Word: passe
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...more new taxes without your approval," says Birch. "They'll need two-thirds to pass it." Birch admits he is not aware that California is the only state in the union where it is necessary to obtain a two-thirds majority in the legislature to pass a budget and initiate a new tax. (There is another proposed measure, which Birch is not peddling, that would change the legislative vote required to pass a state budget from two-thirds to a simple majority.) Williams, a regular voter, admits to confusion on many of the initiatives. "I never know what...
Instead of turning to the initiative system, Paul and his New American colleague Joe Mathews recommend making more use of the referendum. "It's easier to write a new law, an initiative, than hold a referendum on a law the legislature has passed. Today, we have voters making laws. A better system is for voters to pass judgments on laws." At the moment, though, referendums have the same 5% signature requirement that initiatives do. Paul and Mathews suggest lowering that to 1%. They also suggest revising the initiative itself, requiring sponsors to submit them to the legislature, where lawmakers would...
...also made evident that if the Democrats want to pass a health care bill this year, they will have to go it alone - and that they are preparing to do just that. Again and again, they brushed aside Republicans who insisted that they should scrap the legislation that they have been working on for more than a year and start all over again. Americans, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "don't have time for us to start from scratch. Many of them are at the end of the line...
...able to muster enough of their own votes to get it done. The procedural and political hurdles ahead are formidable, and with each new poll showing public confidence slipping away, they know that time is not on their side. Yet, they say, they believe that if they can pass the bill, they can sell it too. Once voters can look beyond the messy political process and dealmaking that it took to get this far, they may once again be able to focus on the actual substance of the legislation, which still enjoys broad support...
...former African colonies under an interventionist policy called Françafrique, under which France propped up client regimes in Africa in order to maintain its political and business interests on the continent. Now Sarkozy is looking to loosen France's heavy political and military commitments in Africa and pass the responsibilities of maintaining security to a group of stable and reliable partners in the region. As a central power in a long-troubled region, Rwanda is a main pillar in Sarkozy's strategy...