State Legislatures articles from June 2008

State Legislatures archives from June 2008

Great waters, great Michigan.(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... Editor: For as long as Michigan has existed, it has been defined by the Great Lakes and its many smaller lakes, streams and rivers. We are the Great Lakes State, and as Speaker Pro Tern of the Michigan House of Representatives, I along...

Screening newborns.(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Editor: Alissa Johnson's insightful article "Screening Newborns: Just the Beginning" (State Legislatures April 2008) raised some critical issues regarding follow-up treatment for infants with positive screens....

Making the case for coal: it's not a question of if, but how.(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... Editor: Your article, "Cold Shoulder for Coal," in the April issue, claims that coal plant construction and the use of coal to produce electricity is in jeopardy. Michael Morris, the CEO of American Electric Power, and MIT professor...

Apologies for slavery.(STATESTATS)
June 1, 2008... Six states have apologized for their historical roles in supporting slavery. Florida became the most recent state to adopt a resolution expressing the Legislature's "profound regret for Florida's role in sanctioning and perpetuating involuntary...

Ernie Chambers.(People & Politics)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Nebraska is losing a legend. Senator Ernie Chambers, 70--irascible, obstinate but always passionate about the issues he cared about--is leaving after 36 years. An agnostic former barber who claims term limits were aimed at getting rid of him,...

The California state Democratic Party has spent more than $600,000 to recall Republican Senator Jeff Denham, who was re-elected in 2006 by nearly 60 percent in his mostly Democratic, central California district.(People & Politics)
June 1, 2008... The California state Democratic Party has spent more than $600,000 to recall Republican Senator Jeff Denham, who was re-elected in 2006 by nearly 60 percent in his mostly Democratic, central California district. Denham says his vote against the...

Term limits are changing the face of the Colorado General Assembly.(People & Politics)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Term limits are changing the face of the Colorado General Assembly. Fifteen members, including the top two leaders in the House, are leaving because of term limits and another seven are not seeking re-election. Democratic House Speaker Andrew...

Charles Copeland.(People & Politics)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Delaware Senate Minority Leader Charles Copeland has filed as a candidate for lieutenant governor. The only problem is, at this point there is no GOP candidate for governor. But Copeland is hoping that his move will persuade Bill Lee, a retired...

Gary Olson.(People & Politics)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Some Michigan lawmakers are scrambling to repeal at least part of the state s new $500 million, 22 percent surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax, after an outcry from the business community, which claims some companies are paying 400 percent...

Kay Patterson, a 34-year veteran of the South Carolina legislature known as a firebrand, the voice of the "little people" and a statesman, is retiring.(People & Politics)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Kay Patterson, a 34-year veteran of the South Carolina legislature known as a firebrand, the voice of the "little people" and a statesman, is retiring. Elected in 1975, the 77-year-old Patterson was one of the "Famous 13" African Americans...

People and Politics erroneously reported on New York in the April edition.(People & Politics)(Correction notice)
June 1, 2008... People and Politics erroneously reported on New York in the April edition. Democrat Darrel Aubertine, not Craig Johnson, won the seat of retiring Republican Senator James Wright. The seat had been in GOP hands for 128 years, and Aubertine beat...

Frankenstein (veto) wounded.(TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment in April preventing the governor from using a partial veto--commonly referred to as the Frankenstein veto--to create a new sentence by combining parts of two or...

Families face tough times.(TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] States are feeling the impact of hard economic times as more people turn to food stamps to put meals on the table. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that some 28 million people will be using food stamps by...

Teacher pay worldwide.(TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS)
June 1, 2008... Recent studies highlight the important role of good teachers in improving student achievement. A study by McKinsey and Co. argues that good teacher salaries are important in attracting the right people to the profession. The United States,...

The transparency trend.(TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS)(report of the Association of Government Accountants)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Almost a third of online Americans surveyed in a recent poll are searching the Internet for information about how the government generates and spends taxpayer dollars, and most are disappointed, according to a recent...

Drinking while young.(TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The argument goes like this: Our current drinking age forces young people to drink in private, so binge drinking of serious alcohol is on the rise and can be deadly. Lower the drinking age, and kids will choose to...

Bones and budgets.(TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] An estimated 10 million Americans have osteoporosis, a disease that weakens bones and joints through decreased bone mass. Caucasian, Asian, elderly and petite post-menopausal women are at the greatest risk; 80...

Tough on toy safety.(STATELINE)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Who knew that Elmo's Take Along Card Games have high levels of lead, or that Bugs backpacks have arsenic? Concerned about the toxicity of some toys, Washington state has enacted the most stringent toy-safety...

Happy in New Hampshire.(STATELINE)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... The Granite State is the safest in the country, according to a recent ranking by CQ Press that considers rates of murder, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, robbery and motor vehicle theft. Vermont, North Dakota, Maine and South Dakota round...

