La partecipazione in calo (ma non troppo)

Il calo della partecipazione elettorale, per quanto drastico possa essere, \ue8 ormai talmente atteso da non destare pi\uf9 scalpore. Tale fenomeno richiede tuttavia un\u2019analisi e, se possibile, una spiegazione. Ed \ue8 quello che si cercher\ue0 di offrire in questo capitolo dedicato all\u2019affluenza elettorale, illustrando l\u2019andamento della partecipazione elettorale nelle regioni a statuto ordinario dal 1970 sino a oggi ed offrendo alcune ipotesi relative alle motivazioni strutturali del calo dell\u2019affluenza alle urne in occasione delle elezioni regionali del 2015

Candidate, Political

A political candidate is the person who strives to win political offices, essentially through electoral procedures. The word originates from the Latin candidatus, \u201cman in white,\u201d referring to the white robe (toga) that Romans standing for a public office used to wear, which symbolized the untarnished moral qualities that were considered to be the indispensable characteristics of a political man. David Easton\u2019s analytical framework (1965) offers the best way to approach the subject. The \u201ccandidate\u201d can be located in the fragile interconnection point that joins the flow of demands and support from the environment to the political system. Before their (first) candidacy, all candidates are part of the political community. Then, as candidates, they play the role of input carriers. They are messengers carrying demands, who strive for the support of the voters and of the political community at large. Finally, if elected, they form part of the authorities who convert demands into outputs, that is, who make legally binding decisions. The input\u2013output process involves some procedures and some \u201crules of the game\u201d that, according to Easton, are part of the regime and regulate the processes leading to a member of the political community being selected as a candidate and, if elected, becoming part of the authorities

Design of doubly-complementary IIR digital filters using a single complex allpass filter, with multirate applications

It is shown that a large class of real-coefficient doubly-complementary IIR transfer function pairs can be implemented by means of a single complex allpass filter. For a real input sequence, the real part of the output sequence corresponds to the output of one of the transfer functions G(z) (for example, lowpass), whereas the imaginary part of the output sequence corresponds to its "complementary" filter H(z)(for example, highpass). The resulting implementation is structurally lossless, and hence the implementations of G(z) and H(z) have very low passband sensitivity. Numerical design examples are included, and a typical numerical example shows that the new implementation with 4 bits per multiplier is considerably better than a direct form implementation with 9 bits per multiplier. Multirate filter bank applications (quadrature mirror filtering) are outlined

A New Water Law Vista: Rooting the Public Trust Doctrine in the Courts

Courts largely view the public trust doctrine as limited by state legislative and executive policy. According to this widespread theory, states may be required to hold in trust a handful of historically-big waterbodies (referred to as “navigable” waters) for certain uses like commerce, but beyond that, states are free to dispose of water without considering the public’s interests.36 So there is no requirement that states consider, for example, the public’s interest in conserving Walker Lake, a lake much older that the state of Nevada itself. And not only can the public not meaningfully challenge a state’s legislative or executive decisions in state courts—but they can’t challenge the state’s abdication of the public trust in federal court, either. Because the scope of the trust is supposedly a state-law matter.Courts and litigants have struggled to craft a theory that will allow the state’s trust duties to extend to more water and more uses, and perhaps most importantly, enforceable in both state and federal courts. I suggest such a theory here.In short, this article explains why we should view the public trust doctrine as reflecting very basic principles of limited state authority over water. This limitation prevents states from seriously infringing on the public’s interest in all flowing water. In other words: when states (and occasionally the federal government) abdicate their public trust duties, they are permitting an infringement on the public’s fundamental right to water—a violation of due process and a violation of the states’ sovereign authority.This theoretical framework allows federal courts to review a state’s decision to forego its trust duties, even when it needs to go beyond those historical, navigable waters. After all, viewed this way, enforcing the public trust is a remedy to protect the public’s interest in natural waters generally. Not only should litigants be able to argue for an expansion of trust duties in state courts under state constitutions, they should also be able to argue for this expansion in federal courts under the U.S. Constitution.Interpreting which waters and uses are protected by the trust is, in effect, interpreting the extent of sovereign authority over water. That is a job uniquely for the judiciary. The court doors should be flung wide open in even the most restrictive of states, allowing citizens to challenge legislative and administrative decisions about water allocation. Courts will be empowered to expand the public trust even in the face of legislative and administrative obstinance

