until 31 December 2020, the deadline of paragraph 304 BAO was relevant for the application, i.e. the taxpayer essentially had to file the application until the limitation period of the derived tax. Very often, the fact that a basic assessment is a null and void assessment only became apparent after the limitation period has passed. Thus, in many cases, it was factually impossible to file an application to repeal the assessment and the unlawful assessment could not be eliminated. The Constitutional Court therefore annulled this time limit as unconstitutional. On 8 January 2021, the new version of section 295 (4) BAO came into force. The application must now be filed within one year of the rejection decision becoming final. The constitutional concerns are thus eliminated. But also the assessment of taxes had to be ensured. Therefore, the authority can assess taxes despite the statute of limitations, as long as this is done within one year of the revocation and the results are taken over from the assessment replacing the null and void assessment. This should avoid unobjective results in the future. vorgelegt von: Daniela Mayer Wien, FH Campus Wien, Masterarb., 2021

Hailed as a savior of free speech while concurrently facing harsh criticism as an immunity shield for scandalous behavior and big tech, there is no denying the notoriety of Section 230. Big tech companies claim the statute is an essential building block of progress and allows for a free internet. Contrarily, both democrats and republicans want it reformed or revoked altogether yet disagree about why or how. Referencing Twitter tagging his tweets as misinformation, former President Donald Trump tweeted on various occasions about the need to repeal or revoke Section 230 — at one point claiming Twitter was “out of control.” Meanwhile, on the other side of the presidential trail, Joe Biden also called for the revocation of Section 230. Biden’s reasoning contrasted directly with Trump’s, he argued that social media ought to be held responsible when it assists users in spreading things that are not true. Trump essentially argued social media companies ought not regulate user content, whereas Biden argued they ought to regulate content more. But in both cases Section 230 was to blame. Arguments against 230 often fail to consider how they depend on the very protections also offered by the clause. This understandably spurs confusion around the topic. Yet, in a polarized society, this kind of dichotomy is all too familiar. Nonetheless, the peculiarity and prevalence of the rhetoric regarding Section 230 warrants analysis. We must not let the essential protections of the statute be victim to the whims and chaos of current political discourse. Effective and meaningful reform of Section 230, if necessary, would require clarity over misconceptions and half-truths.

The Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act (GLS) was first enacted in 2004 for the purposes of early screening, intervention, and prevention of suicide in students 10 to 24 years of age, and to hire more college counselors. More than 16 years later, GLS suicide prevention programs have not been found to be effective in reducing suicide rates, while their harms have not been considered. This Article reviews the state of the evidence on school suicide prevention and explores the suicide surveillance of the GLS, its systems of peer-to-peer monitoring and reporting of marginalized students “at risk”—students with disabilities, racial/ethnic, sexual, and religious minorities, victims of bullying, students with homelessness or foster care records, and other suicide risk factors. It explores the GLS public health approach to address the burdens of suicidal students, isolate suicide risks, and avoid suicide contagion. It also describes possible harms of the GLS suicide surveillance approach: stigmatization; violated privacy; estrangement from peers, parents, therapists and other social supports; police involvement and warrantless searches; potential exacerbation of suicidality; and restricted civil rights in non-school settings such as employment and involuntary commitment proceedings. It then compares the threats imposed by school surveillance for violence and suicide and suggests that paternalistic justifications might account for the relative lack of concerns raised so far regarding the latter. The Article then briefly considers the functions of participating in suicide surveillance for teachers and staff, and concludes with recommendations to repeal the GLS.

The federal prohibition of marijuana casts a shadow over much of the structure and operation of state marijuana industries and presents numerous challenges that states must consider when implementing their medical or adult-use marijuana legislation. This chapter examines the evolution of federal marijuana policy from the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act to the repeal of the Department of Justice’s Cole memo, shows how changes in federal policy have affected state legalization of marijuana programs, and how states have responded to how federal constraints affect access to financial institutions, taxation, economic development, environmental concerns, and social justice. The marijuana industry remains in a constant state of flux; given the uncertainty that a new President, Congress, or Attorney General can bring, threat of federal enforcement always exists. Federal and state laws have generally been able to coexist, but a showdown is always around the corner. Until federal marijuana policy changes, that tension will continue.

