For-profit charter school companies and their allies were hoping to push so-called "parent trigger" bills this year in over a dozen states -- bills which purport to "empower" parents of poor-performing schools by allowing them to vote to turn over their neighborhood schools to private companies. But in state after state, parents themselves have been pushing back.
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A longtime staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act decided to support expanding Medicaid in his state this week, adding to the list of conservatives who are having a change of heart on the issue, as advocates (as well as hospitals and other industry forces) continue to lobby hard for states to take full advantage of the federal funding provided in the ACA. At the same time, lawmakers from states including Mississippi continued their efforts to push for expansion as well. As full enactment of the law draws closer and closer, progressive lawmakers are growing bolder in their advocacy for full implementation of the ACA, and events this week signaled a clear shift in the political terrain in favor of supporters of health reform:
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In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two high-profile challenges affecting states directly: Shelby County v. Holder, a challenge to the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as two cases on same-sex marriage. Arguments in the Voting Rights Act case are scheduled for February 27th, while arguments in the two marriage cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, are set for late March. States and the Obama administration are already filing briefs in advance of both cases. At the same time, efforts to advance marriage equality continued this week in state legislatures including Minnesota and New Jersey:
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A spate of destructive broadband bills has been sweeping across the country, spurred on by the corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Unbelievably, just as broadband Internet becomes an essential tool for millions of Americans, these states, following the pattern of the model ALEC bill, are making moves toward depriving states of any power to ensure reliable, competitive, and affordable service that serves all state residents — from small businesses to those on the other side of the digital divide. The companies behind these bills want the ability to choose to serve only the locations and the individuals that yield the greatest profits. It is simply not smart governance to leave state authorities without the power to ensure everyone can use such a critical asset.
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As the world marks the 101st International Women’s Day, more and more American women are finding their own health under rhetorical and legislative attack in the halls of Congress, on radio airwaves, and in state after state. From attempts to defund organizations providing women with basic health services, to placing intrusive and often humiliating obstacles before women exercising the right to choose, to retricting access to contraception, the past few weeks have seen a range of attacks on women in the states – and a growing movement of progressive state lawmakers standing up and fighting back.
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Since state legislatures around the country have started their sessions in 2012, legislators and governors alike have been recognizing the importance of broadband (or high speed Internet) to growing state economies. Governors in states as diverse as Hawaii, Maryland, Missouri, and Wyoming highlighted broadband initiatives in their state of the state speeches, as more and more of our leaders are realizing that without broadband, the U.S. economy is not going to produce jobs or the highly-skilled workers needed to compete in a global marketplace.
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As state legislatures begin to pick up speed early in the 2012 session, a growing number of states that passed broad anti-immigrant laws over the past two years are seeing the error of their ways. Citing widespread economic devastation, a dramatically-worsened business climate, and a loss of public support, four states out of the five that passed laws based upon Arizona and Alabama’s flawed models are now seeking to repeal their anti-immigrant laws.
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In a blow to states’ leadership over clean energy, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that states cannot sue power plant operators that generate pollution. The Justice Department alleges that: (1) the Environmental Protection Agency has already started to regulate greenhouse emissions; and (2) states lack standing to assert a federal nuisance claim.
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Two years of courtroom battles ended on Monday as Georgia received a green light from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to go ahead with its controversial voter verification system, a major step backward for the state.
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The longest legislative session in Georgia’s history adjourned on
April 29th. Dominated by budget reductions, tax and revenue
policy debates, and education and transportation issues, it was a
difficult and mostly painful session for progressive change as extensive
cuts were made targeting education, health and social service programs.
After nearly
a week of negotiations in the House and Senate Budget Conference
Committee, an agreement was reached on the $17.8 billion state budget
just hours before the legislative session was scheduled to adjourn.
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Overall, federal recovery spending is working as intended, helping states provide needed services and avoid layoffs that would be worsening unemployment rates. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
estimates that these funds are providing states with 40 percent of what
is needed to help their budgets in balance over the next few fiscal
years. The recovery plan has provided states with flexibility in
addressing key programs and priorities. Unfortunately, a number of states have wasted budget funds on trying to steal jobs from one another, as highlighted by Good Jobs First.
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As battle lines are drawn on Capitol Hill over the coming battle over
health care reform, Progressive States Network is putting state
legislators in the middle of the national debate. On Wednesday, PSN led
a delegation representing over 700 state legislators to Washington D.C.
to deliver a letter to the Obama Administration and Congress urging
them to pass comprehensive health care reform with a public insurance
option by the end of the year. The letter, which was signed by a
bipartisan group of over 700 legislators from 48 states, called for any
federal reform bill to include a public health insurance option, strong
affordability protections, and shared employer responsibility for
health care costs.
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Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed around 350 pieces of legislation
into law, but took few steps forward as budget debates consumed the
legislature. Some better bills included the nation's first mandatory
reporting of food contamination tests by food processors, enacted after
a Georgia plant released salmonella-laced peanuts. The passage of the
budget bill (HB 119) trimmed the state's spending by $3 billion rather than raise taxes.
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Following Arizona's lead, Georgia has passed a law
requiring that all residents prove their citizenship before they can
register to vote. This is the most restrictive form of voter ID yet,
and it is far more restrictive than the photo ID requirements that have
been passed across the country. It has been enacted even though there
is no indication that non-citizen voting is a problem in the state; in
fact, Georgia election officials are confident that the current photo ID requirement is strict enough to prevent any problems from arising.
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There have recently been a wave of rightwing resolutions asserting "state sovereignty," with Governor Rick Perry even evoking Civil War-era rhetoric about Texas having the right to secede from the United States.
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As we noted in the Dispatch a couple weeks ago, despite a dearth of recent successes and mounting fiscal crises in most states, rightwing voter ID legislation designed to suppress voter turnout continues to be pressed around the country. So far this year at least 17 states have seen bills introduced to institute or enhance ID requirements for voting or registration (AL, CO, GA, IN, MD, MN, MS, MO, NY, OK, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WY). It appears we now know enough to predict the landscape of the voter ID battles in this legislative session.
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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.
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While the financial crisis has received more of the headlines, there has been a growing unemployment crisis over the last year.
With unemployment at a five-year high, nearly 10 million Americans were
officially unemployed last month, with nearly 500,000 workers applying
for benefits each week. And the problem doesn't stop there, with
long-term joblessness rising:
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Common Cause and The Century Foundation have released the new version
of their joint biennial report on election administration in 10 swing
states and the findings are not very encouraging: while voters' desire
to participate is growing, states have only made fitful progress
improving the voting process, and in many instances things have moved
backward since the last federal election in 2006. Examining the most
recent election experiences of Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia
the report details serious problems in every major aspect of the voting
process, along with a handful of bright spots where individual states
are moving important reforms.
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The benefits of a post-secondary degree are plentiful. For example, an employee with a four year college degree earns 60 percent more than a worker with only a high school diploma. Paying for college, however, has become a daunting task and strain for many American students and families. The cost of higher education across the country is rapidly increasing, at almost double the rate of inflation, outpacing increases in financial aid and many families ability to pay. The combination of these factors result in too many students being unable to earn or complete their degrees due to financial constraints.
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