Campaign finance laws that make small donations public maylead to fewer people contributing and to smaller donations.

In the American states, campaign finance laws require disclosure of private information for contributors at relatively low thresholds ranging from $1 to$300. The Internet has made it relatively easy to publicize such information in a way that changes the social context for political participation. Ray La Raja looks at how public disclosure of campaign contributions affects citizens’ willingness to give money to candidates. Drawing on social influence theory, his analysis suggests that citizens are sensitive to divulging private information, especially those who are surrounded by people with different political views. He shows that individuals refrain from making small campaign contributions or reduce their donations to avoid disclosing their identities

Who gave soft money? The effect of interest group resources on political contributions

We consider the effect of various organizational resources on political contributions. Using a unique data set of soft money contributors from 1997 to 1998, our resource-based model examines how capital, membership, and experience influence the decision to give money to political parties. By observing decision making in a relatively unconstrained regulatory environment typified by the soft money regime, we demonstrate the conventional wisdom that financial resources determine the size of political contributions. Financial wealth, however, does not predict whether an organization will make a contribution in the first place. Instead, we show that a lack of alternative resources makes it more likely that organizations will spend money on politics. These findings have important implications for determining who benefits under various campaign finance rules

Term limits, Campaign contributions, and the distribution of power in state legislatures

Using campaign contributions to legislators as an indicator of member influence, we explore the impact of term limits on the distribution of power within state legislatures. Specifically, we perform a cross-state comparison of the relative influence of party caucus leaders, committee chairs, and rank-and-file legislators before and after term limits. The results indicate that term limits diffuse power in state legislatures, both by decreasing average contributions to incumbents and by reducing the power of party caucus leaders relative to other members. The change in contribution levels across legislators in different chambers implies a shift in power to the upper chamber in states with term limits. Thus, the impact of term limits may be attenuated in a bicameral system

Primary primers: voters are generally happy to work alongside elites to choose their party’s presidential nominee

Since 1984, party elites, both elected and DNC members, have played a role in selecting the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. While recent years have seen calls to move away from a system that includes those who some accuse of being unelected elites, in new research, Zachary Albert and Raymond La Raja find that voters are actually happy with a mixed system where voters and elites share influence on the choice of nominee

Campaign finance laws may be making political polarization worse by encouraging ‘purist’ donors.

Many Americans have become increasingly concerned over the role of money in politics, and back more populist approaches to reducing political donations. Raymond J. La Raja and Brian F. Schaffner, authors of Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail, argue that populist approaches such as imposing low contribution limits on parties, distort the campaign finance system in ways that benefit a small group of partisan purists at the expense of the broader electorate. This in turn pushes candidates towards ideological extremes. They write that reformers should consider a more party-centered campaign finance system which would channel money to candidates through highly transparent and broadly accountable party organizations, which would then lead to less polarization

Being backed by extended party networks can mean a greater chance of electoral success for a Congressional challenger

Political parties play a central role in democracies, helping to mediate between citizens and governing elites by running candidates for office who promise to pursue policy programs. But what if “the party” is really more of a collection of interest groups than a traditional party organization? Using data from US congressional elections and campaign finance, Bruce Desmarais, Ray La Raja and Mike Kowal show that parties are networks of partisan groups that converge on select groups of challengers. They explain that parties in the U.S. have become so distinctive and polarized, because they represent unique coalitions of policy demanders that influence the ideological composition of Congress

PENINGKATAN POWER LENGAN MELALUI PENDEKATAN BENTUK LATIHAN BENCHPRES DAN RESISTAND BAND DAN DUKUNGANNYA TERHADAP VELOCITY SMASH BALL UKM BOLA VOLI UPI

