The Colorado State Constitution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Collins ◽  
Dale Oesterle
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
State Constitution ◽  
Federal Constitution ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Strong System

The Colorado State Constitution (2020) is the second edition of the state’s contribution to The Oxford Commentaries on the State Constitutions of the United States. The book opens with a detailed history of the constitution that focuses on events and amendments that transformed the state. As expected in the West, it features some lively adventure stories. Since the first edition in 2002, the state’s population has grown by more than a third. The book explains the many new challenges its legal system has faced. The main section analyzes in detail every provision of the constitutional text. All relevant judicial interpretations are examined. A comprehensive index and a table of cases guide researchers. Interaction with the federal Constitution is carefully explained. Background and interpretations of Colorado’s complex and unique tax revolt, known as TABOR, are carefully analyzed. The state’s extensive provisions for direct democracy, the initiative, veto referendum, and recall of elected officials, are studied in detail. The Colorado Bill of Rights is fully reviewed. The state’s strong system for constitutional home rule for cities, counties, and towns is examined from its adoption into today’s governing system. The state’s strong system for all levels of public education is explained. Its leadership in the marijuana legalization movement is another subject well covered.

Amending Procedure of the Federal Constitution

1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Tanger
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Federal Constitution ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fundamental Law ◽  
First Time

The development of government on American soil presents, as one of its features, the embodiment in its fundamental law of provisions for its modification. The early colonial charters kept alive the fiction that a form of government once established was supposed by its creators to last forever. Only the slow change of custom or the violence of a revolution could modify or destroy such a system of government, except, as in the case of the charters granted by the crown, a modification came as a consequence of the exercise of the royal prerogative.In the Frame of Government drawn up by Penn and his colonists in 1683, appeared an amending provision for the first time in the history of written constitutions; and while all subsequent Pennsylvania charters contained a similar provision, the other colonial charters presented no method whatever for their alteration. Prior to the drafting of the Constitution of the United States, however, a method of amendment was embodied in the state constitutions of Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, Vermont, South Carolina, and also in the Articles of Confederation.

A Case Study in Federalism - the United States and Michigan Constitutions: Not Double Vision, Double Constitutions

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-219
Author(s):  
MICHAEL WARREN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Federal Constitution ◽  
Compare And Contrast

ABSTRACT Each citizen in America lives under two Constitutions - the United States, federal Constitution which applies to all citizens, and the constitution of the state in which the citizen lives. Often overlooked and basically unknown, the state constitutions play a vital role in governance and preserving our unalienable rights. Perhaps the best way to understand each constitution is to compare and contrast them. Accordingly, as a case study, this article examines the age, length, predecessors, drafting process, conventions, ratification process, and amendment procedures of the State of Michigan Constitution of 1963 and the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, this article examines how each of these constitutions addresses the separation of powers, legislature, executive, judiciary, local government, transportation, education, finance, taxation, and the protection of unalienable rights. Armed with this understanding, we will be better informed citizens, and more ably equipped to participate in self-governance and protect the unalienable rights of the citizenry. Note: At times this article quotes constitutional text which refers to “he” or “him.” The grammatical convention at the time was to make masculine all generic gender references. That this article quotes the text does not equate to an endorsement of the convention nor did the drafters intend that only men could serve as public officials.

State-Sponsored Inequality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
The State ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Political Hierarchy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Agrarian Societies ◽  
Stratification System ◽  
The Many

The book explores the social economic processes of inequality produced by differential state entitlements. Drawing on uniquely rich source materials from central and local archives, the book provides an unprecedented, comprehensive view of the creation of a socio-economic and political hierarchy under the Eight Banners in the Qing dynasty in what is now Shuangcheng County, Heilongjiang province. Shuangcheng was settled by bannermen from urban Beijing and elsewhere in rural Manchuria in the nineteenth century. The state classified the immigrants into distinct categories, each associated with differentiated land entitlements. By reconstructing the history of settlement and land distribution in this county, the book shows that patterns of wealth stratification and the underlying social hierarchy were not merely imposed by the state from the top-down but created and reinforced by local people through practices on the ground. In the course of pursuing their own interests, settlers internalized the distinctions created by the state through its system of unequal land entitlements. The tensions built into the unequal land entitlements therefore shaped the identities of immigrant groups, and this social hierarchy persisted after the fall of the Qing in 1911. The book offers an in-depth understanding of the key factors that contributed to social stratification in agrarian societies in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China. Moreover, it also sheds light on the many parallels between the stratification system in Qing-dynasty Shuangcheng and the structural inequality in contemporary China.

scholarly journals Roles of the Water Court and the State Engineer for water administration in Colorado

Water Policy ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 837-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. McIntyre ◽  
David C. Mays
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
Water Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
The Us ◽  
State Engineer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Water Administration ◽  
Civil Courts

Colorado manages water using an administrative structure that is unique among the United States following the doctrine of prior appropriation: Water rights are adjudicated not by the State Engineer, but by Water Courts – separate from and operating in parallel to the criminal and civil courts – established specifically for this purpose. Fundamental to this system is the notion that water rights are property, with consequent protections under the US Constitution, but with the significant constraint that changes in water rights must not injure other water rights, either more senior or more junior. Population growth and climate change will certainly trigger changes in water administration, to be guided by the recent Colorado Water Plan. To provide the foundation necessary to appreciate these changes, this paper reviews the history of Colorado water administration and summarizes the complementary roles of the Water Courts and the State Engineer. Understanding water administration in Colorado depends on a firm grasp on how these two branches of state government formulate and implement water policy.