This paper looks at the politics of food and abstinence as a mode of resistance in Manipur. Irom Sharmila from Manipur who went on a “fast unto death” from 2000 to 2016 as a protest against the Government of India demanding the repeal of the Arms Forces Special Powers Act 1958 (AFSPA) will be taken up as a case study. The paper will trace the lineage of similar political struggles using similar tropes of abstinence from food/hunger strikes. Another trajectory of the paper will exemplify food as a viewpoint and look at how there has always been a precarious relationship between food and women in Manipur. The widely popular and unique Ema Keithel or Mother’s Market which is run only by women has always been a source of pride for the state, as the “site of resistance” where women rose to rebellion against the British in the two women’s wars. This can be contrasted with the woman within the kitchen in a regular Manipuri household where she is confined to the role of the cook. She has to maintain a safe distance from the male members of the family as food touched/eaten by a woman is called “mangba” or impure (literal translation.)

This chapter puts Trump’s ability to persuade in context, both in general stemming from power dynamics (elite and popular support, respectively) through case studies, akin to Neustadt’s book, Presidential Power. All three are noteworthy, major initiatives that failed to come to fruition, mainly due to Trump’s mishandling and/or insensitivity to rules of effective bargaining. They include: the Republican-led health care plan to repeal Obamacare in 2017; the US government shutdown and fight over Trump’s “wall” in December 2018–January 2019; and Trump’s failed second summit with Kim Jong Un and North Korean nuclear diplomacy in 2019.

Risk behaviors associated with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among people living with HIV (PLWH) have not been well characterized in the US military. We identified risk behaviors associated with a new STI in this population after the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." US Military HIV Natural History Study participants who completed the risk behavior questionnaire (RBQ) between 2014 and 2017 and had at least 1 year of follow-up were included (

Key Points Question Was there a lasting change in beverage prices and volume sold after the 2017 repeal of the Cook County, Illinois, Sweetened Beverage Tax? Findings The results from this study using interrupted time series analysis of weekly food store scanner data from the 2 years pretax implementation, the 4 months that the Sweetened Beverage Tax was in place, and the 8 months after repeal found that prices increased and volume sold decreased while the tax was in place, but they returned to their pretax levels following the repeal of the tax. Meaning In this study, there was no lasting change in beverage prices or volume sold following the repeal of the Cook County Sweetened Beverage Tax, suggesting that the tax did not change public perception of the harms associated with sweetened beverage intake., This study using interrupted time series analysis to assess whether the implementation and repeal of a sweetened beverage tax in Cook County, Illinois, were associated with lasting changes in sweetened beverage prices or volume sold., Importance Health taxes are policy tools used to reduce harmful consumption of products and raise tax revenue, and they may also be associated with signaling (ie, informational and educational) factors that enhance their impact. Objectives To examine changes in prices and volume sold of sweetened beverages following the implementation and repeal of the Cook County, Illinois, Sweetened Beverage Tax (SBT) compared with the comparison site of St Louis County and city, Missouri, which did not impose a tax. Design, Setting, and Participants This study used interrupted time series analyses to assess changes in price and volume sold of taxed (based on beverage type and sweetener status) and untaxed beverages in Cook County compared with St Louis following the implementation of the SBT on August 2, 2017, and its repeal effective December 1, 2017. Statistical analysis was performed from January to June 2020. Exposures Implementation and repeal of the Cook County SBT. Main Outcomes and Measures Changes in taxed and untaxed beverage prices and volume sold. Nielsen food store scanner data were obtained for weekly volume and dollar amount sold of nonalcoholic beverage universal product codes (UPCs) for each site in supermarkets and mass merchandise, grocery, drug, convenience, and dollar stores. Results The analytic samples included 16 510 UPCs for volume and 2141 UPCs (balanced sample) for prices for 122 pretax weeks, 16 tax weeks, and 35 postrepeal weeks. Compared with St Louis, posttax implementation in Cook County resulted in a level increase in taxed beverage prices of 1.13 cents per fluid ounce (95% CI, 1.01 to 1.25 cents per fluid ounce), representing a slight overshifting, followed by a posttax repeal level decrease of −1.19 cents per fluid ounce (95% CI, −1.33 to −1.04 cents per fluid ounce), with no resulting change pretax to posttax repeal. Volume sold of taxed beverages in Cook County compared with St Louis exhibited a posttax implementation level decrease of 25.7% (β = −0.297; 95% CI, −0.415 to −0.179) and a posttax repeal level increase of 30.5% (β = 0.266, 95% CI, 0.124 to 0.408), with no net change in volume sold from pretax to 8 months after repeal. Conclusions and Relevance This study using interrupted time series analysis found no net change in volume sold of taxed beverages following the implementation and repeal of the Cook County SBT, suggesting the tax had no signaling association. Repeals of such taxes may fully reverse their associations with reduced demand and harms associated with sweetened beverage intake.

