Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 1998 Term

This Article, the fourteenth in a series, tabulates and analyzes the voting behavior of the United States Supreme Court. This particular study examines the Court\u27s voting behavior during the 1998 Term. The Article attempts to determine whether individual Justices and the Court as a whole are voting more conservatively, more liberally, or about the same as compared with past terms. Whether a vote is considered conservative or liberal depends upon the issues being decided. Generally, votes favoring the assertion of governmental power are conservative, while those favoring claims of individual liberty are considered liberal. The issues are categorized into ten different types of cases: Civil-State Party (state government versus a private party), Civil-Federal Party (federal government versus a private party), State Criminal Cases, Federal Criminal Cases, First Amendment Cases, Equal Protection Cases, Jurisdiction (cases raising a challenge to the exercise of federal jurisdiction), Federalism Cases, and Swing-Vote Cases. As in the 1997 Term, the voting behavior of the 1998 Term indicates overall liberal movement in a majority of the categories. Of the four categories that showed conservative movement, none were particularly noteworthy. Furthermore, this is the second consecutive Term that the Court has voted liberally on close cases decided by one vote, suggesting that ideologically charged cases are yielding more and more liberal results. All this indicates that the Rehnquist Court may be more liberal than present commentary suggests

Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 1997 Term

This Article is the thirteenth consecutive annual study tabulating and analyzing the voting behavior of the United States Supreme Court. This Article examines the Court\u27s voting behavior during the 1997 Term. The study attempts to determine whether individual Justices and the Court as a whole are voting more conservatively, more liberally, or about the same as compared with past Terms. Whether a vote is considered conservative or liberal depends upon the issues being decided. Generally, votes favoring the assertion of governmental power are conservative, while votes favoring claims of individual liberty are considered liberal. The issues are categorized into ten different types of cases: Civil-State Party (state government versus a private party), Civil-Federal Party (federal government versus a private party), State Criminal Cases, Federal Criminal Cases, First Amendment Cases, Equal Protection Cases, Statutory Civil Rights Cases, Jurisdiction (cases raising a challenge to the exercise of federal jurisdiction), Federalism Cases, and Swing-Vote Cases. The voting behavior of the 1997 Term indicates overall liberal movement in most categories with the exception of the State Criminal Cases category, which showed true conservative movement. This movement, together with the continued uneasy balance of power in swing-vote cases (favoring liberal decisions this term), may signify a retreat from last Term\u27s somewhat conservative posture. Also contributing to this Term\u27s liberal shift may be the increased number of cases implicating issues of federalism and federal jurisdiction. In these categories, the Court consistently voted in a liberal manner, finding in favor of the United States and for the exercise of jurisdiction. Because these categories are ideologically charged, the liberal shift evidenced this Term may be more than a mere indicator of the Court\u27s fading conservative allegiance - it may be evidence that a shift towards a primarily liberal balance-of-power is well underway

\u3ci\u3eDrosophila\u3c/i\u3e Muller F Elements Maintain a Distinct Set of Genomic Properties Over 40 Million Years of Evolution

The Muller F element (4.2 Mb, ~80 protein-coding genes) is an unusual autosome of Drosophila melanogaster; it is mostly heterochromatic with a low recombination rate. To investigate how these properties impact the evolution of repeats and genes, we manually improved the sequence and annotated the genes on the D. erecta, D. mojavensis, and D. grimshawi F elements and euchromatic domains from the Muller D element. We find that F elements have greater transposon density (25–50%) than euchromatic reference regions (3–11%). Among the F elements, D. grimshawi has the lowest transposon density (particularly DINE-1: 2% vs. 11–27%). F element genes have larger coding spans, more coding exons, larger introns, and lower codon bias. Comparison of the Effective Number of Codons with the Codon Adaptation Index shows that, in contrast to the other species, codon bias in D. grimshawi F element genes can be attributed primarily to selection instead of mutational biases, suggesting that density and types of transposons affect the degree of local heterochromatin formation. F element genes have lower estimated DNA melting temperatures than D element genes, potentially facilitating transcription through heterochromatin. Most F element genes (~90%) have remained on that element, but the F element has smaller syntenic blocks than genome averages (3.4–3.6 vs. 8.4–8.8 genes per block), indicating greater rates of inversion despite lower rates of recombination. Overall, the F element has maintained characteristics that are distinct from other autosomes in the Drosophila lineage, illuminating the constraints imposed by a heterochromatic milieu