News & Analysis

With legislative sessions getting underway around the country, this Dispatch provides a list of key bills and policies that we encourage legislators to consider introducing.  While not exhaustive of the range of needed reforms in states, they emphasize initiatives of strategic importance that are being considered in multiple states.  Working with our various partners, Progressive States Network is providing staff support for these policies and will work to use movement in multiple states to generate national media and attention.  This in turn will create greater momentum to assist individual states in pushing bills to passage.  The following is a quick checklist of key policies with links to model legislation and policy summaries.

From December 8-10th, over 50 legislators from 26 states joined the Progressive States Network at Bally’s Hotel in Las Vegas for its first annual Legislative Leadership Retreat. These fifty legislators met with key advocacy allies to discuss both policy and legislative strategy for the 2009 legislative sessions. The retreat was held in conjunction with the annual conference of the Economic Research and Analysis Network (EARN) to strengthen the state progressive movement at this key point in history.

As the federal government considers an economic recovery plan that will most directly address the needs of those suffering and revive the economy, expanding funding for and modernizing state-based unemployment compensation systems should be a central part of any recovery plan. 

When the U.S. Senate killed the auto industry rescue bill last week, some conservative commentators saw it as payback for Michigan voting the wrong way in the November election.  William D. Zeranski at the popular rightwing American Thinker site argued, "We know which way those 17 Electoral College votes will go.  So, how does helping bailout the Big Three help the GOP?" 

Local Michigan Republican leaders themselves began worrying that national party leaders would begin ignoring state concerns after McCain lost the Great Lakes states.   As Republican pollster Steve Lombardo said after the election, "It's a matter of worry...It may be that Republicans begin to write off Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota."  Of course, the writing off of all Michigan voters only makes sense politically because of the Electoral College.

Soon after the November elections and the dispiriting setbacks for gay marriage equality in California, Arizona, and Florida, a group of religious leaders in Maine formed a coalition to advocate for gay marriage rights and actively seek equal treatment for gay and lesbian couples within Maine law.  The group, Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine, includes 120 clergy from across the state and 14 different faith traditions, including United Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Unitarian Universalist, Congregational, and the United Church of Christ.

Recently, in New Jersey, Governor Jon Corzine's administration proposed rule changes that threaten to prevent the public from accessing key environmental information about the state's most potentially hazardous facilities.  Advocates say the environmental information that would be withheld would block public access to information that estimates how many people may be in harm's way if a toxic chemical disaster occurred at 12 sites regulated by the state, as well as additional information for 85 New Jersey sites under federal oversight.

The New America Foundation recently issued a sobering analysis of the costs associated with failing to fundamentally reform health care in the US.  The Cost of Doing Nothing: Why the Cost of Failing to Fix Our Health System is Greater than the Cost of Reform details the staggering economic costs of doing nothing and the obscene burden on families and businesses, not to mention state and local governments.

The elections of 2008 served as a critical test of the nation's election systems.  With changes in voting machines and procedures, coupled with expectations of record voter turnout, election administrators held their breath and hoped their system wouldn't fail. 

While the system didn't fail, voters faced serious obstacles in exercising their right to vote.  Voter registration ended up being the problem that affected the largest number of voters.  Even before the first votes were cast, it was apparent that our voter registration systems were woefully inadequate.  While in other nations 90% or more of the eligible voter population is registered to vote, in the United States less than 75% of eligible voters are registered.

We can do better.

As states face mounting deficits, corporate lobbyists have been promoting the idea that privatization of public services and assets is a free lunch -- services can be delivered more cheaply than by public employees and public assets like highways can be sold or leased for a hefty return to the taxpayer.  As PSN has detailed in our December 2007 report Privatizing in the Dark: The Pitfalls of Privatization & Why Budget Disclosure is Needed, the promises of privatization too often yield to a reality of lost money and degraded services, weak oversight and lost expertise, assets sold off for short-term gains but long-term loss, lost democratic accountability, and the corruption of the political process.

One key victory on election day was a victory for paid sick days in Milwaukee by a commanding 69-31% of city voters.  Parents in Milwaukee who need to take a day off to care for a sick child can now afford to do so now that their paid sick days referendum has Milwaukee following the lead of San Francisco, CA and Washington DC. in adopting a program to require employers to provide paid sick days.  Under the measure, full-time workers in large businesses will earn up to 9 paid sick days a year and workers in smaller businesses with fewer than 10 employees will earn up to 5 days a year.