Before his incoherent response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus of President Trump's health policy agenda was the elimination of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which he has called a ‘disaster’. The attacks on the ACA included proposals to repeal the law through the legislative process, to erode it through a series of executive actions, and to ask the courts to declare it unconstitutional. Despite these ongoing challenges, the ACA remains largely intact as the U.S. heads into the 2020 election. The longer term fate of the law, however, is uncertain and the outcome of the 2020 election is likely to have a dramatic effect on the direction of health policy in the U.S.

Introduction The U.S. Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) Initiative was launched nationally in February 2019. With a target of ending the HIV epidemic by 2030, EHE initially scales up effective HIV prevention and care in 57 localities that comprise the greatest proportion of annual HIV diagnoses in the United States (US). However, the EHE effort has been eclipsed by another infectious disease 11 months into the Initiative’s implementation. SARS‐COV‐2, a novel coronavirus, has infected more than eight million Americans and at least 223 000 (as of 23 October 2020) have succumbed to the disease. This commentary explores the social conditions that place communities of colour at greater risk for COVID‐19 and HIV, and assesses challenges to EHE in a post‐COVID‐19 universe. Discussion One of the many common threads between HIV and COVID‐19 is the disproportionate impact of each disease among communities of colour. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences surmised that as much as 70% of health outcomes are due to health access, socio‐economic factors and environmental conditions. Social determinants of health associated with greater HIV burden in Black and Brown communities have re‐emerged in epidemiological studies of disproportionate COVID‐19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in communities of colour. Using data from the scientific literature, this commentary makes direct comparisons between HIV and COVID‐19 racial disparities across the social determinants of health. Furthermore, I examine three sets of challenges facing EHE: (1) Challenges that hamper both the EHE and COVID‐19 response (i.e. insufficiently addressing the social determinants of health; amplification of disparities as new health technologies are introduced) (2) Challenges posed by COVID‐19 (i.e. diverting HIV resources to address COVID‐19 and tapering of EHE funding generally); and (3) Challenges unrelated to COVID‐19 (i.e. emergence of new and related health disparities; repeal of the Affordable Care Act and long‐term viability of EHE). Conclusions Racism and discrimination place communities of colour at greater risk for COVID‐19 as well as HIV. Achieving and sustaining an end to the U.S. HIV epidemic will require structural change to eliminate conditions that give rise to and maintain disparities.

This paper explores the common argument according to which the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was at the origin of the 2008 financial crisis. By arguing successively that the Act would not have covered the failing banks and that it would not have solved the “Too-big-to-fail” problem, this paper concludes by the negative. Had the Glass-Steagall act still been in place, the global Financial crisis would not have been prevented. Mortgage policies, low capital requirements, and Basel II seem to be more convincing alternatives.