The Common Law Right to Information

A once-thriving doctrine, today the common law right to information has been largely forgotten by U.S. courts at both the state and federal level. But courts have not paused to question whether the common law right still has a role to play in modern litigation. One reason may be the dearth of case law explaining the common law right\u27s operation. Another may be that courts believe this doctrine has been eradicated by the advent of freedom of information laws. This article first brings together the disparate authority on the common law right in an attempt to pin down the precise contours of the doctrine. It then examines the operation of the various federal and state freedom of information statutes and compares them to the common law right. Then it considers whether these statutes preempt or displace the common law rights, ultimately concluding that the state common law right is unlikely to be displaced, while the federal common law right is more likely displaced. Finally, this article suggests several relatively narrow uses the common law may still serve today in the realm of public access to information

Does Supply Matter? Initial Supply Conditions and the Effectiveness of Conditional Cash Transfers for Grade Progression in Nicaragua

We combine administrative and survey data to examine the effect of a conditional cash transfer program on grade progression in Nicaragua from 1999–2003, putting the spotlight on initial supply side conditions and the extent to which they conditioned program effectiveness. Our principal findings are that the program had a substantial effect on grade progression and that these increased over time, even after the original intervention group stopped receiving demand-side transfers. Half of the estimated program effect on progression is accounted for by a reduction in the dropout and repetition rates of beneficiary children who were already in school when the program began. Supply side conditions were important and several of them led to heterogeneous program impacts. The program was more effective in areas with autonomous schools, suggesting flexibility at the school level better enabled schools to respond to changing demand conditions. At the same time, it was also more effective in intervention areas with poor initial supply conditions as measured by indicators of grade availability and distance to school. These were the areas with lower enrollments and grade progression before the program, and thus more room for improvement. With the analysis of child schooling in hand, we then turn to assess the “effect” of the program on school supply conditions. It is precisely in the intervention areas with poor initial school supply conditions, that the program was relatively more effective in improving school supply as measured by grade availability, number of sessions per day and number of teachers. The results suggest that initial school supply conditions do not represent insurmountable obstacles for the implementation of a conditional cash transfer program, as long as these constraints are identified at the planning stage and mechanisms put in place to deal with them during the execution stage. Our results also underscore the importance of carefully considering the integrated (demand and supply) nature of conditional-cash-transfer programs, something often overlooked in the design of these interventions and, particularly, in the impact evaluation literature.impact evaluation, conditional cash transfer, schooling, supply side

The Public Trust Doctrine and the Climate Crisis: Panacea or Platitude?

Over a year of shutting down the global economy during the COVID pandemic achieved about .01 degrees of improvement in global warming. Not even a drop in the bucket. We continue to face a monumental climate crisis. And of the many ways that crisis threatens our environment, winnowing water resources is one of the scariest. One solution that many scholars have turned to is the public trust doctrine. At first blush, this doctrine sounds like a panacea for water management problems: When our water resources are threatened enough that current and future citizen’s access to it is in peril, the trust kicks in. The government must take steps to protect our waterbodies. So no surprise that scholars have flocked to the doctrine and analyzed just about every angle of the public trust. Save perhaps one: Does it even work? Much less attention has been paid to what concrete impact the public trust is having on real litigation. There is no shortage of language in case law or state statutes about the trust. But does that language do any good? This article tries to answer that question, collecting data about state court decisions mentioning the public trust doctrine in thirty states. Our team reviewed the cases and coded them based on how authorities used the public trust doctrine. Our goal was to answer a key question: When does the public trust doctrine matter in real cases? In other words, when do courts use the doctrine to protect natural water resources? Beyond shedding light on how effective the doctrine is on the ground, this article’s goal is to offer insights about both successful and unsuccessful cases. What can we learn from the cases in which it does work that might equip litigants to wield this weapon better in the future? In most cases reviewed, the public trust doctrine was ineffective at combatting climate change or other harms to natural water resources. But the data offers ideas for moving forward towards a version of the public trust that will have teeth in the climate fight

The Case for Iterative Legal Writing Practice with ChatGPT

In this session, Professor Joe Regalia will share his work developing legal-writing education tools that leverage GPT technology. He will also share best practices for creating assessments, exercises, and activities for your own students that are tailored to how and what you teach in the classroom. Much of this presentation will focus on case studies and live, hands-on examples (given this is virtual) so that we can spend most of the time learning by doing together

Deliberative polls

Deliberative polls are an instrument whose aim is to provide a more accurate, scientific representation of public opinion based on information and careful consideration rather than on \u201ctop of the head\u201d opinions. By exposing random samples of population to balanced information and opposing arguments, people are encouraged to challenge their embedded opinions by discussing with heterogeneous interlocutors having divergent points of view. The resulting change in opinion represents the conclusions the public would reach, if the people had the opportunity to become more informed and involved by the issues