William D. Schreckhise

Ideological Realignment in the Contemporary U.S. Electorate Revisited

In this study, we revisit the ideological-realignment theory proposed by Abramowitz and Saunders (1998) by assessing the varying impact a persons ideology had on his or her partisan identification for individuals in different regions and between men and women. Copyright (c) 2003 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.

Secure Communities and Community Values: Local Context and Discretionary Immigration Law Enforcement

In an effort to target dangerous criminals in the United States illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) developed the nationwide deportation programme called Secure Communities. Ostensibly a nationwide programme, the use of this programme instead varies widely across the United States, with some jurisdictions seeing large numbers of deportations, with many others seeing none. Employing ICE deportation data and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models, we examine what accounts for this variation. We find that local political attitudes play a role, with Republican-leaning jurisdictions and those in states that support restrictive state-level immigration witnessing more deportations. Perhaps surprisingly, jurisdictions with the most crime actually saw fewer. These dynamics were similar for models predicting both the number of deportations of individuals with criminal records and those without them. Instead of being driven by a desire to remove high-level criminal undocumented aliens, we conclude instead that the dynamics of this federal immigration enforcement effort are influenced by the local political setting.

When Does Politics Matter? A Reexamination of the Determinants of African-American and Latino Municipal Employment Patterns

We develop a revised theory of political influence that addresses the relationship between minority political representation and administrative-level municipal employment patterns among African-Americans and Latinos in U.S. cities. We conduct pooled time-series analysis on employment data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for years 1987 through 2001. We find that the dynamics of political representation are different for African-Americans and Latinos. Cities with African-American mayors or city managers tend to have more African-Americans serving in administrative positions in municipal agencies. Although this mayoral/city manager effect is not found for Latino employment, more Latino council members lead to more Latino administrators. We also find that African-American employment gains resulting from political representation are more likely to occur in agencies that have the most policy relevance for African-Americans, yet this is not the case for Latino employment. Our results suggest strongly that political processes—conceptualized as the relationship between political leadership and administrative-level hiring and retention—work differently for African-Americans than they do for Latinos.

A Comparative Case Study of State Ethics Reform in Jalisco and Arkansas

This article is a Most Different Systems comparative case study of the development of the Arkansas Ethics Commission and the Transparency Law of Jalisco, Mexico. These measures resulted from widespread citizen suspicion of government, but were shaped by the different political and economic forces in the two states. Although their adoption may have been merely symbolic, both measures have evolved. In Arkansas, the commission is approaching (albeit slowly) a mechanism that effectively regulates the ethical behavior of public officials. Jaliscos law was an apprehensive first step, possibly to be followed by additional changes. An examination of these related reforms, and the historical and political contexts in which they were generated, offers insight into the dynamics of ethics reform.

Decision Making in the Hidden Judiciary: Institutions, Recruitment, and Responsiveness Among U.S. Administrative Law Judges

This article examines the decisional motivations of state and federal administrative law judges. On the basis of the analysis of the survey responses of 265 state and federal administrative law judges (ALJs), we found that ALJs’ views toward the propriety of deferring to external stimuli (such as their agencies, public opinion, or to the elective branches of government) differ considerably in their exercise of quasijudicial authority. To determine the sources of this variation, two different conceptual models were tested, the first drawn from the “rational-actor” variation of the New Institutionalism school of decision making, and the second adapted from the “articulation model of judicial selection.” Although the rational actor model accounts for some portion of the variation observed, the alternative articulation model was superior in its predictive ability. These findings suggest that although institutional constraints are by no means irrelevant, the socialization process that ALJs undergo has an important impact on their feelings of responsiveness to a broad range of external actors. The authors discuss these findings in the broader normative context regarding judicial independence and bureaucratic responsiveness.

Independence in Administrative Adjudications: When and Why Agency Judges Are Subject to Deference and Influence:

Are administrative adjudicators subject to external influence and pressures? We present the results from a nationwide survey of agency adjudicators, focusing on immigration judges (IJs) and administrative law judges (ALJs) in the Social Security Administration (SSA). ALJs follow decisional procedures spelled out in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and are given substantial legal protections from agency pressures. IJs do not follow APA procedures, nor do they receive its protections. We find IJs give significantly greater deference to the positions of the public, their agency, Congress, and the president, and report more favorable attitudes toward interest groups in adjudications.

Evaluating Social Cognitive Theory in Action An Assessment of the Youth Development Program’s Impact on Secondary Student Retention in Selected Mississippi Delta Communities

This study evaluates the Youth Development Program (YDP), a component of the federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA). We examine whether the YDP reduced dropout rates among youth in secondary schools in seven school districts in the impoverished Mississippi River Delta in southeast Arkansas. Initially, the program seems to have an impact. Students who participate in the program are less likely to drop out of school than students in a comparison group. However, when other factors are taken into consideration, such as whether the student was “over-age” for their grade (and thus likely had been “held back”), the effect that program participation had on the likelihood of dropping out disappears. In short, we find that when controlling for other factors, no statistically significant relationship exists between program participation and dropout rates. We discuss the implications of the WIA’s YDP failure and school retention programs, more broadly.