Britain’s repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was the signature trade policy event of the nineteenth century. This paper provides a quantitative general equilibrium evaluation of the repeal on sectoral output and employment, factor prices and income distribution, international trade and the terms of trade, and economic welfare based on a detailed input-output matrix of the British economy in 1841. We find that the repeal left Britain’s overall welfare roughly unchanged, or perhaps negligibly (0.1 percent) lower, as the static efficiency gains are offset by the adverse terms-of-trade effects of the tariff reduction. Labor and capital gained a slight amount of income at the expense of landowners (whose income fell about 3-5 percent). Combining the changes in factor payments with different consumption patterns across income groups, we find that the top 10 percent of income earners lose while the bottom 90 percent of income earners, who spent a disproportionate amount of their income on food, gain. To assess whether the model yields reasonable results, we compare the model’s output, price, and trade predictions with the actual ex post outcomes.

The chapter deals with the rise and fall of the Data Retention Directive in Austria. Due to the paradigm shift in the principles of data retention, the Directive received a great media attention in Austria even before its adoption at the European level. In the public discussion, the negative opinions and concerns remarkably outweighed the potential possible benefits of implementation of the Directive into Austrian law. Despite the willful postponement of the implementation, the Directive was finally implemented into Austrian law four years and six months after the respective deadline expired. As long as the preparation and actual implementation took, as short was the lifespan of the regulations: Only few months after the new provisions had been issued, they were legally challenged. A preliminary ruling procedure initiated by the Austrian Constitutional Court among others ultimately led to the repeal of the Directive at the Union level. Finally, the 13 Austrian provisions implementing the Directive were also repealed only two years after their entry into force.

La sentencia comentada reitera el criterio interpretativo mantenido por anteriores pronunciamientos del TS en tres recursos de casación unificadora (dos de ellos resueltos por el pleno de la Sala) que afirman la falta de vigencia de las normas de 1938 sobre la obligación empresarial de establecer comedores laborales en centros de trabajo que ocupen al menos a 50 trabajadores. The analyzed sentence reiterates the interpretative criterion maintained by previous pronouncements of the Supreme Court in three unifying appeals (two of them resolved by the plenary session of the Chamber) related to the validity of the 1938 norms (a decree and a ministerial order) about the obligation of establishing canteens in certain work centers, affirming that such norms cannot be considered valid.

Electoral reforms that lead to reduced turnout modify the composition of the electorate, potentially overrepresenting specific interests in policy implementation. Intergenerational redistribution tilts in favor of the elderly when they are sufficiently numerous, but in favor of the young rich otherwise. We exploit a natural experiment provided by the repeal of compulsory voting in Austrian parliamentary elections to study how exogenous turnout decline affects intergenerational redistribution through pro-young public education spending in Austrian municipalities. Empirically, education spending falls when the proportion of elderly voters exceeds 21% of the electorate, but rises when the proportion of elderly voters is below this threshold.

The Trump administration's Healthy Adult Opportunity waiver follows a long history of Republican attempts to retrench the Medicaid program through block grants and to markedly reduce federal spending while providing states with substantially greater flexibility over program structure. Previous block grant proposals were promulgated during the presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and majorities in Congress led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and House Budget Committee Chair and then Speaker Paul Ryan. Most recently, Medicaid block grants featured prominently in Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. This essay traces the history of Republican Medicaid block grant proposals, culminating in the Trump administration's Healthy Adult Opportunity initiative. It concludes that the Trump administration's attempt to convert Medicaid into a block grant program through the waiver process is illegal and, if implemented, would leave thousands of people without necessary medical care. This fact, combined with failed legislative efforts to block grant Medicaid during the last forty years, highlights the substantial roadblocks to radically restructuring a popular program that helps millions of Americans.

