Dear HCN, Your Sept. 30 issue profiling Walt Minnick was encouraging; let’s hope he prevails. But Minnick’s strategy and Stephen Stuebner’s report misses the mark. The politics of the New West are much more complex than the hope that newcomers are liberal, pro-environment, urban refugees. Between 1985 and 1991, according to Census Bureau estimates, 2 […]
Newcomers turn out to be just like locals
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Casualties of controversy: Two editors’ jobs and a biologist’s naivete
Now that the public has gotten into the habit of regulating bear hunting through initiatives, the issue has become increasingly polarized. That became obvious this summer when Colorado bear biologist Tom Beck stepped out of the hunting culture to write an essay critical of the sport and attitudes toward it. Among other observations in the […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
… comes after two years of arrested development
You might call the 104th Congress a roller-coaster ride for environmental legislation: Conservative Republicans began by attempting to weaken or dismantle many of the nation’s strongest environmental laws, attaching many of their proposals as “riders” on the backs of appropriations bills. But the Congress concluded by rejecting virtually all of the more radical measures, and […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Congress’ 11th-hour moment of maturity…
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the end, and just barely, the Congress of the United States decided to act like grown-ups, creating or expanding about 100 pieces of national parkland around the country, as they intended. But because so many of its members had acted like children, they also “passed’ – well, they caused to be […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Judge sends a message to cows
A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that the state can decide how, and even whether, cows that pollute waterways can graze on federal lands. U.S. District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty said Sept. 27 that the Clean Water Act requires all applications for grazing permits on national forests to first undergo a state review to […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Utah counties bulldoze the BLM, Park Service
A flurry of bulldozing in three southern Utah counties has led to one arrest, federal lawsuits and miles of newly improved roadways through wilderness study areas and the new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The bulldozing, ordered by county commissioners in San Juan, Garfield and Kane counties, is the most serious challenge yet to federal land […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
She works to save the past
Longtime HCN subscriber Ann Phillips finds herself drawn time and again back to a place that many experience as timeless: southeastern Utah. There, with one hand, she tries to record archaeological sites before they vanish; with the other, she works to prevent them from vanishing. The educational consultant turned archaeologist came through Paonia recently with […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Dear Friends
Braving blaze orange It’s hunting season again, and who knows it better than this office? Our neighbor to the south is a meat locker which works overtime this season, thanks to pickup loads of dead deer, elk and, lately, bear. The gang of cats that patrols the alley seems in hog heaven while the animal-lovers […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
A mystery the size of your fist
I am wondering about beargrass. This summer brought such an explosion of blooms to the Northern Rockies it was front-page news – more beargrass than anyone can remember, more beargrass than anyone can explain. So much beargrass that you don’t have to be a naturalist to stop the car and marvel at the hillsides blazing […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Heard around the West
At a pizzeria in Telluride, we recently overheard a couple of shopping-bag laden tourists discuss their vacation. “It’s like Switzerland,” one sighed happily, “only cheaper.” But Colorado is not Switzerland, despite the best efforts of Telluride and Vail. The chocolate here is not nearly as good; our passenger train system is just about nonexistent, and […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Colorado voters decide fate of 3 million acres
Anyone who has read Amendment 16 in Colorado knows that it will fundamentally change the way the state manages its 3 million acres of school trust lands. Instead of maximizing revenues from these lands through leases or outright sales, the state land board would only be required to produce “reasonable and consistent income over time.” […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Will Idaho voters derail nuclear trains?
It’s easy to see how the politically powerful of Idaho stand on storing nuclear waste in the state: Gov. Phil Batt signed an agreement a year ago allowing more than a thousand such shipments to enter the state in exchange for a pledge that existing waste leave the state by 2035 (HCN, 9/2/96). Republican Sen. […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
An ‘unfair, inflexible’ bid to clean Montana’s water
Francis Bardanouve is not the man you might expect to see leading one of the year’s most contested environmental initiatives. A rancher from Harlem, Mont., he spent nearly 30 years in the state Legislature, where he was known as a conservative Democrat. But along with a businessman, a retired rancher and a Republican legislator, Bardanouve […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Polluted waters divide Oregon
PORTLAND, Ore. – One side has a punchy message: that cows and clean streams don’t mix. The other side warns that fencing cows off from hundreds of miles of streams will be a worse failure than the Great Wall of China. At stake is the Oregon Clean Streams Initiative, one of the toughest sets of […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Should city slickers dictate to trappers?
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this essay appears as a sidebar to a feature article, “Western hunters debate ethics tooth and claw.” Editor’s note: Under the banner of People Allied With Wildlife, more than 1,000 volunteers fanned out across Colorado earlier this year to drum up support for a constitutional amendment that […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Western hunters debate ethics tooth and claw
Stew Churchwell considers hunting an important part of the “back to the land” lifestyle he leads near Challis, Idaho. If he doesn’t get a deer or elk, “I’ll be sentenced to beans for a whole year,” he says. He grew up in Oregon, where he hunted bear and raccoon with his father and the family’s […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
How citizens make laws
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. * An initiative is a proposed law or resolution placed on the ballot as the result of a petition drive among registered voters. It is then voted on by the electorate. * A referendum is a decision by the legislature that is put to […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Has big money doomed direct democracy?
The history of initiatives is the history of the rise and fall of contentment with, and trust in, representative government.
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Managing American’s Public Lands
The 18th annual public lands law conference in Missoula, Mont., Oct. 24-25, Managing America’s Public Lands: Proposals for the Future, features Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas and Forest Service critic Randal O’Toole of the Thoreau Institute. Contact the Public Land and Resources Law Review at 406/243-6568. This article appeared in the print edition of […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Congratulations
When the Western Colorado Congress gave its “Not-So-Smart Growth” awards Sept. 21, it was no surprise when the “winners’ failed to show up. The grassroots coalition held the event to showcase the worst examples of development on the Western Slope – a follow-up of sorts to Gov. Roy Romer’s 1995 “Smart Growth” awards. Had its […]