The Voting Rights Act After Shelby County v. Holder: A Potential Fix to Revive Section 5

The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) was a momentous occasion for minority voters in the United States, and its positive effects could be measured immediately. However, when Section 4 of the VRA was declared unconstitutional in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the ability of the VRA to continue its protection of minority voters was called into question. We argue that the VRA is still necessary and propose an administrative notification system that could fix the issues with Sections 4 and 5.Le vote au Congrès en 1965 de la loi sur les droits de vote (Voting Rights Act) fut un événement historique pour les minorités aux Etats-Unis et ses effets furent immédiats. Cependant, en 2013, la Cour Suprême dans l’arrêt Shelby County c. Holder, déclara qu’une de ces dispositions était inconstitutionnelle. Des lors la capacité de la loi à protéger le droit de vote des minorités a été remise en question. Dans cet article nous expliquons que le Voting Rights Act est toujours nécessaire et proposons un système de notification administrative afin de résoudre les problèmes soulevés par les Sections 4 et 5

834-1996

ABSTRACT We note the declining number of US Senate resignations that have occurred from 1834 through to 1996. While certainly this trend is related to the rise of careerism in Congress, we analyze it from the perspective of divided government (where the channels of power are shared by both parties). The results of our analysis show that most of the resignations that do occur happen when the party of the outgoing senator will retain the seat being vacated. We link the declining number of resignations to an increase in a specific instance of divided government: namely, divided partisan control of one or both Senate seats relative to the body that fills Senate vacancies in the event of a resignation. The desire on the part of senators to resign only when their party will remain in control has remained constant over time, but the proportion of senators who could resign with this assurance has decreased

Perfluorinated Alkyl Acids in Plasma of American Alligators (Alligator Mississippiensis) from Florida and South Carolina

This study aimed to quantitate fourteen perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) in 125 adult American alligators at twelve sites across the southeastern US. Of those fourteen PFAAs, nine were detected in 65% - 100% of the samples: PFOA, PFNA, PFDA, PFUnA, PFDoA, PFTriA, PFTA, PFHxS, and PFOS. Males (across all sites) showed significantly higher concentrations of four PFAAs: PFOS (p = 0.01), PFDA (p = 0.0003), PFUnA (p = 0.021), and PFTriA (p = 0.021). Concentrations of PFOS, PFHxS, and PFDA in plasma were significantly different among the sites in each sex. Alligators at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Kiawah Nature Conservancy both exhibited some of the highest PFOS concentrations (medians 99.5 ng/g and 55.8 ng/g respectively) in plasma measured to date in a crocodilian species. A number of positive correlations between PFAAs and snout-vent length (SVL) were observed in both sexes suggesting PFAA body burdens increase with increasing size. In addition, several significant correlations among PFAAs in alligator plasma may suggest conserved sources of PFAAs at each site throughout the greater study area. This study is the first to report PFAAs in American alligators, reveals potential PFAA hot spots in Florida and South Carolina, and provides and additional contaminant of concern when assessing anthropogenic impacts on ecosystem health

Rational Response to Irrational Attitudes: The Level of the Gasoline Tax in the United States

Retailers often price items at $9.99 rather than$10.00. They may do so to fool consumers into viewing the price as closer to $9.00 than to$10.00, or to signal consumers that the product is on sale (e.g., Stiving and Winer, 1997). Similarly, workers highly desire a six-figure income-a salary of $100,000 sounds much more impressive than a salary of$99,999. This paper explores related behavior by government. Suppose legislators attempt to reduce the salience of increases in the gasoline tax by avoiding moving gasoline taxes into double digits, and suppose that once taxes are moved beyond the double-digit threshold, legislators might as well raise them a little more than just the threshold increment to compensate for the increased visibility they have incurred. Two patterns might result: relatively few states imposing a tax of exactly 10 cents, and a more general avoidance of double-digit taxes. The data confirm this pattern. Such attention to nominal values can lead to peculiarities. Consider the following thought experiment. A state is observed to impose a tax of 8 cents on a gallon of gasoline. But were it forced to specify the tax as so many cents per quart, it would impose a tax not of 2 cents per quart, but of 3 cents per quart. Were such behavior common, then to explain the level of taxes it would be necessary to consider not only the usual economic and political explanations, but also the nominal value of taxes. In the following we present two different ways of testing for the importance of nominal values. Our focus is on gasoline taxes in the different states in the United States. Such taxes are both substantively important, and well suited for study since much data are available on them