PSN In The News

As we look forward to 2011, paid sick days campaigns in the states are reaching critical mass:  since President Obama was elected, a majority of states have taken up the issue, with twenty-three legislatures introducing bills, and city campaigns moving in three other states.  Several more states will introduce paid sick days bills in 2011, and the broader movement for work-family balance has even more steam when you count states that are advancing other family-friendly labor standards, such as paid family leave.  We are now at a tipping point where we can change the national debate on paid sick days – but we need some tools to ensure that the whole adds up to more than the sum of all of our parts.

Advocates demanding stricter rules against illegal immigration -- including those backing Arizona's new law clamping down on undocumented immigrants -- have long argued that state lawmakers have been forced to act because of Congress's reluctance to take the lead.

But with little sign that Congress will act on comprehensive immigration reform this year, advocates for immigrants are also taking matters into their own hands. Like their political opponents, they have turned to their state legislatures to fight back.

In states from Pennsylvania to Utah, a battle of bills has been taking place between those who want to reproduce the Arizona law, which hands police more power to detain anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally, and those who want to extend further rights to immigrants.

Legislators in at least 10 states— Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, and Maryland— have called for laws that would mirror Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, according to the Progressive States Network and reporting by New America Media.

Labor and environmental groups joined with the U.S. government on Thursday to promote high speed Internet access and related technologies to create green jobs and help lift the United States out of recession.

A state senator who was in the nation's capital this week to lobby for health care reform says it's time for a "competitive public product" to give Americans a more affordable alternative to private health insurance.

Senator Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat from Iowa City, was among a small group of state legislators who met with White House officials on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON – State legislators urged Congress and the White House on Wednesday to enact comprehensive health care legislation that includes a public health insurance component by year's end.

Members of the Progressive States Network, a state government coalition, met with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to lobby for a public insurance option. They said that would answer Americans' call to provide health care coverage for all.

Would you buy a health-insurance policy sold by the U.S. government? What if it offered good coverage, affordable rates and were available anywhere in the country?

Pushing back against Republican attacks on President Obama's vision of a public-health plan, a nationwide coalition of state lawmakers, small-business owners, physicians, community groups and others Wednesday launched a public-relations campaign aimed at building support for an option they believe is essential for meaningful health reform.

Wednesday’s lobbying push starts at the top: Former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and Howard Baker announce recommendations at a noon ET press conference in Washington, as organized by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

And it moves down to the state level, with the Progressive States Network fanning out on the Hill and to the White House to make the case.

Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, has his own event, releasing a letter from more than 600 state legislators urging Congress and the administration to enact health care reform by the end of the year. The letter calls for any reform to include a public health option, something Mr. Harkin firmly backs himself.

Both Sebelius and Nancy-Ann DeParle, White House director of health care reform, were set to meet Wednesday afternoon with a group of state legislators called the Progressive States Network who support a public option as part of any overhaul plan. The lawmakers said at a press conference that they will bring along a letter signed by 700 legislators calling for a public health insurance plan as part of comprehensive health reform.