• Introduction
• Supporting the Program
• What Progressives Face
• The Progressive Opportunity
• Values: The Need for a Multi-Issue Narrative
• Outline of the Policy Program
• Wage Standards and Workplace Freedom
• Key Wage Standards and Workplace Freedom Policies
• Recent Developments: Wage Standards and Workplace Freedom
• Resources: Wage Standards and Workplace Freedom
• Balancing Work and Family
• Key Balancing Work and Family Policies
• Recent Developments: Balancing Work and Family
• Resources: Balancing Work and Family
• Health Care for All
• Key Health Care for All Policies
• Recent Developments: Health Care for All
• Resources: Health Care for All
• Smart Growth and Green Jobs
• Key Smart Growth and Green Jobs Policies
• Recent Developments: Smart Growth and Clean Energy
• Resources: Smart Growth and Clean Energy
• Broadband Buildout and Technology Investments
• Key Broadband Buildout and Technology Investments
• Recent Developments: Broadband Buildout and Technology Investments
• Resources: Broadband Buildout and Technology Investments
• Tax and Budget Reform
• Key Tax and Budget Reform Policies
• Recent Developments: Tax and Budget Reform
• Resources: Tax and Budget Reform
• Clean and Fair Elections
• Key Policies for Clean and Fair Elections
• Recent Developments: Clean and Fair Elections
• Resources: Clean and Fair Elections

In the last two years, we have seen the first steps by voters towards repudiating the rightwing ideology and institutions that have long dominated much of the political landscape in our states. Whether on health care, clean energy, workers’ rights or budget reforms, state legislators across the country have made real changes in policy benefitting their residents and are building towards a progressive majority in all of our states.

On issue after issue of concern to working families, there are solid majorities for enacting progressive policies. But for too long, we had seen rightwing politicians, backed by corporate money and by conservative think tanks, blocking communities from improving wages, impeding expansion of health care, and auctioning off public assets and public contracts to big monied interests. Working together, though, legislators are now creating a coordinated strategy across states to highlight those issues that can broaden the coalition of progressive voters and reframe the debate about why it matters to working families that progressives hold office in our statehouses.

To help make that happen, a group of legislators, non-profit leaders, and advocates formed the Progressive States Network (PSN) in 2005 to provide day-to-day support to state legislators and community organizations in each state. This package of resources, our third edition, is not designed to be an exhaustive set of policies. Instead, we strategically focus on policies that can attract support from potential voters and thereby “wedge” rightwing politicians whose allegiance to campaign contributors clashes with the desires of many of the voters who put them into office. And Progressive States as an organization is committed to providing legislative support to campaigns in states advancing these policies.

As we detailed in our 2007 Taking the Lead: A Report on State Legislative Successes in Enacting Progressive Policy, the efforts of PSN and our progressive allies in the states are already bearing fruit. But these achievements are only the beginning. The need for bold progressive leadership has never been greater as the states confront challenges of stagnant wages, global warming, exploding health care costs, and civic disgust with elections dominated by monied interests. The following package of reforms provides a range of options that progressive legislators and allied advocates can use to build an enduring progressive legacy in our states.

Supporting the Program

The policy options in the following pages are meant to be just that: a set of options that can each illustrate the values associated with each set of issues. Some are simple, common-sense reforms, while others are more ambitious comprehensive policies. Yet all would make concrete improvements in the lives of working families and in our communities. Each policy builds on the others to reinforce the progressive message. The idea is that local legislators can promote those options most appropriate for the political environment and needs of their states.

As an organization, Progressive States Network provides progressive legislators with both the technical and messaging support needed to turn these policies into law. Our constant goal is to help legislators by promoting best practices for these issues, providing background research, drafting versions of the policy appropriate to their individual states, and helping them advance related legislation that has already been introduced in their states.

Through partnerships with think tanks, national political advocates, and local grassroots organizations, we build support for these state-specific legislative campaigns while promoting message continuity across states that reinforces the progressive message nationally. By strengthening communication between legislators and grassroots organizations across different states, Progressive States acts as an information hub so that legislators can keep up-to-date on news from other states, anticipate trends that are coming their way, and educate each other on how to win these policy debate. Progressive States also acts as a “war room” to help legislators respond quickly with legislative amendments, provides expert policy testimony, and generally acts as surrogate staff members to support passage of legislation. Our aim is to promote progressive legislative campaigns, including innovative online communication strategies, which generate a crescendo of interest, sweep across multiple states simultaneously, and raise progressive issues to a political prominence that redefines state politics.

What Progressives Face

Even with recent electoral and legislative victories, progressives confront a political landscape shaped by a well-organized rightwing network that has worked for decades to establish political power in the states. In a February 2006 report, Governing the Nation From the Statehouses: The Rightwing Agenda in the States and How Progressives Can Fight Back, the Progressive States Network outlined how groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and other allied rightwing groups have hijacked public policy in the states.

