State Government
Leadership Foundation

Alabama’s unemployment rate continues to drop amid state-wide enforcement of a new immigration law, despite Democratic efforts to block and stigmatize the popular reform.

December’s unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent, down from 8.7 percent in November and 9.8 percent in September.

“In the last three months alone, we’ve seen an unprecedented drop of 1.7 percentage points,” noted Alabama Republican Gov. Robert Bentley in a Jan. 20 statement.

Here's a reality check for President Barack Obama's health overhaul: Three out of four uninsured Americans live in states that have yet to figure out how to deliver on its promise of affordable medical care.

This is the year that will make or break the health care law. States were supposed to be partners in carrying out the biggest safety net expansion since Medicare and Medicaid, and the White House claims they're making steady progress.

But an analysis by The Associated Press shows that states are moving in fits and starts. Combined with new insurance coverage estimates from the nonpartisan Urban Institute, it reveals a patchwork nation.

Indiana took a big step toward becoming the 23rd state in the nation with the controversial "right to work" law on the books, as the Senate passed the measure late Monday.

The House could vote on an identical version of the bill today -- if, that is, enough House Democrats are present to let a vote take place.

Democrats have repeatedly shut down the House this session, denying Republicans the quorum they need to do business, and they went behind closed doors again late Monday.

Bill Cosby and Dick Morris presumably disagree about most things, so it's instructive to note that both have officially endorsed "School Choice Week," which began yesterday with a series of rallies and events around the country celebrating the idea of parents being able to decide where their children go to school. Indeed, school choice seems like such an obviously good idea that the most interesting thing about School Choice Week is why it exists at all.

Two congressional redistricting maps emerged Monday, and legislators working on the boundaries said there was a lot to dislike about both of them.

In both plans, Lawrence would be consolidated into the 2nd U.S. House District. Lawrence is now split between the 2nd and 3rd districts.

Lawrence officials have welcomed the idea of being placed in one district, but officials from other areas voiced disapproval of the two proposals.

Remy International’s Indiana roots go back more than 120 years. The manufacturing company is headquartered in the small town of Pendleton, with 500 employees in Indiana, more than 6,000 scattered over the globe, and plans to add a new factory somewhere in the United States by 2013.

Still, unless a controversial “right-to-work” bill passes the Indiana legislature soon, Remy Vice President Jay Pittas believes that the company will have to open the new factory, which will build hybrid motors and employ at least 250 people, in another state. “Right now, without it, the factory will not be in Indiana,” he says. “With it, I would like it to be.”

Gov. Rick Snyder says he won't endorse a candidate for the upcoming presidential election because Michigan voters did not hire him to meddle in federal politics.

But as he suggested in last week's State of the State address, there's at least one federal issue he is willing to get involved with: Immigration.

Speaking Friday at a business community luncheon hosted by the Detroit Regional Chamber, Snyder said he will "stand up" as a spokesperson for federal legislation that would encourage highly-educated engineers and entrepreneurs to stay in the United States after college.

It is one of the most contentious issues in U.S. politics today: the federal health-care law's requirement that everybody have health insurance or pay a penalty.

Supporters of the mandate—which is the central issue in the case before the Supreme Court challenging the law—argue that it's the key to making health care more affordable and accessible to everyone. By expanding the pool of insured, the thinking goes, the burden of paying for the sick is covered by all.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 2012-2013 Executive Budget includes legislation to create a New York Health Benefit Exchange (S.5849/A.8514) as a centralized marketplace for health insurance.

The controversial Health Benefit Exchange would facilitate the competitive purchase and sale of health care plans for consumers, its proponents say, and would allow small businesses to enroll their employees in health care programs in New York state.

Federal law prohibits removing voters from registration rolls for failing to vote. But Republicans on Wednesday endorsed a possible end run around that — one that Democrats, the ACLU and some good-government groups protested as illegal and likely to lower voter turnout.

