Local reporting: Brad Schrade, Jeremy Olson and Glenn Howatt of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, for their powerful reports on the spike in infant deaths at poorly regulated day-care homes, resulting in legislative action to strengthen rules.
The situation reached a boiling point in the 1970s, when in the aftermath of Watergate, reformers transformed the system by weakening committee chairs, empowering party leaders and opening up the legislative process through sunshine rules and more.
Successive governments failed to establish any degree of consensus on governance norms and the rules of the legislative process.
That is if Democrats take their place in the Senate and stop engaging in their own extra-legal legislative process of using quorum rules to achieve a sort of super-filibuster.
If the companies do not change voluntarily, Mr Fraser warns, they could face new rules in the 2013 legislative session.
ECONOMIST: Drought may force the state to take tougher measures
Ordinarily, debate and voting on an amendment might take two legislative days, but under the rules of the reconciliation bill the senators were to dispatch the amendments one after another, as in a hot-dog-eating contest, with a minute of debate for each side.
This month's UKIP success in English council elections was followed by a legislative programme for Westminster that features tougher rules on getting to work in Britain.
The battle over debit-card transaction fees has moved from the legislative to the regulatory arena as the Federal Reserve sets the rules behind the new laws.
Is it better for business to seek legislative solutions to industry problems or to craft a set of mutually acceptable rules for the governance of their symbiotic commercial and financial affairs?
FORBES: The Dangers Of Letting Congress Solve The Performance Royalties Dispute
In a recent case that has been little noted in the business press, the Supreme Court appears to have given the IRS broad new power to write rules that overturn prior court decisions, give short shrift to expressed legislative history, and apply even in cases where taxpayers have relied in good faith on prior law and precedent.
FORBES: The Supreme Court Expands The IRS's Ability to Write the Tax Rules
And they'll get it without more rules that promise to fail, and that have always failed, when it comes to legislative attempts meant to restrain the undeniably human desire to take big risks.
This tactic has largely worked: He counted seven major legislative achievements in his first term, including bills to increase benefit contributions among state workers, change tenure rules for public schoolteachers and merge several state universities.
WSJ: Gearing Up for Re-election, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Focuses on Sandy Recovery
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