Tens of millions of dollars of corporate money have poured into local research think tanks and lobbying organizations to create an “echo chamber” around rightwing issues. Over the last three decades, this rightwing network of groups has drafted and promoted state legislation across the country that has crippled social service budgets, deregulated industries, blocked health care reform, and undermined consumer and worker protections in state after state. At both the federal and state level, they have promoted policies that wedge progressive groups against each other while cementing a coalition around a rhetoric of tax cuts and rightwing social issues. Progressives have often failed to counter the wedge issues promoted by the corporate-backed conservative movement, and have de facto ceded what should be progressive voters to the opposition. Even as rightwing movements lose power at the federal level, they are only likely to redouble their spending and efforts to drive policy at the state level.

Progressive States Network aims to assist state leaders in expanding support among voting groups that should be supporting progressive policies. Significant opportunities for this type of outreach are emphasized by the Pew Research Center’s typology of voter beliefs. In its “2005 Political Typology,” Pew divided the U.S. population into nine different voting blocs and found that even many voters who sympathize with progressive economic values are voting for politicians with rightwing economic views.

Among two groups, “Social Conservatives” and “Pro-Government Conservatives” -- who make up a majority of the Republican base -- over 80% feel “too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few large companies,” and a strong majority of both groups support stricter environmental regulation, raising the minimum wage, and guaranteeing health care for all Americans.

In fact, one small demographic, what Pew calls “Enterprisers”, making up just 9% of the population, are the only group whose members generally oppose raising the minimum wage, the ONLY group which opposes guaranteed health care, the ONLY group that thinks outsourcing is good for the economy, and the ONLY group whose members generally think environmental regulations are not worth the costs.

It is startling to think that this last small voting group, just 9% of the population, in combination with the corporate-backed rightwing apparatus, has been the tail wagging not only national and state politics but also driving many policies with which even the majority of the Republican base disagrees.

The Progressive Opportunity

The Progressive States Network believes this reality highlights an opportunity for progressives to make inroads in all fifty states. Most progressive policies have far more popular support than past voting patterns would indicate, largely due to the divisive use of “wedge” issues by rightwing movements, and the dominating influence of corporate money distorting political choices.

Some progressives argue that politicians need to “move to the center” and blur the political lines with their opponents, especially on issues like reproductive rights or other social issues. Yet given that a majority of the population supports Roe v. Wade -- and voters continue to oppose most anti-abortion initiatives at the polls, such an approach is as likely to lose votes from the present progressive base as gain votes with new voters. And aside from present voters, multiple polls show that rising numbers of younger voters are even more progressive on issues like abortion and gay rights. Adopting conservative social positions or just remaining silent on them would actually alienate the voters who will determine elections in the future.

What is true is that in the absence of a strong, progressive message on core economic challenges facing working families, divisive social issues will be used to distract public debate and block progressive reforms. Voters have become increasingly concerned that the nation is dangerously off-track – with a May 2008 Gallup poll showing a record 85 percent of the public dissatisfied with the direction the nation is going. Yet voters are not yet convinced that progressive leaders have a clear vision of what they stand for and how they will change that direction.

If progressive leaders can articulate that clear message, tying their values to popular progressive policies -- especially the core economic growth and justice issues that are overwhelmingly supported by the public, it leads to two major results:

First, socially conservative, economically progressive voters will have a real choice at election time. In recent years, those voters knew where rightwing leaders stood on the social issues those voters support, but were often unsure where progressive leaders stood on the economic and environmental issues that they also believed in. Instead of delivering their votes to rightwing leaders, who take a clear stance on something they support, many of them would support progressive leaders if the progressive economic policies that those disaffected voters do support were emphasized. As some recent election results have emphasized, this can lead to electoral gains for progressive candidates.

Second, campaigns for these popular progressive issues will solidify support among many swing voters and mobilize the base of progressives. Such mobilization is important not only for increasing turnout of those voters, but for expanding the volunteers who recruit their neighbors. Further, it gives those activists a message they can use to win over members of their communities to the progressive cause.

In this way, good policy becomes good politics.

Values: The Need for a Multi-Issue Narrative

Still, it is not enough to simply highlight a few popular issues; those issues need to be embedded within a narrative and a broader set of values. An issue, no matter how popular, loses much of its political force when discussed in isolation. The political power of any issue is that it expresses the values that connect directly to peoples’ lives, and to other related issues that also matter to them. In this way, a politician’s support or opposition to any issue becomes symbolic of a larger connection to the interests, values, and cultural worldview of a voter. Additionally, without that multi-issue narrative, it is far easier for opponents to pit single-issue progressive groups against each other and undermine voters’ identification with progressive leaders.

