Dispatch Strategy Items

There are stark differences between the two presidential campaigns' approaches to federal-state relationships.  Differences range from the amount of funding appropriated for programs run by the states to whether the candidates would strengthen or weaken state regulatory authority.

This Dispatch is a roundup of what ballot initiatives will appear on state ballots across the country this November.  Whether it's workers rights, energy policy, education, transit, abortion or health care, ballot initiates give voters a chance to directly vote on an issue.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "Fed and Treasury officials have identified the disease. It's called de-leveraging, or the unwinding of debt. During the credit boom, financial institutions and American households took on too much debt."  But let's not buy into a false equivalence of "financial institutions" and those "American households" borrowing beyond their means.

With elections over and new progressive strength in many legislatures, voters will now be demanding that state leaders deliver, made all the more challenging given hard economic times and the laundry list of social problems we face.  

To assist in this task, Progressive States Network has launched an upgrade of its website to make it easier for legislators and advocates to find both past Dispatch information and additional resources we will be adding in coming months.  As well, we have new Policy Options reports that give more detailed analysis of policies that legislators may want to introduce in their states.

In last Tuesday's election, there was a dramatic demographic and geographic shift in who supported progressives all the way down the ballot.  These changes could lead to long-term electoral support for progressives if they deliver on the promises they made to voters.

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.

Conventional wisdom inside the D.C. Beltway holds that on major issues like health care or energy independence, it's fine for state legislators to play with their legislative toys in local sandboxes, but that it's really up to the "grown-ups" in the federal government to fix big problems. In national policy debates, state governments are usually treated as a tiny sideshow to the top billing of national legislation.

With gas prices now topping $4 per gallon and rising concern over global warming, the public policies that accommodated and often subsidized wasteful driving habits in the past need to change.

Last Wednesday, the Progressive States Network played host to national luminaries and state leaders from all over the country to celebrate the many victories achieved by the organization and its allies in the most recent  legislative session, and to build momentum for new victories in the coming year.

As the Supreme Court marches to the Right, corporate interests continue to thrive at the expense of state regulatory powers.  "This has been a very successful year for the business community," said Miguel Estrada, a Washington appellate lawyer who represents many key corporate interests before courts in Washington, D.C."  This session at the U.S. Supreme Court, as this Dispatch will highlight, had an almost uniform tilt towards business versus state regulatory authority.  In other areas like election law, the tilt was against poor voters who faced restrictions on their right to vote, though the term was a more mixed bag on criminal justice and other issues before the Court.

On Monday, July 22^nd, over one hundred and fifty state legislators, labor leaders, and advocates participated in "Building a Progressive Majority in the States," a joint annual meeting of the Progressive States Network and the National Labor Caucus.  Taking a cue from the opening plenary on progressive policies for an economic downturn, the conference focused on strategies for confronting the most important issues facing America's working families, including affordable health care, smart immigration policy, workers' rights, green jobs, clean energy, and tax and budget reform.  To address these issues in more depth, PSN policy experts joined state legislative leaders in smaller workshops that gave participants a chance to share best practices and model legislation while developinglegislative priorities and winning strategies for 2009.

This Wednesday, PSN Executive Director Joel Barkin sat down for a phone interview with Thomas Frank, author of the new best selling book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule.  Their conversation touched on a number of issues surrounding how conservatives have worked over the last decade to dismantle government as we know it in Washington D.C. and throughout the country.

Today, the Progressive States Network is releasing a new report: The Anti-Immigrant Movement that Failed: Positive Integration Policies by States Still Far Outweigh Punitive Policies Aimed at New Immigrants.   The Executive Summary is available online, as well as the full report in PDF and HTML format.