Salah satu cabang olahraga prestasi adalah bola voli. Bola voli merupakan salah satu cabang olahraga yang banyak digemari semua lapisan masyarakat di Indonesia. Olahraga ini dapat dimainkan mulai dari tingkat anak-anak sampai orang dewasa, baik pria maupun wanita. Melalui kegiatan olahraga bola voli masyarakat memiliki potensi untuk meningkatkan prestasinya. Terdapat tiga unsur fisik dominan berpengaruh terhadap hasil smah yaitu: Daya ledak otot lengan, daya ledak otot tungkai, dan kekuatan otot perut (Kustiawan,2016). Daya ledak dalam olahraga merupakan salah satu komponen yang harus di miliki di sebagian cabang olahraga, oleh karna itu berkaitan dengan hasil dari seluruh kinerja baik secara individu maupun kelompok yang sedang melakukan aktifitas olahraga sebagai komponen terpenting dalam cabang olahraga (Oktariana., 2020) Daya ledak otot lengan merupakan kualitas yang memungkin otot atau sekelompok otot untuk melakukan kerja fisik secara eksplosif menurut (Ambarwa, 2017). Daya ledak otot lengan merupakan kemampuan seseorang untuk melakukan kekuatan yang maksimum menurut (Rahmawati et al., 2019) Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji adanya dukungan antara bentuk latihan bencpress dan resistance band terhadap power lengan dan kecepatan bola. Metode penelitian ini menggunakan eksperimen two group pretest-postest. Sampel menggunkan mahasiswa yang aktif di ukm bola voli upi yang berjumlah 20 orang. Instrument yang digunakan untuk mengukur peningkatan power lengan dan kecepatan bola yaitu ball medicine untuk power lengan dan speed gun untuk kecepatan. Bentuk latihan yang digunakan adalah benchpress dan resistance band dengan menggunkan metode set system. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa kedua bentuk latihan tersebut memberikan peningkatan dan dukungan terhadap power lengan dan kecepatan bola yang signifikan, dengan taraf signifikan 0,001 yang artinya terdapat peningkatan power tungkai secara signifikan. One of the achievement sports is volleyball. Volleyball is a sport that is popular with all walks of life in Indonesia. This sport can be played from the level of children to adults, both men and women. Through volleyball sports activities, the community has the potential to improve its achievements. There are three dominant physical elements that influence the results of high school, namely: the explosive power of the arm muscles, the explosive power of the leg muscles, and the strength of the abdominal muscles (Kustiawan, 2016). Explosive power in sports is a component that must be owned in several sports because it is related to the results of all performance both individually and in groups who are carrying out sports activities the most important component in sports (Oktariana., 2020) Explosive power Arm muscles are qualities that allow a muscle or group of muscles to do physical work explosively according to (Ambarwa, 2017). Arm muscle explosive power is a person's ability to exert maximum strength according to (Rahmawati et al., 2019). This study aims to test the existence of support between the form of bench press and resistance band exercises for arm power and ball speed. This research method uses a two-group pretest-posttest experiment. The sample uses students who are active in UPI volleyball UKM, totaling 20 people. The instruments used to measure the increase in arm power and ball speed are ball medicine for arm power and a speed gun for speed. The forms of exercise used are benchpress and resistance band using the set system method. The results of this study indicate that both forms of exercise provide significant improvement and support for arm power and ball speed, with a significant level of 0.001, which means there is a significant increase in leg power

Why Local Party Leaders Don't Support Nominating Centrists

Would giving party leaders more influence in primary elections in the United States decrease elite polarization? Some scholars have argued that political party leaders tend to support centrist candidates in the hopes of winning general elections. In contrast, the authors argue that many local party leaders - especially Republicans - may not believe that centrists perform better in elections and therefore may not support nominating them. They test this argument using data from an original survey of 1,118 county-level party leaders. In experiments, they find that local party leaders most prefer nominating candidates who are similar to typical co-partisans, not centrists. Moreover, given the choice between a more centrist and more extreme candidate, they strongly prefer extremists: Democrats do so by about 2 to 1 and Republicans by 10 to 1. Likewise, in open-ended questions, Democratic Party leaders are twice as likely to say they look for extreme candidates relative to centrists; Republican Party leaders are five times as likely. Potentially driving these partisan differences, Republican leaders are especially likely to believe that extremists can win general elections and overestimate the electorate's conservatism by double digits

Acute Wounding Alters the Beta2-Adrenergic Signaling and Catecholamine Synthetic Pathways in Keratinocytes

Keratinocyte migration is critical for wound re-epithelialization. Previous studies showed that epinephrine activates the beta2-adrenergic receptor (B2AR), impairing keratinocyte migration. Here, we investigated the keratinocyte catecholamine synthetic pathway in response to acute trauma. Cultured keratinocytes were scratch wounded and expression levels of the B2AR and catecholamine synthetic enzymes tyrosine hydroxylase and phenylethanolamine-N-methyltransferase were assayed. The binding affinity of the B2AR was measured. Wounding downregulated B2AR, tyrosine hydroxylase, and phenylethanolamine-N-methyltransferase expression, but pre-exposure to timolol, a beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist, delayed this effect. In wounded keratinocytes, B2AR-binding affinity remained depressed even after its expression returned to prewounding levels. Keratinocyte-derived norepinephrine increased after wounding. Norepinephrine impaired keratinocyte migration; this effect was abrogated with B2AR-selective antagonist ICI-118,551 but not with B1AR-selective antagonist bisoprolol. Finally, for clinical relevance, we determined that norepinephrine was present in freshly wounded skin, thus providing a potential mechanism for impaired healing by local B2AR activation in wound-edge keratinocytes. Taken together, the data show that keratinocytes modulate catecholamine synthetic enzymes and release norepinephrine after scratch wounding. Norepinephrine appears to be a stress-related mediator that impairs keratinocyte migration through activation of the B2AR. Future therapeutic strategies evaluating modulation of norepinephrine-related effects in the wound are warranted