For example, leaders of the Apollo Alliance, a labor-environmental coalition, have emphasized that, despite general public support for environmental policies, those policies have often failed politically because they were not articulated in ways that united them with the concerns of worker advocates, civil rights organizations, women’s groups, and other progressives. But when labor, environmental, and civil rights leaders come together to frame clean energy as an investment in new technologies and jobs, they connect environmental values to the broader value of growing our local economies. Instead of bowing to demands to slash social spending or give tax giveaways to multinational corporations as a job creation strategy, progressives instead can make an argument for green job policies that also support a vision of environmental sustainability.

Similarly, progressives may alienate cultural conservatives not because of specific issues, but because progressive messages may lack a strong pro-family narrative. The modern economy is hard on families, with both parents often forced to work long hours in a workplace that usually gives them little flexibility to deal with family emergencies. The rightwing will succeed in promoting a narrative that abortion and gay rights are to blame for endangering families, unless progressives promote the stronger message that promoting a living wage, paid sick days, family leave, and better health care can ease the real burdens families face. With a strong progressive pro-family narrative in place, any particular cultural issue gets debated on its own merits, not as a symbol of some general “anti-family” bias held by progressive leaders.

How this multi-issue narrative is shaped will no doubt differ in each state, but there are core values that progressives share which will help reinforce that message across states. Progressive States’ goal is to help legislators build a narrative from these values about improving the lives of their constituents. All of our policies start from where people live and work, promoting a core progressive narrative of Rewarding Work, Valuing Families, Promoting Justice, Growing the Economy and Increasing Democracy in our society. These, or appropriate variations, can be used to highlight the broad values that tie together specific issues into this multi-issue narrative.

Outline of the Policy Program

Within this framework of values, Progressive States is initially providing legislative support for seven key issue clusters. Although these are obviously not exhaustive of the issues that embody the progressive agenda, the issues detailed in this set of policy options reflect opportunities where progressives can make some of the most serious political inroads in the present environment. Those issues include:

Wage Standards and Workplace Freedom - assuring that American workers receive a decent wage and the freedom of speech in the workplace to stand up for their own interests.

Balancing Work and Family - helping create a more family-friendly workplace and society through better family leave policies, paid sick days, support for child care and access to contraception.

Health Care for All - extending health care coverage to all Americans, while helping cut costs for those currently receiving health coverage.

Smart Growth and Green Jobs - promoting energy independence and job growth through new transit options, smart development to strengthen our communities, and new energy technologies.

Broadband Buildout and Technology Investments - promoting universal and affordable Internet broadband, networking energy, health care & education systems, investing locally in technology jobs, and promoting diverse voices in local media.

Tax and Budget Reform - creating more equity and accountability in state tax systems, economic development subsidies, and public contracts.

Clean and Fair Elections - eliminating corruption in lobbying, establishing public financing for elections, protecting voting rights, and promoting reforms like national popular vote to assure that every vote counts.

As will be outlined in more detail in the following pages, each of these issue clusters are not only good policy for working families, but they each expand and deepen the progressive coalition by appealing to disaffected, swing and even many self-described conservative voters who nonetheless care about issues that express the value of work, family, justice, economic growth and democracy.

Policies to raise wages should be a linchpin of progressive leadership. A higher wage is the best anti-poverty program and a key “pro-family” policy that will allow parents to work fewer hours and have more time with their families. It is also one of the best local economic development tools, since workers earning a higher wage will contribute to an increase in local consumer spending and higher tax revenues. Strong wage policies express the progressive value of the dignity of work and that all labor deserves a reasonable reward. After decades of neglect of these issues and the resultant collapse of wage standards, progressive leaders are now only beginning to regain the focus on wage standards.

Wages have largely been stagnant in recent decades. For many workers - especially those without a college degree - pay has actually gotten worse, meaning that this generation of workers is the first one in American history that is not doing significantly better than the previous generation. Because of weak enforcement of existing laws, many workers do not even receive the minimum wage or overtime - and many receive illegally lower pay because of illegal race and gender discrimination. Mandatory arbitration clauses increasingly deny workers access to the courts to enforce their rights, pushing them into corporate-dominated tribunals that deny them justice. And as the freedom to form unions has been eroded across the country, fewer workers have been protected by collective bargaining agreements, leading not only to lower wages but less ability to speak out on a range of other abuses in the workplace.

States are increasingly taking action to make wage issues front and center to the progressive message - and receiving strong support from the public. Most states have already raised the minimum wage at least once, often above the most recent federal increase approved in 2007. A number of states, and well over one hundred local communities, now require companies receiving public money or government contracts to pay an even higher “living wage.” Other state and local governments have increased penalties for wage law violators, a key strategy as well in responding to anti-immigrant movements by highlighting that the problem is sweatshop employers, not immigrant workers themselves. States are also doing what they can to protect free speech rights in the workplace and strengthen the freedom of employees to form labor unions.