The House Political Subdivisions Committee endorsed HB253 on a 6-4 vote, mostly along party lines, and sent it to the full House. It would allow removing voters from rolls if they miss four consecutive general elections and fail to respond to a notice mailed to them after the second missed election.

Democratic legislators on Monday said the voter ID law that Secretary of State Kris Kobach pushed will deny more votes of legitimate voters than it will catch in fraudulent votes.

"I'd be willing to put a $5 bill on it," said state Rep. Ann Mah, D-Topeka.

But Kobach, a Republican, said showing a photo ID to vote isn't onerous. He said a photo ID is required in many aspects of everyday life, and he noted that Illinois was considering a law to require a photo ID to purchase Drano.

Mah said voting was a constitutionally protected right unlike purchasing Drano.

What singular cause could bring together the likes of Democratic campaign strategist James Carville, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal (LA), actor Sacha Baron Cohen, and 2,000 families, all under one roof? The answer: school choice — empowering parents with the ability to save their children from failing schools, thereby giving them a shot at a brighter future.

Suppose police arrest a man for armed robbery and he has a long record of violence that demonstrates he is a menace to his neighborhood.

Under federal law, a judge can order him held without bail until his trial takes place. And that is how it works in federal courts.

But New Jersey law is different. The state constitution gives all defendants the right to release on bail, except for those charged with a capital offense "when the proof is evident or the presumption great."

Colorado's cantaloupe industry faces an extremely tough 2012, following a year during which Jensen Farms near Holly caused one of the nation's deadliest foodborne illness outbreaks. Thirty people died, and the farm was cited with a host of sanitation lapses that led to the listeria outbreak.

But more recently, the conditions at Jensen that have made headlines weren't on the farm itself. Eric Jensen, owner of Jensen Farms, was fined $4,250 by the U.S. Department of Labor for renting deplorable, unsanitary rooms to migrant workers.

The rooms were overcrowded, there were no laundry facilities, no smoke detectors, no beds and no windows that could be opened. The rooms were in violation of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, which Jensen said did not apply to him because he owned the inn that rented the rooms. (But the inn also had no telephone number for prospective guests, was not open to the public, and is closed during the off-season.)

The General Assembly is preparing for a debate over health insurance benefits for Virginians that Gov. Bob McDonnell wants to postpone.

Six bills have been filed in the legislature proposing varying ways to set up a benefits exchange, which is required under the federal health-care reform law that McDonnell opposes and the state hopes to overturn in the U.S. Supreme Court.

But the governor is discouraging legislators from approving any of the bills during this session, despite looming federal deadlines that some lawmakers and insurers fear will leave Virginia with a less-competitive federal exchange for individuals and small businesses to buy health benefits.

The Indiana Senate amended Right to Work legislation Friday, but rejected most changes.

Right-to-work legislation bans union contracts requiring non-union employees pay fees for representation. There were 11 amendments offered on the bill. The Senate approved three, all of them minor changes.

Greenwood Senator Brent Waltz is the only Republican whose amendment was defeated. He wanted to exempt the building and construction trade unions from the bill. He says he is not convinced right to work will play a major role in economic development if it is passed.

The Supreme Court on Friday instructed a lower court in Texas to take a fresh look at election maps it had drawn in place of a competing set of maps from the Texas Legislature. The justices said the lower court had not paid enough deference to the Legislature’s choices and had improperly substituted its own values for those of elected officials.

The court’s unanimous decision extends the uncertainty surrounding this major voting-rights case, which could help determine control of the House of Representatives.

The Virginia Senate today passed a congressional redistricting bill that Democrats say is unconstitutional and disenfranchises African Americans by packing too many of them into one of the 11 congressional districts.

The vote on House Bill 251 was 20-19 along party lines. It would likely have gone to a tie in the evenly divided chamber but one Democratic senator was not present.

The legislation now goes to the desk of Gov. Bob McDonnell. Even with McDonnell's anticipated signature, the plan still must be approved by the Department of Justice for compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act.

