Inside the New Mexico Senate: Boots, Suits, and Citizens Trade paperback - 2014

Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2014. First Edition First Printing Stated . Trade Paperback. Fine. 6" X 9 1/4. Sanchez, Lila - Book Design. 298 Pages Indexed. Inscribed by the author on the title page. No other marks or stamps to this pristine condition book with flawless interior text pages. To look at a legislative body is to observe democracy in the raw--with all its diverse characters and influences and its many conflicts, compromises, and achievements. Dede Feldman, a first-rate observer and chronicler, shows us the insides of the New Mexico State Senate. Elected to New Mexico's state senate in 1996, Dede Feldman faced the challenges that confront state legislators around the country along with some that are uniquely New Mexican. In this forthright account of the workings of New Mexico's legislature, she reveals how the work of governing is actually accomplished. In New Mexico's part-time citizen legislature, Spanish may be spoken in the halls of the capitol as often as English, and Native American issues are often pivotal. But each year the Land of Enchantment's legislators, like those in other states, must balance revenues and expenditures, tangle with lobbyists, and struggle with redistricting and campaign finance reform. State legislatures' approaches to air pollution, drunk driving, and chronic disease, Feldman's book reveals, find their way into national law after they've been road tested on the highways of various states. Contents in Six Parts: La Vida Politica in the New Mexico Senate, Boots Suits Leaders and Lobbyists, Dances With Wolves New Mexico Advocates Take on the Big Boys, Patients and Patience, Turning Around the Battleship, By Grit and Grace, and Good People Trapped in a Flawed System Ethics Campaign Finance and Transparency. Laid in is a large, colorful marketing bookmark with a quote from John Gastil, Director, Democracy Institute, Pennsylvania State University. "This book stands as one of the very few that offer firsthand insight into how we govern ourselves in the 50 states with the focus on New Mexico, an enigmatic bellwether with more rogues and heroes per capita than one could imagine.