Public opinion strongly backs these wage policies. Most polls show support for raising the minimum wage in the 80%+ range. Even under the onslaught of attack ads, voters have supported initiatives to increase the minimum wage by margins as high as 72% in Florida and 76% in Missouri, meaning that roughly two-fifths of Bush voters in those states opposed his position on the minimum wage. Among small business owners, supposedly the heart of opposition to the minimum wage, a Gallup poll showed a plurality of 46% of small employers supporting an increase in wage rates.

By embracing the wage issue as a core part of their message, progressives have seen direct political gains. The wage issue has created new alliances for progressives, including with religious leaders, especially Catholic and other denominational officials who have made living wage issues a core part of their social justice teachings. It gives progressives what the Rev. Steven Copley, who led a recent successful minimum wage drive in Arkansas, calls “a moral issue, a faith issue and a family values issue” to rally supporters.

The wage issue is also helping turn out disaffected voters to support the election of progressive officials. A study on Nevada’s 2004 minimum wage initiative detailed how the issue was crucial in helping defend progressive legislators at the polls, becoming a crucial voting issue especially for younger women, new registrants, non-college women, lower-income voters, and independent voters of all stripes.

Recent Developments: Wage Standards and Workplace Freedom

Wage Standards: Propelled by ballot victories in fall 2006 and new progressive majorities in a number of states, the momentum for minimum wage victories has continued across the country; more than a dozen states have enacted higher minimum wage levels than even the federal increase passed in 2007. States like Vermont have voted to index the minimum wage for tipped workers to inflation: a critical reform to ensure that low-wage pay keeps up with the cost of inflation. In 2007, Maryland became the first state to require that any company receiving a government contract pay a living wage, assuring that government contractors are competing based on higher quality and efficiency, not just abuse of their workers compared to the public sector.

Wage Law Enforcement: In 2007, Colorado and Minnesota joined other states in increasing financial penalties paid to workers who are denied their legal wages. Colorado, New Jersey, and Minnesota all cracked down on the misclassification of workers as independent contractors, a strategy used by employers to evade wage and tax laws. Colorado now requires anyone on a construction site to have workers comp’ insurance, and New Jersey created new criminal penalties for intentional misclassification. Also, New York, New Jersey, and Ohio have been just a few of the states launching new programs to crack down on violations of wage laws in those states.

Freedom to Form Unions: New York and Oregon both expanded the rights of child care workers to form unions, while New Hampshire and Oregon joined a number of other states in approving “majority signup” for public employees to join unions when a majority of workers sign cards requesting it. Delaware, Missouri, and Oregon each provided for or expanded collective bargaining rights for their state employees. Oregon and Ohio each expanded public benefits for private sector workers locked out of their jobs by employers during a labor dispute. While they did not pass, state chambers in New Hampshire, Oregon, and West Virginia have approved bills giving workers the right not to attend mandatory meetings on religious, political, or union issues.

Resources: Wage Standards and

Workplace Freedom

Wage Standards

Progressive States - Beyond the Minimum Wage http://www.tinyurl.com/3dyvpt

Department of Labor - State minimum wage rates http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm

Economic Policy Institute http://www.tinyurl.com/yowwnm

Center for American Progress http://www.tinyurl.com/69jz8x

Let Justice Roll - http://www.letjusticeroll.org/

ACORN Living Wage Resource Center http://livingwagecampaign.org/

Good Jobs First - http://www.goodjobsfirst.org

Wage Law Enforcement

Progressive States - Wage Law Violations http://www.tinyurl.com/23d3rm

National Employment Law Center http://www.tinyurl.com/2jzhfv

UC - Berkeley, Sweatshop Accountability http://www.tinyurl.com/2ey5gx

Local Wage Enforcement Organizations http://www.tinyurl.com/yuf2g6

Workplace Speech & Freedom to Form Unions

Progressive States - Freedom to Form Unions http://www.tinyurl.com/2lh8sq

AFL-CIO http://www.aflcio.org/

American Rights At Work http://www.araw.org

CA Building Trades - Project Labor Agreements http://www.tinyurl.com/32a8pm

SEIU and AFSCME Child Care Workers Sites http://www.seiu.org/public/child_care/
http://www.afscme.org/childcare/

Resources: Wage Standards and Workplace Freedom

Wage Standards

Progressive States - Beyond the Minimum Wage
http://www.tinyurl.com/3dyvpt

Department of Labor - State minimum wage rates
http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm

Economic Policy Institute
http://www.tinyurl.com/yowwnm

Center for American Progress
http://www.tinyurl.com/69jz8x

Let Justice Roll - http://www.letjusticeroll.org/

ACORN Living Wage Resource Center
http://livingwagecampaign.org/

Good Jobs First - http://www.goodjobsfirst.org

Wage Law Enforcement

Progressive States - Wage Law Violations
http://www.tinyurl.com/23d3rm

National Employment Law Center
http://www.tinyurl.com/2jzhfv

UC - Berkeley, Sweatshop Accountability
http://www.tinyurl.com/2ey5gx

Local Wage Enforcement Organizations
http://www.tinyurl.com/yuf2g6

Workplace Speech & Freedom to Form Unions

Progressive States - Freedom to Form Unions
http://www.tinyurl.com/2lh8sq

AFL-CIO http://www.aflcio.org/

American Rights At Work
http://www.araw.org

CA Building Trades - Project Labor Agreements
http://www.tinyurl.com/32a8pm

SEIU and AFSCME Child Care Workers Sites
http://www.seiu.org/public/child_care/
http://www.afscme.org/childcare/

Helping parents balance the demands of work and family underlines progressive pro-family policies. With the rhetoric of “family values,” the rightwing has convinced large swathes of voters that gay marriage and other hot-button social concerns are endangering the family, even as those same corporate conservatives studiously downplay the real stresses on families, especially a workplace that is unforgiving of parents trying to balance the demands of work and home. Progressives face a core challenge in reclaiming their image as defenders of the family against the pressures of modern life and work. Providing parents with the time to stay home with new children or with sick loved ones, supporting decent child care and early education, and providing support for contraception to assist family planning all express a core progressive vision of valuing families and offering real support to them.

The reality for most families is that it usually takes two paychecks to pay the bills, with a majority of women and men with children under five - and an even larger percentage with older children - working outside the home. Despite these pressures on families, the government does remarkably little either to help parents who want to stay home with their children, even when the children are first born, or to help them afford quality child care when both parents need to work. And most workplaces extend little flexibility to parents to deal with the day-to-day challenges of raising kids; most workplaces don’t even allow parents to use sick days to care for a sick child. The workplace typically punishes parents, usually mothers, who take extended leave to care for their children with fewer promotions and lower paychecks over their careers. And for all that the rightwing talks about preventing abortion, those same conservative politicians often oppose making contraception readily available and fail to extend mothers the extra support they need even if they want to have a child.

States and local governments are taking the lead in promoting policies to make work more family-friendly. Since the federal Family and Medical Leave Act passed in the early 1990s, almost all innovative policy to assist families has been coming from the states. California, New Jersey, and Washington state have enacted laws providing paid family leave for employees who need to care for a new child and/or care for a sick family member. San Francisco and Washington, D.C. became the first jurisdictions to guarantee all employees paid sick days off to care for family members. States like Oklahoma are guaranteeing pre-school for all its children - with states working towards making pre-K available to all three and four-year olds. Dozens of states also have contraceptive equity laws that assure contraception is covered by insurance.

Politically, these issues divide rightwing politicians from their culturally conservative base. When California enacted its paid family leave law, surveys found 85% approval - with even 77% of those who identified themselves as political conservatives in support. Polls in the state of Washington found 74% of voters in support of paid family leave - with an even higher percentage of support among workers with children under 18. An overwhelming 89% of the public support paid sick days as a basic labor standard in the workplace. Even an issue such as access to contraception divides the leadership of the religious right from all but the narrowest base of voters: a June 2006 Wall Street Journal poll found that 81% of Americans saw access to contraception as important in preventing abortions and 58% said the “morning after pill” should be readily available at any pharmacy.

What is remarkable about family leave, early education, and contraception issues are the broad-based coalitions that support these policies, from medical professionals to worker advocates to PTAs to advocates for the elderly. By highlighting these issues, progressives can force rightwing politicians that use “family values” rhetoric to either assist families by passing such legislation or expose their anti-family rightwing loyalties. Given the super-majorities in support of these work and family policies, they can play a key role in making a progressive “valuing families” message dominant in state political debates.

Recent Developments:

Wage Standards and Workplace Freedom

• Family Leave: In the 2007-2008 sessions, Washington and New Jersey became the second and third states to enact laws providing paid family leave, following the precedent set by California in 2004 when its paid leave law went into effect.

• Time to Care: After San Francisco enacted a city-wide paid sick days law in 2006, Washington, D.C. followed with passage of a paid sick days bill in 2008. The Connecticut Senate and California Assembly also approved paid sick days bills, becoming the first chambers in the nation to do. Oregon followed seven other states in at least allowing those workers who have sick day benefits to also use them to care for a sick child or parent.

• Prohibiting Mandatory Overtime: Most recently, the Rhode Island legislature overrode a governor’s veto in 2007 to prohibit mandatory overtime for nurses and nurse assistants, following roughly a dozen other states in prohibiting mandatory overtime for nursing professionals.
• Child Care and Early Education: More than 39 states now invest in pre-kindergarten programs, and this year more state budgets increased investments in early education. In the area of child care, the most recent changes included Oregon, which already had one of the best tax credits for child care expenses, improving eligibility for certain families with a disabled parent. Georgia and Louisiana increased their tax credits for child care expenses.