Wyoming lawmakers plan to hold a final meeting to hash out a statewide plan for redrawing legislative districts.

The Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee meeting starts Thursday morning in Cheyenne. It may continue into Friday if necessary for lawmakers to adopt a final redistricting plan for presentation to the Legislature.

Gov. Nikki Haley gave an upbeat assessment of South Carolina’s progress over her first year in office in her State of the State address Wednesday night, characterizing the state’s recovery from the recession as “surging.”

But she also used the platform to critique the labor unions in South Carolina, attacking them as unwelcome in this right-to-work state.”

“I love that we are one of the least unionized states in the country. It is an economic development tool unlike any other,” the Republican governor said. “Our companies in South Carolina understand that they are only as good as those who work for them, and they take care of their employees. We don’t have unions in South Carolina because we don’t need unions in South Carolina.”

The most important decision you will make about your children’s education is picking their school, right? That’s the conventional wisdom, but it’s actually wrong — or at best it’s only half-correct. Teacher effectiveness varies a lot within schools, even within good schools, which means that just choosing the right school for your kid is not a proxy for choosing great teachers. So while “school choice” is hotly debated (next week is National School Choice Week, complete with Bill Cosby’s blessing and events galore,) there are few rallies being held for giving parents the right to choose a particular teacher. That’s because the whole system is stacked against empowering families in this way. In fact, because of how seniority rules generally work, it’s a lot more common for teachers to choose their students than for students to choose their teachers.

The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a pair of newly redrawn state Senate district maps and sent the new congressional map back to a judge for review.

With candidate filings for the 2012 elections set to begin Feb. 28, the rulings opened the door to the possibility that final district boundary lines won’t be drawn by then. That would cause confusion and possibly discourage some candidates from running, party leaders said.

“That’s not good for the democratic process,” said Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders, chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party.

Wisconsin will turn down $37 million from the federal government that had been awarded to help implement health care exchanges under President Barack Obama's health care reform law, Gov. Scott Walker said Wednesday.

Walker announced in December that Wisconsin would not pursue implementing the exchange until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the law.

But he did not say whether the state would take the money. On Wednesday Walker said he was notifying the federal government that Wisconsin was turning down the Early Innovator Grant, saying it didn't make sense to commit to reforms that could have a devastating economic impact.

In his first year as Colorado's secretary of state, Republican Scott Gessler has been sued eight times. He has outraged Democrats by rewriting the state's campaign finance rules, tangled with counties over which voters they can send mail-in ballots to, and attracted national attention for participating in a fundraiser to pay off a campaign finance fine levied by his office.

"We've definitely shaken up the status quo, and I think that's happened a bit in some other states, too," he says.

Gessler came to the office from a career as one of Colorado's top Republican campaign lawyers, and he doesn't shy away from that partisan affiliation or from pursuing conservative policies, like pushing for a voter identification law.

"I'm very open about what my office does," he says. "I was very open about it on the campaign trail. And I welcome the debate, because I think as Coloradans, as Americans, we ought to discuss these issues, we ought to talk about them, we ought to think about them."

As the National Popular Vote (NPV) movement steps up its effort to impose a direct election for president, attempting to enlist states with a sufficient number of electors to constitute a majority (268) and to bind them to the winner of the national popular vote, those states considering the proposal might first reflect on the nightmare aftermath of the 2000 presidential election.

Because there was a difference of less than 1,000 tabulated votes between George W. Bush and Al Gore in one state, Florida, the nation watched as 6 million votes were recounted by machine, several hundred thousand were recounted by hand in counties with differing recount standards, partisan litigators fought each other in state and federal courts, the secretary of state backed by the majority of state legislators (all Republicans) warred with the state's majority Democratic judiciary -- until 37 days after the election the U.S. Supreme Court, in a bitterly controversial 5-4 decision effectively declared Bush the winner.