This paper presents the findings of an empirical study conducted with local enforcement agents in two areas in England regarding the implementation of the anti-social behaviour injunction which succeeded the anti-social behaviour order (ASBO). These findings shed light on the procedure followed by local enforcement agents when dealing with an incident of anti-social behaviour. The data presented suggests that despite the recent legislative amendments, much of the regulation of anti-social behaviour still takes place in the ‘shadows’ with local enforcement agents utilising a range of informal interventions before applying to court for the issue of an injunction. Moreover, it is argued that despite the repeal and replacement of the ASBO by what appears to be a purely civil measure, many of the criticisms raised about the order and its potential misuse remain largely unaddressed.

Existing literature is dominated by accounts which position gay teachers as victims. We were concerned that this only presented a partial insight into the experiences of gay teachers. This study researched the personal and professional experiences of four gay teachers in England. It builds on existing research by presenting positive narratives rather than positioning gay teachers as victims. We use the term “chalkface” to illustrate that all were practicing teachers. The purpose of the study was to explore their experiences as gay teachers throughout their careers. The study used the life history method to create narratives of each participant. Semi-structured interviews were used. The study found that the repeal of Section 28 in England in 2003 did not have an immediate effect on the identities, resilience, and agency of the participants. The 2010 Equality Act in England and changes to the school inspection framework had a greater influence in supporting their agency, resilience, and willingness to merge personal and professional identities. All but one participant managed to use their identities as gay teachers to advance inclusion and social justice through the curriculum. Although the narratives that we have presented do illuminate some negative experiences, the accounts are largely positive, in contrast with existing literature which positions gay teachers as victims.

Introduction Medical abortion is a safe, effective, and often preferred method of terminating an unintended pregnancy, but access can be made difficult by the laws of a state. Despite modern efforts to prevent unintended pregnancies in the U.S., they comprise almost half of pregnancies and 95% of abortions, signifying that abortion is a necessary and desired healthcare service. This study's purpose is to describe the proliferation of American medical abortion access laws between 2000 and 2018. Methods Policy surveillance methods were used in 2018 to collect 7 types of U.S. medical abortion access restriction laws in place as of December 1, 2018. Statutory histories were reviewed in 2019 to record the laws’ years of enactment, substantive amendment, and repeal. Results A total of 35 states restricted medical abortion access as of 2018. Medical abortion laws increased from 16 in 2000 to 96 by 2018, and only 1 was repealed. A total of 25 states had multiple laws restricting medical abortion access in 2018. Medical abortion access laws surged from 2010 to 2017, but none were passed in 2018. Medical abortion access is generally most restricted in Midwestern and Southern states and least restricted in Western and Northeastern states. Conclusions Although evidence demonstrates medical abortion's safety and efficacy, its access is increasingly limited by law in many states. Further research examining the impacts of these laws on women's health and the consequences of unintended births on women, children, families, and society is needed.

RESUMEN: El objetivo de este artículo es examinar las restricciones directas e indirectas a la libertad de testar que tiene la legislación chilena, para defender la derogación de la cuarta de mejoras y la reducción de la legítima de ascendientes y cónyuge (o conviviente civil) sobreviviente como correctivos. El método ha consistido en revisar publicaciones disponibles en Chile y cambios experimentados por la legislación, como también indicadores del impuesto a las herencias y del uso del testamento como instrumento de ordenación sucesoria. Una forma rápida y directa de aumentar la libertad de testar es la derogación de la cuarta de mejoras. ABSTRACT. The target of this article is to examine the direct and indirect restrictions on the freedom of will in the Chilean law, to argue for its amendment by the repealing the cuarta de mejoras (fourth for improvements) and the reduction of the succession rights of ascendants and surviving spouse (or domestic partner). The method consisted of reviewing publications available in Chile and the changes that Chilean legislation has undergone, as well as indicators of inheritance tax collection and the use of the testament as an instrument of succession planning. A fast and direct way to increase the freedom of will is the repeal of the fourth for improvements.

