People & politics.

• Position: Trends And Transitions

Former Louisiana House Speaker Hunt Downer has been named the state's first secretary of veterans' affairs, a newly created position in Governor Kathleen Blanco's cabinet. Downer, a seven-term legislator, a brigadier general and second in command of the Louisiana National Guard, was also one of Blanco's opponents in the 17-person gubernatorial primary. He finished sixth. "He has been a key adviser to me on military and defense issues since we served in the Legislature nearly 20 years ago," Blanco said of Downer. Downer, in fact, sponsored the bill that made the Department of Veterans Affairs a cabinet-level agency. "For me, it will be all about taking care of the veterans," Downer says.

An initiative effort to change Colorado's constitutional tax and spending limits, which garnered nearly twice the signatures necessary to make the ballot, was dropped July 31 by the leaders of the two organizations that spearheaded it. Citing a crowded ballot, the complexity of the issue and the competition for money in a presidential year, the directors of the Bighorn Center for Public Policy and the Bell Policy Center decided the time was not right. Colorado is facing a $370 million "structural deficit" over the next two years without any change to the Taxpayers Bill of Rights and Amendment 23, a school funding measure. "This is a great day for Colorado," said Senate President John Andrews. But House Democratic Leader Andrew Romanoff saw it differently: "This ought to increase the pressure on the legislature to get its job done, for the simple reason we are the last game in town."

New Jersey Senate President Richard Codey has begun selecting an inner circle to help when he becomes acting governor Nov. 15 when James McGreevey steps down. He is maintaining some of...