Only a handful of seats are truly up for grabs, including two in the West, and they’re being fiercely contested.
Politics
Related High Country News coverage
Nevada’s ugly tug-of-war (1995) County commissioner courts bloodshed (1995) Utah counties bulldoze the BLM, Park Service (1996) Nevadans drive out forest supervisor (1999) Shoveling vs. sniveling (2000) Showdown on the Nevada range (2001) Change comes slowly to Escalante country (2003) Road warriors back on the offensive (2003) Rebels with a lost cause (2007 Sagebrush Rebel […]
Reports from the front lines
Excerpts from official accounts of threats against U.S. Forest Service and BLM employees.
Western states eye federal lands—again
The ultra-right ‘remedy’ for public lands.
In campaign ads, emotion trumps fact and guns buy votes
What I learned from watching political ads on YouTube two weeks before the midterms.
Outside spending soars in the West’s key Senate races
Colorado and Alaska have the most expensive midterm battles in the region.
How to pass a wilderness bill in 2014
Lessons from southwest Colorado’s Hermosa Creek.
From the Tipi to the Tesla
Activist Winona LaDuke on environmental justice and foregoing unclean technology.
Obama declares new national monument in the mountains above Los Angeles
Trails, campgrounds and wildlands will qualify for federal funding for improvements.
Has the Obama administration hobbled the Endangered Species Act?
A new policy may set the law back half a century.
Don’t drink the water
Portland’s fluoridation battle shows how tricky it is to integrate science into debates that have as much to do with values as policy.
Navajo language threatens candidate’s presidential bid
Chris Deschene faces disqualification over lack of fluency.
Colorado’s first legal hemp harvest since 1957 is underway
But a ban on seed transport hampers farmers.
Can Hickenlooper get his middle-of-the-road magic back?
The Colorado governor has Democratic politicians calmed and fractivists pissed.
A public land swap for the rich
As a deal gets sweetened, how do you measure what’s fair?
Faces of the grassroots climate movement: rowdy and rowdier
Marches around the country this week show ideological diversity among a new cohort of activists.
Female firefighters threaten to sue the Forest Service — again
Four decades after the first allegations of discrimination, some say little has changed.
After 11 years, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument reopens
Increased border security means that all 517 square miles are again open to the public.
Sweeping new rule for Alaska’s predator control
Federal versus state wildlife politics get even hotter.
