Sue Thomas

Women and elective office : past, present, and future

Since the publication of the first edition of this book, former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Brauns campaign for the presidency in 2004 and the widespread discussion of a run in 2008 run by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have significantly raised the profile of women on the national political stage. At the same time, progress in electing women to the U.S. Congress and state legislatures has stalled. The essays in Women and Elective Office: Past, Present and Future, which feature research on women as political candidates and officeholders, address this paradox. Recruitment patterns, media portrayals, and voter reactions to women candidates are analyzed along with the impact of women in office relative to the challenges they face. The 2nd edition includes increased coverage of women on the congressional level, women officeholders of color, and analysis of women parliamentarians worldwide. In total, Women and Elective Office offers a comprehensive look at the experiences and influence of women politicians today, while considering womens prospects for political leadership in the twenty-first century.

Measuring Law for Evaluation Research

Evaluations that combine social science and law have tremendous potential to illuminate the effects of governmental policies and yield insights into how effectively policy makers’ efforts achieve their aims. This potential is infrequently achieved, however, because such interdisciplinary research contains often overlooked substantive and methodological challenges. This article offers detailed guidance for conducting successful multidisciplinary evaluations that use legal data. It addresses major issues that commonly arise and offers practical solutions based both on the authors’ extensive experience and recommended best practices developed in concert with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health Law Research Program.

The personal is the political: Antecedents of gendered choices of elected representatives

This article focuses on the legislative careers of women and men in state legislative office to explore how the relationship between the private and public spheres affects career opportunities, choices, perceptions, and actions. The findings indicate that the intersection of private and public is configured differently in the lives of women and men. Among other results, women were found to perform double duty, holding primary responsibility for the work of home and children even though they have the same public responsibilities as their male counterparts. The implications of these findings for individuals, public policy choices, institutional operations, and social patterns are explored.

State Responses to Alcohol Use and Pregnancy: Findings From the Alcohol Policy Information System

This article describes U.S. state policies related to alcohol use during pregnancy, using data from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Alcohol Policy Information System. Specifically, this study examines trends in policies enacted by states over time and types of policies enacted across states in the United States, with a focus on whether laws were supportive or punitive toward women. Findings revealed substantial variability in characteristics of policies (19 primarily supportive, 12 primarily punitive, 12 with a mixed approach, and 8 with no policies). Findings underscore the need to examine possible consequences of policies, especially of punitive policies and “mixed” approaches.

Underage alcohol policies across 50 California cities: an assessment of best practices

BackgroundWe pursue two primary goals in this article: (1) to test a methodology and develop a dataset on U.S. local-level alcohol policy ordinances, and (2) to evaluate the presence, comprehensiveness, and stringency of eight local alcohol policies in 50 diverse California cities in relationship to recommended best practices in both public health literature and governmental recommendations to reduce underage drinking.MethodsFollowing best practice recommendations from a wide array of authoritative sources, we selected eight local alcohol policy topics (e.g., conditional use permits, responsible beverage service training, social host ordinances, window/billboard advertising ordinances), and determined the presence or absence as well as the stringency (restrictiveness) and comprehensiveness (number of provisions) of each ordinance in each of the 50 cities in 2009. Following the alcohol policy literature, we created scores for each city on each type of ordinance and its associated components. We used these data to evaluate the extent to which recommendations for best practices to reduce underage alcohol use are being followed.Results(1) Compiling datasets of local-level alcohol policy laws and their comprehensiveness and stringency is achievable, even absent comprehensive, on-line, or other legal research tools. (2) We find that, with some exceptions, most of the 50 cities do not have high scores for presence, comprehensiveness, or stringency across the eight key policies. Critical policies such as responsible beverage service and deemed approved ordinances are uncommon, and, when present, they are generally neither comprehensive nor stringent. Even within policies that have higher adoption rates, central elements are missing across many or most cities’ ordinances.ConclusionThis study demonstrates the viability of original legal data collection in the U.S. pertaining to local ordinances and of creating quantitative scores for each policy type to reflect comprehensiveness and stringency. Analysis of the resulting dataset reveals that, although the 50 cities have taken important steps to improve public health with regard to underage alcohol use and abuse, there is a great deal more that needs to be done to bring these cities into compliance with best practice recommendations.