In light of the recent announcement from the Victorian (Australia) state government that they are moving to decriminalise public drunkenness and replace it with a 'health-based response', it is timely to reflect on a number of important considerations identified from the academic literature on this topic. We briefly review a number of models of health-care delivery that have been utilised in other jurisdictions, and suggest there are opportunities at a more principled level to respond more adequately to the decriminalisation of public drunkenness in Victoria (and elsewhere). First, embedding research and evaluation, particularly that draws on the needs, views and experiences of those who are deemed to be drunk in public, is essential from the outset, and must be ongoing to enable the continual refinement of models of care. Second, significant funding and intersectoral support are needed to ensure that the laws are not tokenistic and do not remain the responsibility of police. Third, there are opportunities to put policies and principles in place to ensure that police do not use more coercive powers to address concerns around public drunkenness. Most importantly, state-wide education and training efforts are needed alongside the repeal of the law to ensure that emergency services and health-care workers (as well as the community), have a good understanding of the contexts and needs of people who are considered drunk in public, and consequently treat them with care and respect.

At present, there is a proliferation of policy debates concerning proposals for new intellectual property (IP) rights. High-profile examples include publishers’ rights, data producers’ rights, and sport events organizers’ rights. These rights are presented as tools of the European Union’s (EU) innovation policy. However, how sticky are these tools? Much of the existing literature focuses on the first-order issue of their social costs and benefits. Little attention is paid to the problem of institutional inertia which keeps some of these solutions in circulation despite their proven ineffectiveness. While economic progress is unthinkable without stable property rights, it is equally unthinkable without their never-ending adjustment and continuous reflection of their effects. This chapter examines the question as to how difficult it would be to legislate away a new set of intellectual property rights once they are found to be incapable of delivering on their promises.

Policymakers have explicitly linked sustained reductions in COVID-19 case growth to reopening policies, including the lifting of shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs). This “hardwired” policy endogeneity creates challenges in isolating the causal effect of lifting a statewide SIPO on COVID-19. To overcome simultaneity bias, we exploit a unique natural experiment generated by the Wisconsin Supreme Court when it abolished Wisconsin’s “Safer at Home” order on separation-of-powers grounds. We capitalize on this sudden, dramatic, and largely unanticipated termination of a statewide SIPO to estimate its effect on social distancing and COVID-19 case growth. First, using anonymized smartphone data from SafeGraph Inc. and a synthetic control design, we find that SIPO termination had little impact on social distancing. Then, using data on COVID-19 case and mortality rates, we find no evidence that the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision impacted COVID-19 growth up to a month following the repeal. We conclude that the impacts of SIPOs are likely not symmetric across enactment and lifting of orders, and this asymmetry sheds new light on the potential mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of these orders.

Ireland’s near-total abortion ban was, in effect, a policy of offshoring abortions. Before the May 2018 vote to repeal it, the 8th Amendment allowed for conservative and nationalist groups to celebrate the idea of Ireland as an ‘abortion-free’ territory, while forcing women to travel to England for abortion or self-manage abortions with illegal pills at home. Artists in the Irish pro-choice movement have contested the public silence around abortion and abortion-travel; in doing so they have disrupted the political narrative of ‘abortion-free Ireland’ by symbolically re-placing Irish abortion seekers in public spaces. These place-based artistic interventions have larger significance for the changing relationship between women, reproduction, and the state. Drawing on ongoing debates in critical and feminist geopolitics, this article addresses the relationship between geopolitics, art, and political agency to theorize the role of pro-choice Irish artworks in challenging the enforced silence that surrounded abortion travel. It builds on geographical engagement with Jacques Rancière to address the feminist geopolitics critique of geopolitical scales and sites of ‘serious’ geopolitics. The article examines three artworks that depict Irish women’s experiences of abortion-related travel to England as part of the larger political campaign for liberalization of Ireland’s abortion laws.

