Distribution of Powers

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-90
Author(s):  
Richard B. Collins ◽  
Dale A. Oesterle ◽  
Lawrence Friedman
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Basic Form ◽  
American Government ◽  
Legislative Power ◽  
Distribution Of Powers ◽  
Executive Veto

This chapter details Article III of the Colorado Constitution, which defines distribution of powers. The article separates the powers of Colorado’s state government into three departments: legislative, executive, and judicial. The separation doctrine’s general purpose is to prevent excessive concentration of power in a single arm of government. The constitution also pursues this end by dividing legislative power between two houses, providing for an executive veto, providing for direct democracy through the initiative and the veto referendum in Article V, and establishing home rule local governments in Articles XIV and XX. A basic form of separation in American government is for the three branches to have separate officers. Otherwise, the essential issue is whether an action of one branch of state government has overstepped constitutional boundaries.

The History of the Colorado Constitution

2020 ◽  
pp. 2-28
Author(s):  
Richard B. Collins ◽  
Dale A. Oesterle ◽  
Lawrence Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Public School ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
State Government ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Government Funding ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constitutional System ◽  
And Coping

This chapter traces the history of the Colorado Constitution. After some misfires for Colorado Territory, the constitution was drafted in the 1875–76 convention, approved by voters and federal authorities, and became effective when statehood was proclaimed by the President on August 1, 1876. Amendments made it one of America's longest state charters. Unique provisions define water rights, impose broad tax restrictions, forbid underground nuclear detonations, and commit redistricting of congressional and legislative seats to special commissions. Crucial tests of the constitutional system arose over public school and state government funding, municipal home rule, direct democracy, labor unrest in the mines, the Great Depression, redistricting, and coping with the 1992 tax restrictions.

State Government Preemption of Local Government Decisions Through the State Courts

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 671-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Swanson ◽  
Charles Barrilleaux
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
State Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Local Autonomy ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Data Set

What factors are associated with state government preemption of local government policies? This research asks whether state courts limit local authority in areas in which local preferences differ from the state’s, and whether this is conditioned by the level of autonomy the state grants the local government. Using a newly constructed data set of 404 local governments that had local ordinances challenged in state courts between the years 1996 and 2017, we find that local governments with citizen ideological preferences that differ from the state are less likely to have an ordinance preempted by the courts when the level of local autonomy given by the state is high. Thus, institutions like home rule provide local governments with certain legal protections from challenges to local authority.

Institutional pressures influencing environmental management accounting adoption by Malaysian local governments

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Che Ku Hisam Che Ku Kassim ◽  
Noor Liza Adnan ◽  
Roziani Ali
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
State Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Management Accounting ◽  
The State ◽  
Institutional Pressures ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Reporting Practices ◽  
Environmental Management Accounting

Purpose Because of the heightened environmental awareness of the public, local governments (LGs) are being pressured to improve on the extent and quality of environmental disclosures (EDs) provided in an array of reporting media. The lack of an accounting tool to identify, measure and report EDs has propelled the infusion of environmental management accounting (EMA) to support the reporting practices. This paper aims to examine the institutional pressures influencing EMA adoption by Malaysian LGs. Design/methodology/approach Using the consensus approach, a self-administered questionnaire survey is conducted on accountants in LGs in Peninsular Malaysia. The items in the questionnaire are based on the findings of prior studies on EMA adoption. Findings The results suggest that coercive isomorphism from the state government is perceived to be the influential institutional factor placing intense pressures on LGs to adopt EMA. Research limitations/implications The results solidify the potential role of the state government in any public policy changes which could further stimulate and promote the adoption of EMA. Originality/value Insufficient empirical evidence on the adoption of EMA in LGs within a developing country’s perspective contributes to a limited understanding on the development of environmental-related practices in different economic stages and environment as well as within the public sector’s perspective.

scholarly journals Leviathan or Public Steward? Evidence on Local Government Taxing Behavior from New York State

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 671-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin M Aldag ◽  
Mildred E Warner ◽  
Yunji Kim
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Fiscal Federalism ◽  
New York State ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Fiscal Stress ◽  
York State ◽  
Expenditure Limitations ◽  
Logistic Regressions

Abstract Fiscal federalism argues local governments compete to provide optimal tax-service bundles as responsible public stewards. In contrast, Leviathan theories argue tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) are necessary to make local governments fiscally responsible. We analyze local taxing behavior in New York State, which implemented a levy limit in 2012 that allows legislative overrides with 60 percent vote of the local governing board. Our 2017 survey of all general-purpose local governments measured fiscal stress, service responses, and local political attitudes and found 38 percent of municipalities voted to override. Logistic regressions show local governments that have more fiscal stress, weaker property tax bases, higher need, and higher employee benefit costs are more likely to override. These findings support fiscal federalism, as local governments that override are pushing back against state policy in order to respond to local needs. TELs introduce unnecessary rigidity and run counter to the precepts of fiscal federalism.

