State And Local Politics

This text presents twelve chapters of case studies, richly detailing key topics from popular state and local politics textbooks. From using Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri to illustrate how the comparative method can be used to understand the similarities and differences between places and how those differences matter, to a look at how state governments have taken the lead on environmental policy, readers will be able to use this detailed and highly readable text to complement their traditional textbook. And, while state and local politics is the obvious course for this text’s use, it would also be useful to students of public administration, public policy, urban politics, and intro to American politics.

Democrats have largely ceded control of state governments to the GOP, allowing them to rig our political system and undermine democracy itself. After the 2016 election, Republicans had their largest majority in the states since 1928, controlling legislative chambers in thirty-two states and governor offices in thirty-three. They also held both chambers of Congress and the presidency despite losing the popular vote. What happened? Meaghan Winter shows how the Democratic Party and left-leaning political establishment have spent the past several decades betting it all on the very risky and increasingly foolhardy strategy of abandoning the states to focus on federal races. For the American public, the fallout has been catastrophic. At the behest of their corporate patrons, Republican lawmakers have diminished employee protections and healthcare access and thwarted action on climate change. Voting rights are being dismantled, and even the mildest gun safety measures are being blocked. Taking us to three key battlegrounds--in Missouri, Florida, and Colorado--Winter reveals that robust state and local politics are the lifeblood of democracy and the only lasting building block of political power.

Revised edition of: State and local politics. Fifteenth edition. 2012.

Politics at the state and local level has never been more interesting than in our devolutionary age. This popular text is the most concise, readable, and current introduction to the field. Now in its ninth edition, the book keeps its focus on the varied and changing political and economic environments in which state and local governments function, and their strengths and weakenesses in key areas of public policy. The text is enlivened by boxed sections that relate individual experiences or highlight particular issues and developments. Topics covered in this edition include the drive toward devolution in the federal system; taxation and budgeting; the death penalty; tort reform, and changing approaches to welfare, education, land use, and waste management.

Updated in a new 15th edition, State and Local Politics: Government by the People, is the most authoritative book for state and local politics. It continually sets the standards for other state and local politics books by anticipating readers' needs. Known for its esteemed author team who treat each new edition as a fresh challenge, State and Local Politics: Government by the People is the perfect text for understanding how America's state and local political systems work.

In a campaign for state or local office these days, you’re as likely today to hear accusations that an opponent advanced Obamacare or supported Donald Trump as you are to hear about issues affecting the state or local community. This is because American political behavior has become substantially more nationalized. American voters are far more engaged with and knowledgeable about what’s happening in Washington, DC, than in similar messages whether they are in the South, the Northeast, or the Midwest. Gone are the days when all politics was local. With The Increasingly United States, Daniel J. Hopkins explores this trend and its implications for the American political system. The change is significant in part because it works against a key rationale of America’s federalist system, which was built on the assumption that citizens would be more strongly attached to their states and localities. It also has profound implications for how voters are represented. If voters are well informed about state politics, for example, the governor has an incentive to deliver what voters—or at least a pivotal segment of them—want. But if voters are likely to back the same party in gubernatorial as in presidential elections irrespective of the governor’s actions in office, governors may instead come to see their ambitions as tethered more closely to their status in the national party.

Focusing on five Los Angeles environmental policy debates between 1920 and 1950, Sarah Elkind investigates how practices in American municipal government gave business groups political legitimacy at the local level as well as unanticipated influence over