National Civic Review articles from March 1995

National Civic Review archives from March 1995

America's challenge: revitalizing our national community.
March 22, 1995... Government and the marketplace are similar to two legs of a three-legged stool. But without the third leg of civil society, the stool is not stable and can not provide support for a vital America. Never in American history has a new vision...

By the people: the old values of the new citizenship.
March 22, 1995... Civic revival will demand greater personal involvement in supporting those working at the grass-roots level to improve communities. Out of the ashes of George Bush's defeat in 1992 has come a bold new strategy for American conservatism. The...

Searching for civil society.
March 22, 1995... Civil society in a democracy is the domain of citizens, where responsibility for social outcomes is surrendered neither to government nor the private sector entirely. Americans currently face an unpalatable choice between an excessive,...

The quest for a civil society.
March 22, 1995... Individuals must regain comfort with the discussion of values and abandon the practice of framing controversial issues in the strict terms of absolutism and confrontation. America is in the midst of social convulsions at home and global change...

Impact of nonprofits on civil society.
March 22, 1995... While nonprofits exist technically in the private sector, their voluntary character renders them the "most public" of organizations, and thus the agents of maintenance and continuous renewal of civil society. John Dewey, in "Ethics of...

The case for global civil society.
March 22, 1995... As our planet inevitably approaches the status of "global village, opinion leaders in many parts of the world are pondering the prospects of a global civil society, committed to matching freedom from oppression with freedom from poverty,...

Lessons from the states on unfunded mandates: where's there's a will, there's a way.
March 22, 1995... The recent and ongoing debate over unfunded mandates, rhetoric aside, may have prompted a re-examination of our intergovernmental system, forming the basis for a more responsible federalism. In late 1994 federal officials were scrambling to...

Writing home-rule charters in Michigan: current practices in constitution making.
March 22, 1995... Systematic examination of recent charter review commissions in Michigan may offer lessons for similar bodies formed elsewhere. Elements of success include a well framed mission, minimal conflict and adequate staff support. Increased charter...

Control of the public purse.
March 22, 1995... Editor's Note: This is the fourth and final article in a series discussing the evolution of the National Civic League's governmental reform advocacy agenda. Previous articles have have addressed the concepts of representative government,...

Assessing the costs of illegal immigration.
March 22, 1995... The Urban Institute has released the first-ever study to assess systematically the fiscal impact of undocumented aliens in the seven states with the largest number of illegal immigrants: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New...

U.S. voting age population increases 7.8 million, 1990-94.
March 22, 1995... The voting-age population of the United States reached 193.7 million persons as of election day 1994, an increase of 7.8 million persons since the 1990 congressional elections, according to the Bureau of the Census. The figures were reported in...

Twin Cities metropolitan council assigned additional powers. (Twin Cities Metropolitan Area of Minneapolis-St. Paul)
March 22, 1995... The 1994 Minnesota Legislature enacted a law making major changes in the governance system of the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St. Paul. The law abolished the Metropolitan Waste Control Commission, the Regional...

Number of farms decreases while agricultural production rises, 1987-92.
March 22, 1995... The 1992 Census of Agriculture reveals that the United States had 1,925,300 farms in 1992, the first year since 1850 that the nation has had fewer than two million farms. The census counted the nation's highest-ever number of farms, 6.8 million,...

Can the "Year of the Woman" be repeated?
March 22, 1995... The 1992 general elections swept women into American political office as never before. Who voted for them and why? How has their increased political activity affected the lives of other Americans? What are women's prospects as we approach the...

Stewarding private land in the public interest.
March 22, 1995... The Northern Forest Lands Council, created by Congress in 1990, has released its final report, entitled Finding Common Ground: Conserving the Northern Forest. The Governors of Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont each appointed four...

Crime in the Capitol. Modest improvement in D.C. region. (Washington, DC.)
March 22, 1995... Major crime dropped two percent in 1993 in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region, according to a report released by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Although the number of homicides increased only slightly (two percent),...

Task force recommends historic vote on P.R. (Elections Task Force of San Francisco California; proportional representation)
March 22, 1995... The Elections Task Force of San Francisco on April 28 issued a final report recommending that the Board of Supervisors place a two-part referendum before the city's voters this fall to determine how the Board is elected. In the first part of...

P.R. in the news. (proportional representation)
March 22, 1995... City charter commissions across the nation are debating the merits of alternative electoral systems, dramatizing the unprecedented nature of current interest in proportional and semi-proportional methods of selecting representative bodies. City...

Rent control in Massachusetts: notes on the Cambridge electorate.
March 22, 1995... In response to a housing shortage, the Massachusetts Legislature in 1970 passed a statute that allowed communities to implement rent-control procedures. Three Massachusetts communities subsequently instituted and maintained rent control under the...

P.R. and voter turnout: the case of Cambridge Massachusetts.
March 22, 1995... In national elections, countries employing proportional voting methods enjoy significantly higher turnout than countries with winner-take-all, plurality election systems. This has led such prominent political scientists as Seymour Martin Lipset...