Begging for blood.(STATELINE)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Blood banks can't keep up with the demand. To help, the Arizona Legislature passed a bill to allow donors to be as young as 16, with consent from their parents. Currently, 17- to 19-year olds are the most active blood donating group in the...

Salmon relief.(STATELINE)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Chinook salmon off the coast of California and most of Oregon are safe this year from commercial and recreational fishermen. The Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to cancel the fishing season to reverse the catastrophic disappearance of...

Idaho wins.(STATELINE)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently agreed with Idaho that the U.S. Department of Energy must remove all transuranic waste (rags and other debris contaminated with radioactive elements heavier than uranium) from the Idaho National...

Parks for sale.(STATELINE)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At least 55 national parks are in danger of losing important land inside their borders because the Park Service doesn't have enough funds to buy the property, according to the National Parks Conservation Association....

Judge Judy sues.(STATELINE)(Judith Kaye)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... The Legislature has not given New York's 1,250 judges a raise in 10 years, so Chief Judge Judith Kaye filed a lawsuit on behalf of all the judges, charging that the political process has denied them their constitutional right to an "adequate"...

Horse rights.(STATELINE)(horse tripping)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Arizona is looking at joining California, Florida, Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas in banning horse tripping, an event in some Mexican-type rodeos where contestants score points for tripping horses, bulls or steers. Although...

Head hazard.(STATELINE)(motorcycle crashes)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Death rates from motorcycle crashes have increased since states began reversing helmet laws, according to a Gannett News Service analysis. In 1995, the federal government decided to stop withholding highway money...

History in a glass.(STATELINE)(official state cocktail for Louisiana)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Even though milk is already Louisiana's official state drink, some lawmakers wanted to designate Sazerac the "official state cocktail." It's the first cocktail invented in New Orleans and represents "history in a...

Pools pass.(STATELINE)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Facing a severe drought, Georgia lawmakers have passed strict outdoor watering restrictions. Last year, sweltering summer temperatures and shrinking reservoirs forced officials to ban all outdoor watering in northern Georgia, including outdoor...

Plethora of potholes.(STATELINE)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... This past winter was especially brutal in many parts of the country, bringing blizzards and heavy snow. Ice- and snow-covered streets froze and thawed over and over again, opening up scores of cracks that turned into potholes. Cities and states...

Crime falls, but not everywhere: crime is at historic lows in many places. But school and mall shootings, along with grown-up criminal gangs, are grim reminders that the culture of violence is still with us and on the public agenda.(Cover story)
June 1, 2008... The festive surroundings of an Omaha, Neb., department store full of Christmas shoppers quickly turned into the bloody crime scene of a suicidal shooter on a December afternoon in 2007. It was the kind of news that even thousands of miles away...

Homicides prompt special session: following a brutal crime, the Connecticut General Assembly looked at how to improve supervision of parolees in the community.
June 1, 2008... There are times when a single horrific crime can galvanize lawmakers into plunging ahead with significant changes to the criminal code. A robbery turned triple-homicide in Cheshire, Conn., last July was one of those times. The deaths of...

Gang busters: states respond to rising gang violence.
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Early this year in Los Angeles, 17-year-old Jamiel Andre Shaw, a high school football star, was walking down the street and talking on his cell phone to his girlfriend when someone came up and asked what gang he was...

High-tech medical records: can electronic records transform health care?
June 1, 2008... In the middle of a legislative session, a veteran legislator from an out-county district walks into the ER near the Capitol complaining of a headache and nausea. He is handed a stack of forms to fill out. Unable to recall most of this...

Newt's vision.(Newt Gingrich)(Interview)
June 1, 2008... Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich is a frequent commenter on health IT issues. He is founder of the Center for Health Transformation, which seeks to create system wide transformation of health care. Gingrich will...

Staying competitive: in a global economy many argue that America needs to emphasize science, technology, engineering and math in its schools.
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Move over reading, writing and 'rithmetic, a new acronym has taken the front seat in education. STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is now the rage. Many recall the shock Americans felt when...

Building assets: a new approach: a movement is growing to create more opportunities for lower-income families to save and invest.
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Think assets, and the working poor don't immediately come to mind. A home, an education fund, retirement savings, a stock portfolio--these are the hallmarks of middle and upper class America. Lower-income...

Cease-fire on the umpire! Lawmakers want to protect sports officials from aggressive parents and fans.
June 1, 2008... When a high school softball coach in Hamden, Conn., was hit over the head with a baseball bat by an angry parent, Representative David Labriola knew that he had to do something. "This was an outrageous incident," says Labriola of the 2005...

As they see it.(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... "It takes power away from the states and gives it to the federal government. The states are some of the most important regulators and law enforcement people throughout the brewing home foreclosure crisis." --Bob Brammer, spokesman for Iowa...