State Legislatures articles from July 2004

State Legislatures archives from July 2004

Heavy Lifting: the Job of the American Legislature.(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... Heavy Lifting: The Job of The American Legislature by Alan Rosenthal. July 2004. CQ Press, Washington, D.C., 250 pages, $34.95. Alan Rosenthal strikes again. Arguably the nation's foremost expert and author on American legislatures, he has...

Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World by Marie C. Wilson. 2004. Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson St., New York, N. Y. 10014. 190 pages. $24.95. Available online at: www. closingtheleadeship gap.com. ...

Integrity: Do You Have It?(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... Integrity: Do You Have It? by Dennis AuBuchon, iUniverse, Inc., 2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100, Lincoln, Neb., 68512. 210 pages. $18.95. Available at Barnes & Noble, Borders and Amazon.com. People who stand up for their beliefs have...

Heavy Lifting: the Job of the American Legislature.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Heavy Lifting The Job of the American Legislature by Alan Rosenthal "In Heavy Lifting Alan Rosenthal has rendered a comprehensive, accurate and insightful account of what state legislatures do and how they do it. From his descriptions of...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
July 1, 2004... Book Available Legislators and staff can get a free copy of America's Babies, the data book from the Zero to Three policy center described in the Statestats column of our May issue. Please call Julie Poppe at the National Conference of...

Our legislatures--a bargain at twice the price.(Statestats)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... How much does it cost to run America's legislatures? $8.65 per person for Congress and another $8.27 for an average state legislature. An amazing bargain. The cost of running the legislative branch is also only a miniscule portion of the...

Scott Reske.(People & Politics)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Indiana Representative Scott Reske, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, left for Iraq in May. His unit will monitor combat operations to see that Americans have adequate training and equipment. Back in Indiana, where Democrats...

New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Representative Christopher Rants, speaker of the Iowa House, have accepted NCSL's appointments to the advisory board of the new Election Assistance Committee, created by the federal Help America Vote Act.(People & Politics)(National Council of State Legislators )(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Representative Christopher Rants, speaker of the Iowa House, have accepted NCSL's appointments to the advisory board of the new Election Assistance Committee, created by the federal Help America Vote...

Illinois Senate Majority Leader Vince Demuzio, elected in the 1974 post-Watergate-era Democratic landslide, died of colon cancer in April.(People & Politics)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Illinois Senate Majority Leader Vince Demuzio, elected in the 1974 post-Watergate-era Democratic landslide, died of colon cancer in April. He was 62. Influential and highly regarded, Demuzio was chairman of the state Democratic Party from 1986...

John Ramsey, father of slain 6-year-old Jon-Benet Ramsey, is running in the Republican primary for Michigan's 105th House District.(People & Politics)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... John Ramsey, father of slain 6-year-old Jon-Benet Ramsey, is running in the Republican primary for Michigan's 105th House District. The primary is Aug. 3. At least three other Republicans are also running.

A plea of no contest to charges of theft for listing his wife on health insurance forms before they were married led to the resignation of the Oregon Representative John Mabrey.(People & Politics)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... A plea of no contest to charges of theft for listing his wife on health insurance forms before they were married led to the resignation of the Oregon Representative John Mabrey. He was fined $920 and sentenced to 120 hours of community service....

Ray Ruiz, a New Mexico representative and former iron worker at Los Alamos National Laboratory, died of lung cancer in May.(People & Politics)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Ray Ruiz, a New Mexico representative and former iron worker at Los Alamos National Laboratory, died of lung cancer in May. He was 65. Ruiz, who handled asbestos as part of his lab work, sponsored a resolution seeking recognition by the federal...

John Hurson.(People & Politics)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The new federal Medicare law has a controversial and complicated approach to reducing prescription drug prices and creates a task force to explore options. Maryland Delegate John Hurson testified before the panel in May, "Drug reimportation is...

Getting to school safely.(Trends And Transitions)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... No longer do most children walk 10 miles, uphill, in the snow, barefoot to school each day. They ride in cars, school buses and city buses, ride their bikes or walk. How safe is each? School-aged bicyclists have the highest injury and death...

Income inches up.(Trends And Transitions)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Per capita income the average income received by people--grew 2.3 percent in 2003, slower than the growth rates during the latter half of the 1990s, but nearly double the growth rate of 2002, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis....

Down home tourism.(Trends And Transitions)
July 1, 2004... The notion of the "family vacation" still conjures images of packing the kids in the minivan and driving across the country to such traditional destinations as Niagara Falls, Disneyland or the Grand Canyon. But more and more travelers are...

Spyware beware in Utah.(Trends And Transitions)
July 1, 2004... With a law enacted this spring, Utah became the first state to prohibit "spyware," software installed on a computer without the owner's consent. The law bans programs that send personal information from individual computers, as well. ...

Tennessee buys American.(Trends And Transitions)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The controversy over offshore outsourcing of state government contracts produced its first law in May. Tennessee passed legislation authorizing preference points for American companies when awarding state contracts. The law gives advantage to...

Wyoming terminates term limits.(Trends And Transitions)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Legislative term limits never made it out of the gate in Wyoming. The state's high court found the limits unconstitutional in May. They were to take effect with this year's elections, barring 13 legislators from running for reelection. The...

Stinking school buses.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The wheels on the bus go round and round, but the smoke goes everywhere. School bus exhaust is a growing concern of many in this country. There's an effort to fight exposure to toxic diesel exhaust by updating older buses or by buying new, more...

Stats, stats and more stats.(Stateline)(Annie E. Casey Kids Count Database )(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... What is the percent of teens not attending school and not working in your state? What about your state's percent of low-birth-weight babies? You can get answers to these and other questions quickly and easily from the Annie E. Casey Kids Count...