A recurrent problem in international organizations is the disappearance of institutional history and knowledge. The same can be said about international agreements unless the same key drafters/negotiators are involved in subsequent agreements which is rarely the case. This study provides an example how institutional memory embedded in international agreements can be preserved for the benefit of the next generation of policy negotiators. Hence, as a contribution to the broader reflection on how to align National Sustainable Development Plans with the implementation plan of 2030 Agenda, the purpose of the study is to present a comparative analysis of the 2030 Agenda with 6 outcome documents that were negotiated and agreed by the UN member countries in the domain of sustainability. This analysis aims to identify issues not covered or “unfinished business” in the 2030 Agenda and addressed in a more comprehensive manner or from different perspectives. The list of agreements and outcome documents included are Agenda 21, Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21, Outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, The Paris Agreement and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development. Our findings show that these agreements tend to build on each other, not always in the most straightforward manner, but they constitute a complementary set of agreements documenting the existing knowledge and practices on sustainability development. For instance, the 2030 Agenda does not repeal Agenda 21 (1992) or any other of the six agreements analysed, which shows that these preceding international agreements are still relevant for domestication by the signatories. Rather, it is a summative document covering all three pillars of sustainable development (social, environmental and economic). Recommendations are made on what aspects of the previous agreements could be most relevant for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. These points need to be part of the outreach in supporting countries for national implementation of the SDGs. Future research examining the interrelated aspects of international agreements could benefit from applying the same approach of comparative text analysis. This, in turn, will allow for the leveraging of prior consensus and knowledge and add deeper insights to meta-level governance toward a sustainable future. It could also be argued that once the SDGs/2030 Agenda needs to be revisited/revised and be replaced, the approach used for this comparative study could become the model to avoid reinventing the wheel and acknowledge that we are all standing on the shoulders of far-sighted public figures whose innovative thinking should be acknowledged rather than forgotten.

Our study aimed to assess whether elective posterior lumbar fusions (PLFs) performed in states with Certificate-of-Need (CON) laws versus states without CON laws had lower utilization rates, lower costs, and better quality of care.The 2005-2014 100% Medicare Standard Analytical File was queried to identify patients undergoing elective 1- to 3-level PLF. Differences in per-capita utilization, 90-day reimbursements, and proportion of high-volume between CON and No-CON states were reported. Multivariate analyses were used to analyze 90-day complications and readmissions.A total of 188,687 patients underwent an elective 1- to 3-level PLF in a CON state and 167,642 patients in a No-CON state during 2005-2014. The average per capita utilization of PLFs was lower in CON states as compared with No-CON states (14.5 vs. 15.4 per 10,000 population; P0.001). Average 90-day reimbursements between CON and No-CON states differed by a small amount ($22,115 vs. $21,802). CON states had a higher proportion of high-volume facilities (CON vs. No CON-40.9% vs. 29.9%; P0.05) and lower proportion of low-volume facilities (CON vs. No-CON-37.2% vs. 45.0%; P0.05). PLFs performed in CON states had slightly lower odds of 90-day complications (odds ratio 0.97 [95% confidence interval 0.96-0.99]; P0.001) and readmissions (odds ratio 0.95 [95% confidence interval 0.93-0.97]; P0.001).The presence of CON laws was associated with lower utilization of elective 1- to 3-level PLFs and a greater number of high-volume facilities. However, their effect on quality of care, via reduction of 90-day readmissions and 90-day complications, is minimally significant.

State prevailing wage law repeals have been shown to lower wages and benefits—including benefits providing safety training and associated with worker retention in construction. This study tests whether prevailing wage repeals affect construction injury rates and/or the prevalence of disabilities among construction workers. Controlling for time trends in injuries and disabilities, differences between construction industry subsectors, the business cycle, and time-invariant differences between states, we find that repealing state prevailing wage laws increase construction injury rates across various types of injuries from 11.6% to 13.1% as the seriousness of injuries increases. Disabilities increase by 7.5% to 8.2% depending on the model specification. Conjoining an analysis of the effects of prevailing wage law repeals on injury rates with disability rates in construction provides alternative measures of the effects of prevailing wage laws on construction workplace safety, which addresses a well-known problem of underreporting construction injuries.

