How Republican is the Mountain West? That’s sort of like asking, “How wet is the ocean?” Many readers of High Country News weren’t even born in 1948, the last time a Democratic presidential candidate carried every one of the eight states in the Mountain West – Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and […]
Politics
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Republican riders toppled
Facing growing disgust from the American public as well as inner-party revolt, Republican congressional leaders abandoned riders that stalled a flood relief bill for more than a month. President Clinton vetoed an early bill because it contained several unrelated measures – one of which would have opened public lands to road building. He blamed Republican […]
Posted inJune 23, 1997: On the trail of mining's corporate nomads
Politics here consists of hating the East
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the leaders of the world’s great powers prepared to meet in the American West last weekend, events of great import, perchance even of historic significance, were occurring in some nations’ capitals. But not in this one. Western civilization may be at a turning point, but Washington doesn’t care. Washington is sex-obsessed. […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
A Republican wins it
For the first time, a Republican will represent ethnically diverse northern New Mexico in Congress. Bill Redmond won the May 13 special election to replace Rep. Bill Richardson, who left office to become this country’s ambassador to the United Nations. Democrat Richardson had represented this district since its inception in 1982. Redmond, a minister, credits […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Flood bill awash with anti-environmental riders
As Congress rushes to pass a flood-relief bill, lawmakers are tossing controversial pieces of legislation into the mix in hopes of floating them through unnoticed. The bill itself would provide $5.6 billion in relief money to flood victims and ranchers who lost livestock to bitter winter weather. But the worst of its riders could send […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Dick Randall, a fighter for the West
Staff was sorry to hear of the death of Dick Randall in Rock Springs, Wyo., at the age of 72. A fervent conservationist, Randall in his youth worked as an aerial coyote-gunner for the federal Animal Damage Control agency. Suffering from the effects of several air crashes, and more important, a change of heart about […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
The Craig bill: Calm down, everybody
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ah, for the glory years of the 104th. Those were the days, when Western Republicans filled the congressional hoppers with their dreams for their region’s public lands – plans to help one species or another chop more trees, chomp more grass, dig more mines and maybe even present some of the land […]
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast
The president’s new monument forces southern Utah to face its tourism future.
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
Money: the real political organizer
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Now about this soft money business. As a descriptive term, “soft money” isn’t. It’s vague, if not downright misleading, considering that “soft money” is no softer than any other money. So let’s approach the subject from another perspective, not as an abstract “issue,” but as a case study of a real, living, […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Cut the fat out
Cut environmentally damaging subsidies and save $36 billion doing it, urges a report targeting 57 wasteful federal programs. The third annual Green Scissors describes how each program costs both taxpayers and the environment. Ending below-cost timber sales, the report says, could save $1 billion over five years. Twenty-five taxpayer and nonprofit groups contributed to the […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Montana Legislature ‘swirlies’ to the right
HELENA, Mont. – Montana’s Republican-dominated Legislature has taken such a sharp turn to the right, its critics say, that it will take moderate Republican Gov. Marc Racicot to keep it from going off the deep end. A slew of bills have been introduced that would weaken environmental protection or make citizen redress more difficult. A […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
A U.S. senator who shoots from the hip
WASHINGTON, D.C. – How fitting it was that true celebrity came to Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell not over a vote in Congress, or a speech, or even when he switched parties, but over advertising. Briefly last year, Campbell was the “Banana Republican,” a literal poster boy in advertisements for the Gap-Banana Republic clothing-store chain, whose […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
Clinton’s budget blows off a wilder West
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Teddy Roosevelt was in town the other day, arguing that the country is short-changing its parks and forests. No, this is not a time warp. This was Theodore Roosevelt IV of New York, an investment banker, a conservationist and – best of all – a Republican. It was a nice touch, having […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
This year, Congress slunk into Washington
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Even without the small complication bestriding the opening of the 105th Congress, the difference between it and its predecessor could be discerned by a quick look at the schedules. Two years ago, the ebullient Republican majority of the House of Representatives came to town with revolutionary zeal, determined to remake the government, […]
Posted inDecember 23, 1996: El Nuevo West
An 84-year-old postal veteran
The struggle by Red Lodge, Mont., that kept alive a downtown post office may be duplicated 150 miles away in Livingston, population 7,500. Recently, 1,500 Livingston residents signed a petition calling on Postal Service officials to forego a move to spacious new quarters and retain the 84-year-old post office in the heart of town. “It’s […]
Posted inDecember 23, 1996: El Nuevo West
Keeping the heart in the center of town
The residents of very small Red Lodge, Mont., struck a blow, this month, for keeping their town a town. The forces for sprawling suburbanization are still all there: rising real estate prices, a major expansion at Red Lodge Mountain ski resort, and an influx of amenity-seeking newcomers attracted to the town’s setting, 60 twisting miles […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
If politics is a baseball game, I don’t even own a bat
After each election I become the fearful character in a Gary Larson cartoon, peering through window slats to discover that neighboring houses are occupied by large canines, drooling spittle and looking hungrily in my direction. After 12 elections, I ought to have more stomach for the results, but each biennium comes as fresh horror. The […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
The West is just another ethnic voting bloc
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oh, you folks think you’re so different out there, do you? All these seminars and conferences about the Old West and the New West, the changing West, the future of the West, the culture of the West, even the sovereignty of the West. From the intellectuals in the universities to the anti-intellectuals […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
The Republicans now own the West
The morning after the elections, Carl Pope and Deb Callahan, heads of the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters respectively, held a jubilant conference call with the press: “The message from yesterday’s election comes down to two words – environment wins. Voters supported those committed to protecting our environment,” began Callahan. “The nation’s […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Don’t expect problem solving in 1997-1998
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. How will the elections affect environmental issues in the Congress? One thing is certain, observers say: They won’t make resolving problems any easier. Wilderness: In Utah, the elections seem to bolster the chances of passing a small-acreage wilderness bill. With Democratic Rep. […]