State Legislatures articles from December 2002

State Legislatures archives from December 2002

Parks, Recreation and Open Space. (Books).(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... Parks, Recreation and Open Space: A Twenty-first Century Agenda by Alexander Garvin, American Planning Association, Chicago, Ill., 2001. 72 pages, $34, softcover. To order call (312) 786-6344. Parks and open space are community...

More protections for workers. (Statestats).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... As the nation becomes more diverse, employers are faced with a workforce of different races, colors, religions, nationalities, ages and physical abilities. Federal laws beginning in the 1960s protect workers from sexual, race, age and physical...

Do open container laws work? (On First Reading).(alcohol beverage containers; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has released a new report with a preliminary analysis of the effectiveness of state open container laws, which prohibit open alcoholic beverage containers in the passenger compartment...

There's a gold mine in the garbage. (On First Reading).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Pennsylvania has found a booming business in a commodity states thumb their noses at--taking in other people's trash. About 27 million tons of solid waste is disposed of in Pennsylvania annually, about half of which comes from out of state....

States protect people from bad eggs. (On First Reading).
December 1, 2002... Do you remember the old M*A*S*H* episode with the bad eggs? The actors accurately portrayed the symptoms--diarrhea, abdominal cramps, headache, nausea and vomiting. In real life, children, the elderly and people with an impaired immune...

Debate arises over insurer use of credit scores. (On First Reading).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Insurance companies look at a wide array of personal factors when deciding whether to offer someone insurance and what to charge. But insurer use of credit scores is forcing lawmakers in statehouses across the country to consider whether the...

Money from manure. (Stateline).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Green fields full of brown blobs have a new meaning in New York. That state has recently passed a law that provides incentives for farmers to produce electricity with the methane that comes from manure. In a state that has more than 7.7 million...

Legislators win. (Stateline).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... State legislators secured a huge victory recently in Congress with passage of HR 5596. No longer will state and local candidates have to file unnecessary, duplicative and bureaucratic federal campaign finance and income tax reports. The law...

Fighting child porn. (Stateline).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Michigan Attorney General Jennifer Granholm (now governor elect) has ordered six billing companies to stop helping the promotion and distribution of child pornography over the Internet by providing access to and collecting proceeds from members...

Tips from the trenches. (Stateline).
December 1, 2002... A committee staffer in California suggests one way to get a useful, timely product out of a legislative task force: Hire a writer. Task forces that depend on overworked staff to write up minutes, as well as final substantive reports, may never...

A spam attack. (Stateline).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Internet users who hate unsolicited email advertising (spam) are celebrating recent court rulings in Washington. The court in September agreed with the state that Oregon businessman Jason Heckel violated Washington's anti-spam law. He sent out...

The mercury menace. (Stateline).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is taking Maine to federal court over a new law there that requires the industry to create a collection facility and pay $1 for each electrical switch containing mercury recovered from scrapped cars and...

A defense against drought. (Stateline).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Wrung out by four years of drought, the latest California environmental mandate requires water efficiency in clothes washers, a first in the country. The new law requires old, thirsty washers to be replaced with efficient ones by 2007....

Mothering behind bars. (Stateline).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... A growing number of states are using a new old tool to keep women prisoners from returning to prison once released: motherhood. In Ohio, Nebraska, New York and Washington, some women who give birth behind bars are allowed to keep their babies...

Evacuation for all. (Stateline).
December 1, 2002... Getting out of a burning building is tough, and terrifying. For people with disabilities it can be deadly. Illinois recently enacted a law that requires every high-rise structure (an office, hotel or residential building with a height above 80...

Iowans adopt easier. (Stateline).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Bringing home a wonderful bundle of joy from a foreign country just became cheaper and easier for Iowans when a new law ordered the State Board of Health to remove a requirement that foreign adoptive parents go through the full state adoption...

A breath of fresh air. (Stateline).
December 1, 2002... School districts across Maine are educating their bus drivers about the health hazards of diesel exhaust fumes. Studies show that children can be exposed to dangerously high levels of fumes during their daily trips between home and school....

GOP #1 first time in 50 years: Republicans made historic gains in this mid-term election. The parties are now just about dead-even in the number of legislative seats they hold, but Republicans control more legislatures.
December 1, 2002... The two lines had been tracking symmetrically on the chart for five decades--but never meeting. For 50 years, there have been more Democratic legislators than Republican. Democrats outnumbered Republicans two-to-one in the mid 1970s, making...

Voters take the initiative: voters in 42 states had the opportunity to bypass representative democracy and vote directly on 202 different statewide measures.
December 1, 2002... There was variety on the ballot this November. Citizens were asked to decide issues ranging from animal rights to health care, taxes to gambling, drug policy to bond measurers. But education was the big winner among the 202 ballot measures,...

Education reform from the top down: the federal government early this year passed the most comprehensive education legislation in recent memory. But there are many questions and few answers about the ramifications for states.
December 1, 2002... Strong bipartisan approval and public praise greeted reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), now known as the No child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Less than a year after taking office, President George W....

The doctors' big squeeze: huge increases in medical malpractice insurance rates are driving doctors out of business. What's the answer?
December 1, 2002... It was by almost any measure an unsettling scene. At least 60 specialists at the University Medical center in Las Vegas walked off their jobs this past summer. The reason? The rising cost of medical malpractice insurance. The mass exodus...

Healing the hole in the heart.(foster care)
December 1, 2002... The happy news: More children than ever before are being adopted from foster care. The reality: They and their new families need special services, such as counseling, respite care and peer support. When Rebecca Cole adopted Jack at age 8,...