![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/04\/Loevy-1.jpg\")
<\/a>Robert Loevy in his 20s<\/p><\/div>\n
He\u2019s studied the South\u2019s shift from Democratic segregationists to Republicans, which has led to a polarization much more pronounced than what he studied in graduate school.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we talked about then was the accommodating Congress and how the Democrats worked together with the Republicans, and reformers accused the two parties of being Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The parties were not sharply defined at all, let alone sharply defined against each other the way they are at the moment. And of course, the major change has been in the rise of minorities in all levels of government, and I include women in that. But the major social changes were the civil rights acts in the \u201960s and the women\u2019s rights movement of the \u201970s.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s optimistic about the future of humanity, especially when he compares ongoing conflicts around the planet with the cataclysms of the world wars.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough we\u2019ve just been through a worldwide recession and the world\u2019s economy isn\u2019t coming back the way we\u2019d like, the fact of the matter is, since the end of World War II, the improvement in lives over those years has been quite significant. We still have the problem that the developed nations get further ahead of the undeveloped nations, and so we have these immigration problems. They\u2019re problems of success. People want to come to the U.S. and Europe because that\u2019s where the good money can be made, that\u2019s where the good life can be found.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon after he retired from full-time teaching in 2010, Loevy was tapped for Colorado\u2019s Reapportionment Commission, which meets every 10 years to reconfigure boundaries for state Senate and House seats using the U.S. Census.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was one of those \u2018as long as you don\u2019t say anything atrocious, you\u2019ll get the job\u2019 type of interviews,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I didn\u2019t say anything atrocious to the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. He looked at me with a wry smile you can only get from a judge and said, \u2018This is the perfect thing for a retiring college professor.\u2019 And he was right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loevy enjoyed touring Colorado with his fellow commissioners from May to November 2011, meeting with residents off the usual political path. He garnered enough material for a book called \u201cConfessions of a Reapportionment Commissioner,\u201d which is available online. It stirred controversy with his pronouncement that the amendment which created the commission was a \u201ctotal failure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Cronin, Loevy\u2019s frequent writing partner, joined CC\u2019s Political Science Department in 1979 and soon realized he\u2019d found a mentor.<\/p>\n
\u201cBob was a font of information about how things worked in Colorado Springs government and the city, county, and state politics,\u201d the Massachusetts native said. \u201cThen, I was invited to write a book about Colorado and I was reluctant to do that. But I asked him if he would collaborate with me, because he had so much knowledge. We commissioned state-wide polls, and we interviewed former governors, Supreme Court justices, and dozens of lobbyists and legislators.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Cronin \u201cleans toward\u201d the Democratic Party and Loevy is more closely aligned with Republicans, they agree 99.8 percent of the time, Cronin said.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re in demand for television and radio interviews, and The Denver Post<\/i> often features their views on its Opinion pages. They\u2019ll meet for a meal, kicking ideas back and forth to refine them; then one will write a draft and the other will edit it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very good at editing my work,\u201d Cronin said. \u201cHe makes sense of stuff. I\u2019ll draft a piece and send it to him and he\u2019s great at editing, adding, and clarifying. I\u2019ve done hundreds of journalistic pieces over the years, but I was never a full-time reporter. He has a great sense of humor, and if he disagrees with you, he does it politely. Sometimes, when you co-author or co-edit someone\u2019s work, it can be a knock-down-drag-out fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cronin said Loevy\u2019s students always felt welcome in his office, where they talked about political campaigns they\u2019d worked on or hoped to be involved in.<\/p>\n