Effectiveness of Social Host and Fake Identification Laws on Reducing Underage Drinking Driver Fatal Crashes

Objective: The public generally assumes that the minimum legal drinking age of 21 (MLDA-21) legislation in the United States is embodied in a single law and therefore all states have the same law. Actually, the MLDA-21 state laws consist of multiple provisions that support the core MLDA-21 laws and include a family of policies directed at controlling underage drinking and underage drinking and driving. Because social host and fake identification laws have recently garnered interest by policy makers in the states, this study was designed to determine their effectiveness. Methods: The effective dates for 2 types of social host laws and 3 fake identification laws were documented using the Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administrations (SAMHSA) 2011 Report to Congress on the Prevention and Reduction of Underage Drinking, and legal research tools. These laws include social host prohibitions (SHPs) and social host civil liability (SHCL), the use of fake identification (FID), retailer support for FID, and transfer/production of FID. We used a pre–post design to evaluate the influence on underage drinking-and-driving fatal crashes of these 5 laws using the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data set for the years 1982 through 2010. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) controlling for as many variables as possible. Results: For those drivers younger than aged 21 years, FID supplier laws were associated with significant decreases in FARS ratios after states adopted these laws (−1.0%, P =.030). Conclusions: The 24 states that have adopted FID supplier laws are saving an estimated 14 lives per year in the United States. An additional 16 lives could be saved if the remaining states adopted this law. FID supplier laws prohibit the production of a FID or transfer of an ID or FID to another person. The more stringent the law (i.e., whether a state prohibits only one element [weaker law] compared to both transferring and manufacturing a FID [stronger]) the more effective a deterrent it becomes to supplying a minor with a FID. States without FID supplier laws should consider adopting them.

Do Term Limits Make a Difference? Ambition and Motivations among U.S. State Legislators

Arguments for term limits often focus on the need for politicianswhoare less motivated by career goals and more motivated by public policy goals. Yet little is known about whether term limits result in officeholders who are different from others. In this article, the authors examine whether the political motivations and ambitions of term-limited legislators differ from those of nontermlimited legislators. A survey of legislators in 15 states serves as the basis for analysis. The findings indicate that, as predicted by advocates, term-limited legislators are more likely to be motivated by issues. However, they are also more likely to possess progressive ambition, thereby countering arguments that limits attract fewer careerists. Policy goals and progressive ambition are not necessarily inconsistent. Legislators whose policy agendas have not been completed by the time their terms end maywant to pursue other offices to achieve their goals. The implications of these findings are explored in this article.

Gays and Lesbians in Local Races

Abstract Although lesbians and gays are more visible in the political arena than in the past, there is little published research on their electoral viability. This article helps to fill that void by presenting results of experimental research featuring respondents reactions to a hypothetical candidate for a non-partisan city council seat. Sex and sexual orientation of the candidates were manipulated so that six categories were tested: a straight woman, a lesbian, a woman rumored to be lesbian, a straight man, a gay man, and a man rumored to be gay. The findings suggest that openly gay and lesbian candidates are seen as less viable than straight candidates or those rumored to be homosexual. Hence, the extent to which a candidate portrays his or her sexual orientation appears to make a difference in the chance to win elective office.

Testing the Results of Municipal Mixed-Use Zoning Ordinances: A Novel Methodological Approach

Municipal mixed-use zoning (MUZ) is one public health strategy to create more walkable neighborhoods by reducing the separation of daily activities. This study uses a novel data-gathering methodology to evaluate municipal zoning ordinances in twenty-two California cities in conjunction with the walkability potential of resulting mixed-use zones, to explore the extent to which variations in uses mandated by MUZ ordinances are correlated with variations in walking opportunities. We find that, after controlling for population, socioeconomic status, and zone size, significant relationships exist between the range and precision of uses mandated by MUZ ordinances and the mixture and breadth of walking destinations in these zones. The study also demonstrates that analysis of municipal zoning codes and a novel data-gathering methodology yield valid data. The analysis of MUZ ordinances is a significant complement to other approaches to measuring walkability and can be used across cities.

Gender and Perceptions of Candidate Competency

Following an innovative study showing rapid inferences about the competence of candidates based on photos correlated with electoral success, we examine the effects of the sex of the subjects and candidates on these results. Our results indicate that the relationship between inferences of competence and electoral success are more complex than previously believed. We found a gender gap in evaluations of competence and maturity of candidate faces and in support for women candidates; however, an overall preference among all subjects for men candidates. Additionally, the relationship between competence and victory is affected by a host of variables unconsidered previously.