Utah’s powerful economic engine hinges on a potent combination of capitalism and collectivism. Also, political coverage, including looks at money in Western races, redistricting, Nevada politics, the Latino vote, and important races you’ve never heard of.
Fire Wall: Escaping Four Mile Canyon
In the 18 minutes it took to evacuate my board-and-batten cabin in Colorado, I operated under a mountainous range of delusions, not least of which hinged upon my faulty understandings of metals, the flukiness of wildfires, and the persistence of history and memory. Danger, for one, didn’t seem imminent. When a neighborly deputy drove by…
Wyoming Conservation Voters closes after 11 years
Wyoming pronghorn trek 120 miles, leaving Grand Teton National Park to winter near Pinedale, in one of the longest overland mammal migrations in the U.S. Although it’s less photogenic, the winter migration of Wyoming environmental lobbyists to Cheyenne for the legislative session is similarly epic. This was especially true before 2001, when the League of…
Utah’s Bob Bennett on the Tea Party, wilderness and life after Congress
Bob Bennett, 79, served as a U.S. senator for Utah from 1992 until 2010, when he lost the 2010 Republican primary to Tea Party candidate Mike Lee. “I was really upset for the first 48 hours,” Bennett says. “Then it was like, ‘I’m free at last, free at last!’ ” Bennett, now a political consultant,…
How the Mormon GOP runs Utah with a collectivist touch
“Our object is to labor for the benefit of the whole …” –Brigham Young, 1873 A throng of cars floats down Interstate 15 on an end-of-summer morning, the rising sun wreathed in the orange gauze of distant wildfire smoke. In Lehi, a suburb sandwiched between Salt Lake City and Provo, a massive steel-and-glass shape juts…
Voters shape energy policy by choosing utility regulators
Cam Cooper raises pedigree Angus cattle along the Big Hole River, a beautiful, rural region of southwest Montana. Like most ranchers, her politics are “quite conservative,” she says. “I generally vote Republican.” But this November, she’ll vote for at least one Democrat: John Vincent, an ally in Cooper’s battle against a new transmission line that…
Races where the environment matters. Sort of.
Environmentalists can’t contain their glee about Jay Inslee’s candidacy for governor of Washington. “I can count on one hand the members of Congress … that are like Jay Inslee,” gushed League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski at a Washington chapter event last October. The national LCV usually stays out of state politics, but at…
2012 Western ballot initiatives
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline 2012 Western ballot initiatives.
Westerners’ presidential proclivities
The Democratic Party has taken a shine to the West of late, seeing the region as its best shot to grow the base. Indeed, changing demographics — rising populations of minorities and educated whites, and a declining white working class — have put a few formerly solid red states into play for Democrats in presidential…
As goes Nevada, so goes the nation?
Updated 10/30/12 Twenty-seven days before the general election, northern Nevada state Sen. Greg Brower pleaded a case before a roomful of ardent conservatives that sounded suspiciously moderate. “We can’t survive without any taxes and regulation,” the Washoe County Republican told a women’s club at the Nugget Hotel in Sparks. He acknowledged that he considers power-sharing…
Economic engineering in the New West
The other night, my local irrigation ditch company held a meeting at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars). I sat down on folding chairs with about 50 of my neighbors to hear from our elected board about by-law changes and progress on a federally-funded project to put much of our unlined ditch — hand dug…
Hages ride on
Actually, the Wayne Hage “taking” case is far from over (HCN, 9/17/2012, “One Sagebrush Rebellion flickers out — or does it?“). First, there are a number of significant findings by Judge Smith that were not overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Second, the Hages have filed a petition for rehearing…
Heated Conversations
Comments posted online in response to our Sept. 17 story “Fire fights“: There is really no question about Richard Hutto’s quote in this article, “the federal government is spending money thinning forests that have a long history of dense stands and severe fires.” But one should differentiate forest management at its interface with homes and…
Collectivists for Christ!
Orderville, Utah, is a smattering of modest homes in a narrow valley on the banks of southern Utah’s Virgin River. It feels both overgrown and empty: Thousands of people pass through here daily on their way between Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks, yet few ever stop. On a perfect September day in the thick…
Is the Latino electorate finally beginning to make its mark?
When Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., announced his retirement in 2011, pundits predicted the GOP would easily hold the seat this November. After all, Arizonans last chose a Democrat for Senate in 1988, when as The Wall Street Journal reminisced, “gasoline cost less than 90 cents a gallon … and stirrup pants were in.” Yet Democrat…
Redistricting pains in California and other states
Once every 10 years, after each U.S. Census, states must redraw political boundaries to reflect demographic changes, a process called redistricting. Districts must have equal populations and should not dilute minorities’ voting powers by splitting their vote. The process can become highly politicized, with parties jockeying to draw favorable districts and keep incumbents in office.…
Visitors from around the West
You may have noticed that the last two issues of HCN didn’t contain Dear Friends; we moved it online to get some extra space. You can catch up on our visitors, recent journalism awards and other announcements by visiting http://hcne.ws/PXudbz and http://hcne.ws/OTI73V. VISITORS As the weather cools and the leaves fall, we feel lucky to…