The American War in Afghanistan

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carter Malkasian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Narrative Format

The American War in Afghanistan is a full history of the war in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2020. It covers political, cultural, strategic, and tactical aspects of the war and details the actions and decision-making of the United States, Afghan government, and Taliban. The work follows a narrative format to go through the 2001 US invasion, the state-building of 2002–2005, the Taliban offensive of 2006, the US surge of 2009–2011, the subsequent drawdown, and the peace talks of 2019–2020. The focus is on the overarching questions of the war: Why did the United States fail? What opportunities existed to reach a better outcome? Why did the United States not withdraw from the war?

Within-field Pathogenic Diversity of Phytophthora sojae in Commercial Soybean Fields in Iowa

2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison E. Robertson ◽  
Silvia R. Cianzio ◽  
Sarah M. Cerra ◽  
Richard O. Pope
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Phytophthora Sojae ◽  
Soil Samples ◽  
Soybean Plant ◽  
North Central Region ◽  
North Central ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Pathogenic Diversity

Phytophthora root and stem rot (PRR), caused by the oomycete Phytophthora sojae, is an economically important soybean disease in the north central region of the United States, including Iowa. Previous surveys of the pathogenic diversity of P. sojae in Iowa did not investigate whether multiple pathotypes of the pathogen existed in individual fields. Considering the many pathotypes of P. sojae that have been reported in Iowa, we hypothesized multiple pathotypes could exist within single fields. In the research reported herein, several soil samples were collected systematically from each of two commercial fields with a history of PRR in Iowa, and each soil sample was baited separately for isolates of P. sojae. Numerous pathotypes of P. sojae were detected from both fields. As many as four pathotypes were detected in some soil samples (each consisting of six to eight soil cores), which suggests that a single soybean plant could be subjected to infection by more than one pathotype. This possibility presents important implications in breeding resistant cultivars and in the management of PRR. Accepted for publication 14 July 2009. Published 8 September 2009.

Response to James Lebovic's review of Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 1169-1170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Jervis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Bright Side ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Cold War

Among the many issues raised by James Lebovic's perceptive review are two that strike me as crucial: the relationships between intelligence and social science and those between intelligence and policymaking. The first itself has two parts, one being how scholars can study intelligence. Both access and methods are difficult. For years, diplomatic historians referred to intelligence as the “hidden dimension” of their subject. Now it is much more open, and Great Britain, generally more secretive than the United States, has just issued the authorized history of MI5 (see Christopher Andrew, Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, 2009). Since the end of the Cold War, the CIA has released extensive, if incomplete, records, and the bright side (for us) of intelligence failures is that they lead to the release of treasure troves of documents, which can often be supplemented by memoirs and interviews. But even more than in other aspects of foreign policy analysis, we are stuck with evidence that is fragmentary. In this way, we resemble scholars of ancient societies, who forever lament the loss of most of the material they want to study.

Hadassah

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mira Katxzburg-Yungman
Keyword(s):  
Life Stories ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
American Jewry ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Zionist Organization

In February 1912, thirty-eight American Jewish women founded Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. This has become the largest Zionist organization in the diaspora and the largest and most active Jewish women's organization ever. Its history is an inseparable part of the history of American Jewry and of the State of Israel. Hadassah is also part of the history of Jewish women in the United States and in the modern world more broadly. Its achievements are not only those of Zionism but, crucially, of women, and this book pays particular attention to the life stories of the women who played a role in them. The book analyses many aspects of the history of Hadassah. The introductory section describes the contexts and challenges of Hadassah's history from its founding to the birth of the State of Israel. Subsequent sections explore the organization's ideology and its activity on the American scene after Israeli statehood; its political and ideological role in the World Zionist Organization; and its involvement in the new State of Israel in medicine and health care, and in its work with children and young people. The final part deals with topics such as gender issues, comparisons of Hadassah with other Zionist organizations, and the importance of people of the Yishuv and later of Israelis in Hadassah's activities. It concludes with an epilogue that considers developments up to 2005, assessing whether the conclusions reached with regard to Hadassah as an organization remain valid.

Gold Mining

2019 ◽  
pp. 22-47
Author(s):  
David Vogel
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Gold Mining ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Hydraulic Mining ◽  
History Of

This chapter, which begins by exploring California's early history, demonstrates the critical role played by both geography and public policy in shaping the state's early economic development, the environmental impacts of that development, and the state's efforts to address those impacts. The discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills in 1848 literally created the state of California. However, the geography of those foothills and the valley into which their rivers flowed also made gold mining one of the most environmentally destructive natural resource activities in nineteenth-century America. It sharply divided the business interests of northern California, leading to a prolonged and bitter battle between mining companies and farmers in the Sacramento Valley. This conflict was finally resolved by a federal court decision in 1884 that banned hydraulic mining—the first important environmental ruling issued by a federal court. This decision was issued in San Francisco by a California judge, illustrating the important role played by the state in the history of pollution control in the United States.

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