• Contraceptive Equity: Following an increasing trend in the states, Connecticut, Oregon and Colorado most recently approved laws requiring all hospitals to inform victims of sexual assault of the availability of emergency contraception.

Solving the health care crisis - rising costs for everyone and lack of access for tens of millions of Americans - is a top priority for voters and progressive leaders. A 2007 New York Times poll found that 64% of adults believe the government should guarantee health insurance for all US residents. While rightwing politicians, supported by pharmaceutical, insurance, and other self-interested corporate lobbies, have blocked many reasonable reforms in the past, progressive leaders recognize that as they expand access to health care for families they can build the base of support for health care for all of us.

The crisis in the health care system is clear. 47 million Americans have no health care insurance. In fact, one out of three Americans under age 65 were uninsured at some point over the last two years, according to Families USA. For those with insurance, the costs of co-pays and deductibles increase by the year, limiting access to necessary and preventive care. The financial strain of high health care costs causes half of all personal bankruptcies. While 158 million Americans still get their insurance through their employer, those responsible employers providing health care find it harder to keep up with rising costs and compete in the marketplace with firms that don’t cover their employees. People of color have an even worse situation; they are more likely to be uninsured and have a more difficult time accessing quality health care services than non-Hispanic whites.

Progressives are taking important steps to extend affordable coverage to all our states’ residents. States are making advances that include a combination of subsidized coverage for more children of working families; better options for the unemployed and workers without employer-based coverage; and subsidized lower-cost insurance options for individuals, families, and small businesses. States are also advancing comprehensive reforms and challenging the rightwing rhetoric of
“consumer-driven” health care, which is designed to undercut quality care for those currently receiving Medicaid or other subsidized health options in their states.

One key step to sustainable health care reform is maintaining shared responsibility by employers and government by limiting health care costs to an affordable percentage of family income. To ensure families can afford the health care they need, states should guarantee that a family’s total potential health care costs (co-pays, deductibles, and premiums) do not exceed an affordable percentage of family income. This principle achieves sliding-scale affordability and should be applied to coverage expansions and comprehensive reforms. And it should be used to ensure continued and affordable employer participation in the financing of health care by tying employer payments to an affordable percentage of payrolls.

Sustainable health care reform needs aggressive cost savings and measures to improve quality of health care. States are beginning to use their regulatory and bargaining power as large consumers of health care to eliminate inefficiencies and drive down excessive costs imposed by pharmaceutical firms, insurance companies and health care providers. Lower health care costs and better health outcomes in Canada and Europe prove that a system with more universal coverage creates opportunities to achieve administrative efficiencies, ensure access to quality care, and drive down costs.

As the health care crisis expands, voter support for dramatic action on health care reform only grows. A 2007 New York Times found that 80% of the public said it is more important to provide universal access to health insurance than to extend the Bush tax cuts. And among Hispanics, a key swing vote, a June 2005 Democracy Corps poll found that 87% of those voters were more likely to support a candidate promising that “all Americans have access to health care.” While challenging in the details, health care reform is one of the most popular political issues for which progressive leaders can fight.

Recent Developments:

Wage Standards and Workplace Freedom

Affordable, Quality Health Care for All: On the heels of comprehensive reform initiatives in Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts, Oregon enacted a framework for reform and is developing implementation legislation for 2009. Lawmakers in the Wisconsin Senate approved what is arguably the most comprehensive initiative to pass a legislative body, Healthy Wisconsin, which guarantees comprehensive coverage for all residents and limits employer and employee costs to an affordable percentage of payroll and income. San Francisco may become the first jurisdiction to achieve health care for all with a combination of government programs and requirements that employers pay their fair share of health care costs. States including Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, New York, and Iowa created health care reform commissions to build consensus for reform and identify the best approach to health care for all.

Strategies to Extend Coverage: Following the example of Illinois’ AllKids program, Iowa became one of more than a dozen states to enact a plan to cover all children. New York State continues to move forward with its planned SCHIP expansion to families with incomes up to 400% of poverty, the highest standard in the country, and allowing higher income families to purchase the coverage for their children. Connecticut legislators voted for a first-in-the nation proposal to allow small businesses and municipalities to purchase coverage through the state employee health plan.

Improving Quality and Reducing Costs: Vermont’s chronic care model, Blueprint for Health, and Pennsylvania’s health policy continue to push the envelope to improve the quality of care and reduce hospital-based infections. Leading a trend among states, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts created programs to end reimbursement for spending resulting from avoidable hospital-based errors.

Reducing Industry Profiteering: New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine enacted major crackdowns on the exploitive marketing practices of Rx manufacturers. Along with Iowa, they also enacted tough regulations of prescription benefit managers and their negotiations with Rx manufacturers. Colorado and Washington lawmakers passed legislation requiring insurance companies to obtain state approval of insurance rate increases before they go into effect and allowing the state to reject unfair rates.

