Voter Petitions for Term Limits in Illinois: A Conflict Between Popular Desire and Constitutional Constraints

The question of whether a legislator should have his or her years of service capped by term limits is an issue that demands attention because of significant voter support in Illinois. “Legislative term limits have long been a popular response to perceived corruption or inaction in politics. Almost eight in ten [voters] (78.7 percent) favor, and more than half [of voters] (54.0 percent) strongly favor” term limits.1 However, since term limits are not currently incorporated into any article of The Constitution of the State of Illinois of 1970 (hereinafter “Illinois Constitution”), those supporting term limits must amend the constitution to include them. This task is easier said than done

It is Hard to Make Everyone Happy: The Rights Gained and Lost By Companies and Employees in the Context of the Affordable Care Act Contraception Mandate

The Affordable Care Act Contraception Mandate was implemented so that companies would be required to provide their female employees with contraception healthcare coverage. However, several different types of entities, such as non-profit religious organizations, have been exempted from paying for the Contraception Mandate because providing contraception healthcare to their employees conflicted with the corporations’ religious principles. Corporations are legal persons, which affords them many, but not all, of the protections a natural person enjoys under the First Amendment. While the religious freedom of corporations is recognized by federal statute, corporations do not have religious protection under the First Amendment. Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that for-profit corporations, most notably Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., are also exempt from providing for the Contraception Mandate on the grounds that the contraception healthcare violates the religious beliefs of the corporation. The ruling invalidates the application of the Contraception Mandate to for-profit religious companies and shifts the burden of providing for contraception healthcare to the female employees. The Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. line of cases presents a conflict between the religious rights of the corporate person and the employment and religious rights of natural persons. This Comment will argue that the Court’s decision to invalidate the Contraception Mandate, in the context ofBurwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., is incorrect because this ruling infringes upon the “religious beliefs” of natural person employees under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court’s holding oppresses the Title VII religious rights of the natural person, which arise from constitutional protection, while granting religious protection to corporate persons, who have not been given religious constitutional protection

Decomposing the foreclosure crisis: House price depreciation versus bad underwriting

We estimate a model of foreclosure using a data set that includes every residential mortgage, purchase-and-sale, and foreclosure transaction in Massachusetts from 1989 to 2008. We address the identification issues related to the estimation of the effects of house prices on residential foreclosures. We then use the model to study the dramatic increase in foreclosures that occurred in Massachusetts between 2005 and 2008 and conclude that the foreclosure crisis was primarily driven by the severe decline in housing prices that began in the latter part of 2005, not by a relaxation of underwriting standards on which much of the prevailing literature has focused. We argue that relaxed underwriting standards did severely aggravate the crisis by creating a class of homeowners who were particularly vulnerable to the decline in prices. But, as we show in our counterfactual analysis, that emergence alone, in the absence of a price collapse, would not have resulted in the substantial foreclosure boom that was experienced.

The Bells : Les Cloches

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/5840/thumbnail.jp

THE INFLUENCE OF WEARING A LUMBAR SUPPORT BELT UPON JAVELIN THROWING PERFORMANCE

Six male javelin throwers (mean ±SD age 25 ± 4 years: height 1.82 ± 0.06 m; weight 891 ± 105 N) were filmed at 150 Hz throwing an 800g javelin from a polyflex athletic track with and without a lumbar support belt, to allow three- dimensional kinematic analysis. Two typical throws at similar run up velocities were analysed. Wearing the belt was associated with significantly greater peak velocity at the shoulder relative to the hip when the hyperextended torso flexed forwards to release the javelin (P=0.046). With the belt there was not a significant increase in the velocity of the arm segments or javelin release velocity, attitude angle, release height, though an insignificant increase of 1.45m in mean distance occurred (P>0.05) possibly due to javelin aerodynamic factors

Decarbonising existing homes in Wales: a participatory behavioural systems mapping approach

To reduce carbon emissions, urgent change is needed to high-carbon human behaviours including home energy use. Previous policy failures point to insufficient integration of systemic and behavioural approaches which are too often seen as alternative and incompatible approaches to bring about change. A novel behavioural systems mapping approach was used to inform national policy recommendations for energy-saving retrofit of homes in Wales. Three participatory workshops were held with the independent Welsh residential decarbonisation advisory group ('the Advisory Group') to: (1) map relationships between actors, behaviours and influences on behaviour within the home retrofit system; (2) provide training in the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) framework and (3) use these to develop policy recommendations for interventions. Recommendations were analysed using the capability, opportunity and motivation (COM-B) model of behaviour to assess whether they addressed these factors. Two behavioural systems maps (BSMs) were produced, representing privately rented and owner-occupied housing tenures. The main causal pathways and feedback loops in each map are described. Necessary interventions to achieve national-scale retrofit included: government-led investment, campaigns and awareness-building, financial-sector funding mechanisms, enforcement of regulations and creating more streamlined and trusted supply chain services. Of 27 final policy recommendations, six addressed capability, 24 opportunity and 12 motivation. Participatory behavioural systems mapping can be used in conjunction with behaviour change frameworks to develop policy recommendations that address the behavioural determinants of complex environmental problems in a systemic way. Research is underway to refine and extend the approach through application to other sustainability challenges and methods of constructing systems maps

GROUND REACTION FORCES OCCURING DURING THE DELIVERY STRIDE OF JAVELIN THROWING

Five male javelin throwers (mean ± SD: age 24 ± 3 years; height 1.83 ± 0.06 m; body weight 888 ± 117 N) performed outdoors. Two Kistler force platforms were mounted beneath an outdoor polyflex runway (0.017 m depth) with positioning adjustment for each subject's delivery stride length. For the back foot the mean (±SD) peak vertical ground reaction force was 2.31 ± 0.41 BW, and maximum total force was 2.36 ± 0.50 BW. For the front foot the mean peak vertical force was 5.63 ± 1.31 BW, the braking force was 4.50 ± 0.96 BW and maximum total force was 7.05 ± 1.57 BW. At the beginning of the delivery stride, when the back foot contacted the ground, the mean peak vertical loading rate was 115 ± 35 BW/s which was less than the front foot loading rate of 192 ± 64 BWs/s