Gasless grass.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... There's a problem with gas-powered lawn mowers. Each one pollutes as much in one year as 43 new cars, each driven more than 12,000 miles annually, according to the California South Coast Air Quality Management District. Lawn equipment is...

Pay up or zip up.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Courts in Wisconsin, Kentucky and Ohio have prohibited dads who are behind on their child support from having any more children. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a ruling prohibiting David Oakley from impregnating anyone while on probation...

Two seats, two votes.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Cumulative voting is a way, some believe, to achieve fairer minority representation. In cumulative voting, voters cast as many votes as there are seats. But unlike winner-take-all systems, voters are not limited to giving only one vote to a...

Plumbers beware.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Doesn't it just bug your peace and order when you can see body parts or underwear peeking out of (usually, but not always) teens' clothing? Shouldn't there be a law against it? Representative Derrick Shepherd thinks so. In Louisiana he has...

Just like new.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Hopefully, there won't be any cracks showing in the Washington capitol after its extreme makeover is done in a couple of months. Crews are making major earthquake repairs and tucking wiring, plumbing and ductwork inside the skin of the...

Legislative fantasies.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Staff in an unnamed federal agency have created a "rotisserie league" on state budgets, according to Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Congress. Instead of drafting baseball or football players, this fantasy league tracks state tax policy....

They dream of sprawl.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... How do you grow a town? You give land away. That's what's happening in Marquette, Kan., where the population was declining so much residents feared losing their high school. So town leaders purchased 50 acres of wheat fields for $100,000,...

The young are waking up.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Here's some good news for democracy. Turnout in Iowa's Democratic primaries this year by the 18- to 24-year-old crowd quadrupled over 2000 numbers, while the youth vote in New Hampshire increased 50 percent. And a recent poll by Harvard...

Free the bees.(Stateline)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Bees are in trouble in America. In the 1980s, wild bees were devastated by an invading parasite, the varroa, or vampire mite. Now, along with varroa, pesticides and predator birds are devastating the insects needed to pollinate 90 or so crops....

The new legislative reality: how leaders see it.
July 1, 2004... THESE ARE DIFFICULT TIMES FOR LAWMAKERS. THE ECONOMY FOR THE PAST THREE YEARS HAS CAUSED SEVERE BUDGET SHORTFALLS. HEALTH CARE COSTS CONTINUE TO RISE; EDUCATION MONEY IS SCARCE AND IT'S EXACERBATED BY THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT. PUBLIC...

Trade agreement trade-offs; international trade tribunals challenge state law and policy.
July 1, 2004... Blackjack, roulette, baccarat, craps, poker. It's all available on the Internet. And some state legislators don't like it. Many states are cracking down on Internet gambling in response to concerns about organized crime, money laundering,...

Coverage conundrum: the challenge of rising state employee health insurance costs is hitting states hard.
July 1, 2004... In the fall of 2001, only weeks after the deadly terrorist attacks of 9/11 (when many Americans were issuing calls for unity), nearly 30,000 state employees in Minnesota went out on strike. The move was characterized by the American Federation...

What's the benefit? A new federal Medicare drug plan stimulates independent actions and new ideas, but what's the future role for states?
July 1, 2004... When the federal Medicare Prescription Drug Act was signed last December, it was hailed as a major landmark for health care--millions of people finally would get crucial help in paying for their medicines. Along with the public and...

Dennis Damon: as good as it gets: devoted to bettering the wider community, this Maine Senator lives up to the state motto "Drigo"--I lead.(One Of Our Own)
July 1, 2004... You could say that things are bad in Washington County, Maine, and you'd be right. When a local paper mill tried to fill 133 open positions last year, it received only 113 applications despite chronically high unemployment in the county. Of...

How to deal with conflicts of interest: there's no getting away from all conflicts of interest. Here are eight ideas to help lawmakers juggle their personal and public interests.(Tools Of The Trade)
July 1, 2004... When you enter public service, your personal and professional lives come with you. Your background helps you get elected. It also presents you with the potential for conflicts of interest. You're a parent, a homeowner, member of a professional...

Exercising choices: living a healthy lifestyle can be a family affair--even in busy political families.
July 1, 2004... Costas Rerras has a lot of self-discipline for an 11-year-old. He loves to run, and has placed first in his age group in several races in his home state of Virginia. He adheres to a schedule, does speed and distance work, and keeps a running...

Welfare reform: Minnesota style: reforming welfare is a work in progress. Even Minnesota's successful experiment that encourages work, but retains some benefits, is still being tweaked.
July 1, 2004... When Congress abolished the nation's old welfare system in 1996, imposed tough new work rules and limited cash welfare to five years, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it "the most dramatic experiment in domestic social policy...

ORCA--not a killer, but a whale of a Texas agency: Texas 2001 House Bill 7: the creation of the Office of Rural Community Affairs.(On Reconsideration)(Office of Rural Community Affairs)
July 1, 2004... THE ACT'S GOALS * Create a point agency to develop and implement rural policy. * Give rural issues greater visibility in the state. * Eliminate the problems and duplication that occur when agencies address rural issues separately....

See you in court: the balance of power between governors and legislatures sometimes gets out of whack.
July 1, 2004... During the past two years, legislatures and governors in several states have squared off in court. The issue? Separation of powers. Arizona, New York, Iowa, Colorado and Wisconsin legislatures challenged their governors in the past two...

As they see it.
July 1, 2004... "Today, I'll be serving up a billion dollars in savings for PG&E customers, identity theft legislation and power plant stating rules, along with bacon and eggs, getting my shopping list together and preparing to can." --California Senator...