Resources: Health Care for All

Quality Affordable Health Care for All

Progressive States - Health Care for All on the Installment Plan http://www.tiny.cc/oXdSD

Progressive States - Individual Mandates and the Problem of Affordability http://www.tiny.cc/db9oV

Progressive States, Eliminating Health Disparities http://www.tiny.cc/nIoPy

Progressive States, 2007 May Be Year of the Child http://www.tinyurl.com/ywl4ww

Universal Health Care Action Network http://www.tinyurl.com/ysm3yf

Herndon Alliance http://www.herndonalliance.org/

Families USA http://www.familiesusa.org

Community Catalyst http://www.communitycatalyst.org

Kaiser Family Foundation, State Health Facts http://www.statehealthfacts.org

The Opportunity Agenda, Health Equity http://www.tinyurl.com/2glju2

Americans for Health Care - SEIU http://www.americansforhealthcare.org/

AFSCME, Health Care http://www.afscme.org/issues/74.cfm

National Women’s Law Center www.nwlc.org Employer Health Care Responsibility

Progressive States, A Fair Share from Employers http://www.tinyurl.com/2d8as9

UC Berkeley Labor Center - Declining Job-Based Health Coverage http://www.tinyurl.com/28pk96

AFL-CIO, Fair Share Health Care http://www.tinyurl.com/yu2x4y

Reducing Industry Profiteering

Progressive States - Focus on Prescription Drug Reform http://www.tiny.cc/gDp5j

Progressive States - Industry Profiteering http://www.tiny.cc/82WMz

Progressive States - Wringing Costs Out of the Health Care System http://www.tinyurl.com/26q2pt

Commonwealth Fund Quality Improvement and Efficiency - http://www.tinyurl.com/5tl23x

Center for Health Care Strategies - Pay-for-Performance in Medicaid http://www.tinyurl.com/yp5k6d

National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices http://www.nlarx.com

Prescription Policy Choices http://www.policychoices.org

The Opportunity Agenda, Health Equity http://www.tinyurl.com/2glj - http://www.tinyurl.com/yp5k6d

National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices http://www.nlarx.com

Prescription Policy Choice http://www.policychoices.org

The Opportunity Agenda, Health Equity http://www.tinyurl.com/2glj

Creating jobs based on clean energy and promoting smart growth in our communities should be a cornerstone of progressive policy. Rising gas prices, fears of increasing involvement in unstable Middle East politics, and a public desire to protect the environment all reinforce the appeal of an energy independence policy based on alternative energy sources, energy efficiency, and decreasing wasteful sprawl through better transit and housing development policies. Investing in these strategies will not only make America safer and more secure-- it will create hundreds of thousands of good quality jobs in communities across the country.

Wasteful energy and development policies have created an environmentally destructive cycle of urban sprawl, long commutes, and the fragmentation of community life. Over the last few decades, rightwing activists promoted the myth that a strong environment and good jobs were incompatible -- a strategic tool to pit key progressive constituencies against each other. This divisive strategy resulted in the undermining of both wage standards and environmental planning, as well as racial and economic segregation between emerging exurbs and older urban communities. But new progressive alliances are beginning to promote an alternative vision of uniting our communities around a vision of smart growth and clean jobs, including access to affordable housing that allows people to live close to where they work. Higher-density living not only results in better planned communities; it results in less energy use while promoting better overall quality of life.

By investing in energy independence, smart growth and clean jobs, policies not only protect the environment and our national security, but are tremendous job creators for our communities. It makes sense to voters that, instead of shipping wealth overseas to foreign oil producers, the same money could be better spent creating jobs at home. Besides the environmental gains, investing in a “green economy” brings good paying, green jobs to towns whose jobs have been shipped overseas. The job creation potential includes new construction jobs as we rehab buildings for energy efficiency, new work in better transit systems, and new jobs in manufacturing and services industries reengineered for energy efficiency. For example, jobs in the solar power industry create 22.4 jobs per megawatt of energy expended and wind power creates 6.4 jobs per megawatt. Natural gas power, by contrast, creates less than 1.1 jobs per megawatt.

Smart growth and clean jobs policies are already serving to create broad-based coalitions and unite different communities. Unions and environmentalists have created new alliances around green jobs through initiatives like the Apollo Alliance. Fishermen and hunters in states like Montana lined up with conservationists against rightwing property rights activists to defend outdoor areas and expand access to streams and open space. Housing advocates are starting to team up with smart growth specialists to address the environmental damage caused by a lack of affordable housing. And inner city parents fighting to replace dirty buses that cause asthma in their kids are increasingly allied with suburban voters campaigning to restrain sprawl and create better suburban transit options.