Direct Legislation: Some Implications of Open Housing Referenda

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard D. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
American Government ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Direct Legislation ◽  
Direct Government ◽  
Open Housing

Any middle-aged member of the political science guild in a retrospective mood might ponder a question: “What ever happened to direct democracy?” In our halcyon student days the textbooks discussed the direct democracy trinity—initiative, referendum, and recall—described their mechanics and variations, explained their origin in the Progressive Era, told us that the United States, Australia, and Switzerland were leading practitioners of direct democracy, cited a few eccentric referenda, gave the standard pro and con arguments, and essayed some judgments of the relative merits of direct and representative democracy. Latter day collegians may pass through the portals innocent of the existence of the institutions of direct government. Half of the American government texts never mention the subject; the others allocate a paragraph or a page for a casual mention or a barebones explanation of the mechanics.A similar trend has occurred in the literature. Before 1921, every volume of this Review had items on the referendum, five in one volume. Subsequently there have been only seven articles, all but two prior to World War II. “The Initiative and Referendum in Graustark” has ceased to be a fashionable dissertation topic, only four in the last thirty years. All but two of the published monographs antedate World War II.

scholarly journals Book Review | George Will’s Conservatism and Democracy in Crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
James Madison ◽  
American Government ◽  
Federalist Papers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Federalist Papers

Americans typically view the United States as a democracy and are rightly proud of that. Of course, as those of a more precise nature, along with smug college students enrolled in introductory American government classes, are quick to point out, the United States is technically a republic. This is a bit too clever by half since James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, defined a republic the way most people think of a democracy—a system of representative government with elections: “[The]… difference between a Democracy and a Republic are, first the delegation of the Government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest.” What the framers thought of as democracy is today referred to as direct democracy, the belief that citizens should have more direct control over governing. The Athenian assembly was what the framers, Madison in particular, saw as the paragon of direct democracy—and as quite dangerous. While direct democracy has its champions, most Americans equate democracy with electing officials to do the business of government.

Who Decides?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Federal Constitutional

The earlier book, 51 Imperfect Solutions, told stories about specific state and federal individual constitutional rights, and explained two benefits of American federalism: how two sources of constitutional protection for liberty and property rights could be valuable to individual freedom and how the state courts could be useful laboratories of innovation when it comes to the development of national constitutional rights. This book tells the other half of the story. Instead of focusing on state constitutional individual rights, it focuses on state constitutional structure. Everything in law and politics, including individual rights, eventually comes back to divisions of power and the evergreen question: Who decides? The goal of this book is to tell the structure side of the story and to identify the shifting balances of power revealed when one accounts for American constitutional law as opposed to just federal constitutional law. Who Decides? contains three main parts—one each on the judicial, executive, and legislative branches—as well as stand-alone chapters on home-rule issues raised by local governments and the benefits and burdens raised by the ease of amending state constitutions. A theme in the book is the increasingly stark divide between the ever-more-democratic nature of state governments and the ever-less-democratic nature of the federal government over time.

Support for Progressive Reforms: Evidence from California’s 1911 Referenda

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-234
Author(s):  
John Dinan ◽  
Jac C. Heckelman
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Women's Suffrage ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Constitutional Amendments ◽  
Business Regulation ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Progressive Reforms ◽  
Women’S Suffrage

An analysis of county-level election results in a 1911 California special election in which voters considered multiple state constitutional amendments—women’s suffrage, direct democracy, home rule, worker safety, and business regulation—finds that certain socially active Protestant denominations endorsed most of these reforms. Otherwise, support for these measures showed little group uniformity. Urban counties favored several reforms but opposed women’s suffrage. Support in counties with greater wealth, a larger proportion of immigrants, and several other religious denominations extended to certain reforms but not to others. Although many leaders and chroniclers typically claimed Progressivism to comprise a coherent movement, empirical study challenges this interpretation by showing varied patterns of electoral support for Progressive reforms and a notable divergence in support for women’s suffrage.

The Awakening Giant

2018 ◽  
pp. 171-200
Author(s):  
Patricia de Santana Pinho
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
State Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The State ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
African Heritage ◽  
The Government ◽  
Tourist Demand ◽  
Roots Tourism

The role of local governments in attracting roots tourists is one of most important factors analyzed in the studies of diaspora tourism. Governments of several countries have actively sought to promote varied forms of roots tourism in order to attract members of their respective diasporas. In contrast, African American roots tourism in Brazil is marked by the almost complete inaction of the government, at both the state and federal levels. This type of tourism was initiated and continues to develop largely as the result of tourist demand, and with very little participation on the part of the state. This chapter analyzes the belated response of the state government of Bahia to African American tourism, examining how the inertia that dominated since the late 1970s was later replaced by a more proactive, although still inadequate, position, when the state tourism board, Bahiatursa, founded the Coordination of African Heritage Tourism to cater specifically to the African American roots tourism niche. The chapter also analyzes whether the left-leaning Workers’ Party, then in charge of the state government, challenged the longstanding discourse of baianidade (Bahianness) that has predominantly represented blackness (in tourism and other realms) through domesticated and stereotypical images.

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