Colorado Politics and Government provides a political history and analysis of the state, emphasizing contemporary problems, conflicts, and their possible resolutions. In examining the political culture of the state, the authors elaborate on the political beliefs and voting patterns of its citizens and examine key political institutions, such as the governorship, the legislature, political parties, and the courts.
Survey after survey reveals that many Coloradans believe that the U.S. government is too big, too wasteful, and too intrusive. Yet Colorado is arguably one of the most federally subsidized states in the union, with forests, national parks, military bases, and research laboratories benefiting from the federal government’s largesse. A concise history of Colorado’s constitution and central political institutions, Colorado Politics and Policy offers a probing analysis of the state’s political cultures. It shows how the state, in many ways a template of the deeply contrary politics of the nation, puts political power into the hands of an ever-more-polarized electorate increasingly inclined to put the concerns of government to the test of the citizen-initiative. Colorado Politics and Policy is the result of broad-gauged and sophisticated research which includes author interviews with citizens and officials across the state, three specially commissioned statewide public opinion surveys, and extensive interviews with governors, legislators, judges, lobbyists, interest group leaders, and leading political analysts. This fresh and engaging interpretation is essential reading for those who want to understand Colorado’s major election trends, chief public policy and budget challenges, and this distinctively purple state’s unique political history.
Colorado has recently been at the center of major shifts in American politics. Indeed, over the last several decades the political landscape has altered dramatically on both the state and national levels. State of Change traces the political and demographic factors that have transformed Colorado, looking beyond the major shift in the dominant political party from Republican to Democratic to greater long-term implications. The increased use of direct democracy has resulted in the adoption of term limits, major reconstruction of fiscal policy, and many other changes in both statutory and constitutional law. Individual chapters address these changes within a range of contexts--electoral, political, partisan, and institutional--as well as their ramifications. Contributors also address the possible impacts of these changes on the state in the future, concluding that the current state of affairs is fated to be short-lived. State of Change is the most up-to-date book on Colorado politics available and will be of value to undergraduate- and graduate-level students, academics, historians, and anyone involved with or interested in Colorado politics.
The legislature is Colorado's dominant branch of government, and Straayer (political science, Colorado State U.) ably describes its formal structure, as well as the processes by which bills become or do not become law, and how the power centers within (and the lobbyists without) the institution can move or kill legislative initiatives. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