This Study was conducted to determine the regulation impact on requirement of minimum land area of each housing unit in Depok City. This study use d Regulatory Impact Assesment (RIA) to analyze the impact of the policy implementation . Analy tical tool used in this RIA method was CBA obtained from AHP questionnaire. Result of this study indicate d that the most appropriate policy alternative to overcome problems was to repeal the policy on requirement of minimum land area for each housing unit in Depok City. For Depok City Government, i t is suggested to repeal provisions in Regional Regulation No. 13 of 2013 and regional regulation draft concerning Depok City Spatial Plan of 2012-2032 regulating the requirement of minimum land area of 120 square meters for each housing unit .

OBJECTIVES In this study, we determined patients' attitudes toward discussing firearms and issues of firearms safety with emergency department physicians. We assessed whether patients feel discriminated against should physicians discuss firearms safety, and whether they believed that physician counseling may change how patients store firearms. METHODS From June to October 2017, we conducted a cross-sectional institutional review board-approved survey of 200 consenting adult patients (convenience sample) not requiring critical care presenting to the emergency department of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida. The survey consisted of 22 questions about perceptions of physicians inquiring about firearms, demographics, firearms statistics, and firearms knowledge. Results on firearms owners and nonowners were compared with the Fisher exact test. P < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS Ninety percent of patients said they felt comfortable discussing firearms safety with a physician (firearms vs no firearms owner, 100% vs 87.5%, P = 0.028). Ninety percent (firearms 90.7% vs no firearms owners 89.9%, P = 1.0) of patients did not believe that physicians were discriminating against patients who are firearms owners when discussing firearms safety. Seventy-six percent (firearms 76.4% vs no firearms owners 77.3%, P = 0.367) of patients believed that physicians should be educating their patients about firearms safety, and 71% (n = 142) believed that education provided by physicians will change how people store their firearms (firearms 75% vs no firearms owners 70.2%, P = 0.67). CONCLUSIONS Firearms safety is a difficult but important public health matter that requires significant intervention to help prevent future firearms incidents. This study supports physicians' efforts to help educate patients about the dangers of firearms, along with proper firearms storage techniques, showing that patients are largely open to this discussion. We propose that training of physicians in strategies for initiating clinical discourse and addressing firearms safety is needed.

This study contributes a historical perspective to communication that surrounds health care policy. The importance of the role of media in the establishment of public policy is highlighted, as well as an administration’s ability to educate the media and public about proposed legislation. Using content analysis, the researchers examined how White House news releases and television news stories represented the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) from its initial discussion in January 2009 through March of 2012. The results showed neither the White House news releases, nor the network television news stories provided the public with a comprehensive outline of the PPACA. Both the Obama administration and the media presented the PPACA as an important current issue, but both failed to define it in ways that made the legislation accessible to the public. The lack of definitive information created confusion for the public and this health care policy remains a controversial piece of legislation which has been threatened with repeal.

Background One quarter of Ugandan girls aged 15-19 years have become pregnant, and by age 50, one quarter of women report experiencing a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Adolescent pregnancies pose health challenges because teenage mothers are constrained in their future pursuit of education and have an increased likelihood of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Uganda lifted a parliamentary ban on sexual education beyond abstinence in May 2018. This study aimed to introduce and evaluate a comprehensive sex education curriculum to prevent pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections at a secondary school in Uganda. Methods Over three weeks in June 2018, our team implemented a comprehensive reproductive health education curriculum called ‘big decisions’ in a secondary school in Uganda. Hope Comprehensive High School is a Christian school in Masaka, Uganda with approximately 400 students. We trained 15 teachers and co-facilitated the curriculum with a pilot group of 30 students. We measured student demographics and knowledge/attitudes toward sex, relationships, STIs, and contraception before and after the program. Results There was a statistically significant improvement in student knowledge about pregnancy, contraceptives, and STIs. We also noted an increase in positive attitudes toward condom use. Conclusions Engaging the faculty and staff with an appropriate and fact-based curriculum was crucial to the success of the project. Myths on contraceptive education and condoms were significantly debunked within the pilot group. This project demonstrates the viability of a non-faith based sex education curriculum in a Christian Ugandan secondary school.