Fowler- Chapter 8

Chapter 8 in Fowler discusses the third and fourth stages in the policy process- formulation and adoption.

I learned a lot from this chapter that I never really thought about before.  "Battles fought on two fronts:  words and money" (p. 174). One piece was language.  On page 173 Fowler discusses that policy makers understand that their choice of words really matters.  For example- in saying may rather than must, it gives a lot of leeway to those enacting the policy and almost the option of not enacting anything when the language is "may."  The other is funding and that policy can be passed into law but the government passing these laws have no obligation to fund them.  Seriously?  Then what's the point?

Legislative Proposals and Where They Come From

• legislature
• more power- only group that can introduce directly into legislature
• president or governor
• administrative agencies 
• interest groups

Important Quote to note-- p. 177- "Education leaders may find it sobering that education interest groups were relatively unimportant; even more sobering is that both instances of education interest groups influence teachers' groups"

The next section discussed how bills move through a legislature and how a policy is adopted with policy actors.  I underlined and made stars by the term companion bill-- if only the lower and upper houses would coordinate-- think of how much more efficient our government would be!

With budgets at the state-level, I do not agree or like that in many states governors can have line-item vetoes   The example of Texas was great where the governor can sent the spending ceiling, and it is up to the legislature how the money is spent and allocated.

After laws comes rules, and administrative rules are made for a variety of reasons

1. fill in gaps from laws
2. defining key terms
3. administrative agencies use them t define their own internal procedures
• complaints with this include that the rule making here is undemocratic and inefficient/rigid

Judges can also act as policy actors-- and often their political ideologies influence how their interpret rules and how they implement case law.  Nevertheless, judges can only react when a case is brought to them; they cannot seek to change laws on their own.

How do people keep up with all the new and different rules and policies?  Fowler on p. 196 believes that it's everyone's responsibility-- but in many cases, it falls on principals and superintendents.  

To influence policy formation and adoption, there are three general approaches-- with all "the time to make friends is before you need them" (Turner as quoted in Fowler, p. 198)

1. government relations
2. working through professional organizations
3. lobbying

Another quote that stood out to me- "Legislators will make laws with or without you.  They will make better ones with you"  (p. 200)

-Great examples in this section, but they weren't the most heartwarming.  In most cases, bills passed and minor exceptions were made-- still didn't seem like legislators listened to other policy actors as much as they should :(