Politically, these programs are wildly popular with voters and help progressives reach many of the swing voters most up for grabs politically. Polling by the Apollo Alliance shows over 70% of Americans support a drastic increase in government spending on renewable energy and other programs in order to move towards energy independence. 87% of the public see policies to invest in alternative energy sources as a good way to reduce global warming. Moreover, people are willing to pay more for renewable energy: 75% of people polled are willing to pay more for electricity if it were generated by renewable energy sources. Polling by the Center for American Progress showed that 79% of the public believe that shifting to new, alternative energy production will help America’s economy and create jobs.

Recent Developments:

Smart Growth and Green Jobs

• Smart Growth and Affordable Housing: Vermont lifted land-use permitting for new housing created in already existing developments in communities with planning in place if 20% of the homes built meet moderate-pricing ranges. This bill not only encourages planned development, but also increases the stock of affordable housing. California provided almost $3 billion in affordable housing and infrastructure bonds that not only build affordable housing, but creates thousands of jobs.

• Energy Efficiency Measures: Thirteen states have energy efficiency standards for utilities, which are a market-based mechanism to e courage more efficient generation, transmission, and use of electricity and natural gas. In Washington State, utilities would be required to offset over 10% of projected needs by 2025 with improvements in
  energy efficiency. Courts have continually struck down efforts to block states from implementing clean car standards and 13 states have adopted California’s clean car standard to reduce global warming pollution from automobile tailpipes.

• Energy Supply Alternatives: The number of states with a mandatory renewable energy requirement has risen to twenty-seven plus the District of Columbia. States are also looking to diversify biofuel development to avoid the negative consequences of a corn-based ethanol-only policy. Virginia passed a biofuels incentive program that encourages the use of vegetable oil or animal fats to create biodiesel and using waste for biofuel generation.
• Green Buildings: Eighteen states have mandatory green building standards for state buildings and an additional three have recommended green building standards for state buildings. This year, Maryland enacted legislation that requires specified buildings constructed or renovated solely with State funds to be built to a green standard.

• Green Job Corps Development: Green jobs corps offer good paying jobs while working towards a clean environment. Washington State was the first state to adopt a green jobs corps provision and also specifically targets workforce development for low-income workers.

Resources: Smart Growth and Clean Energy

Smart Growth and Affordable Housing

Progressive States, Affordable Housing as Smart Growth - http://www.tinyurl.com/6f3lah

Smart Growth America http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/

PolicyLink, Affordable Housing http:// www. tinyurl.com/3c7qmx

Good Jobs First, Transit-Oriented Development http://www.tinyurl.com/z8muc

Fuel-Efficient Transportation

Progressive States Network, Mass Transit Projects http://www.tinyurl.com/5aduzs

State PIRGS, Transportation http://www.uspirg.org/issues/transportation

Green Buildings and Energy Efficiency

Progressive States Network, Green Building http://www.tinyurl.com/36vlfq

Alliance to Save Energy: Energy Efficiency Index http://www.ase.org/content/article/detail/2356

Pew Center on Global Climate Change - Energy Efficiency Resources Center - http://www.tinyurl.com/5w4kay

Energy Supply Alternatives

Progressive States, Promoting Renewable Energy http://www.tinyurl.com/35sbym

Progressive States Network Promoting Smart Biofuels Policy at the State Level - http://www.tinyurl.com/54tzzu

Apollo Alliance: The Ten-Point Plan
http://www.tinyurl.com/7xcpk

State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency http://www.dsireusa.org/

Green Collar Jobs

Greener Pathways http://www.tinyurl.com/5dq5z5

Green For All, Green Collar Jobs http://www.greenforall.org/green-collar-jobs

Apollo Alliance and Urban Habitat Community Jobs in the Green Economy - http://www.tinyurl.com/4mm4wk

Transportation Equity Network http://www.gamaliel.org/Platform.htm

General Resources

National Caucus of Environmental Legislators http://www.ncel.net

Smart Growth Development

States are taking leadership in smarter development to improve community life, cut energy use, and preserve remaining rural and unspoiled areas with policies that:

• Promote Better Local Planning: States should encourage higher-density, contiguous development, while promoting agricultural, forest, and wildlife preservation.

• Encourage Transit-Oriented Development: Development funds should encourage residential, industrial, and commercial development near transit hubs and in existing developed areas.

• Create Affordable Housing: Since exurban sprawl is often driven by high housing costs in metropolitan centers, tools like inclusionary zoning, brownfields restoration, and reclaiming vacant properties create more affordable infill development in urban and inner ring suburban areas.

Fuel-Efficient Transportation

Cars are at the root of the US dependence on foreign oil, so states have taken leadership in policies to cut energy use in our transit systems, including policies to:

• Improve Transit Options: Transportation dollars should be targeted towards effective regional transit networks such as rail transit, dedicated bus lanes, and bicycle paths.

• Promote Low Emission, Fuel-Efficient Cars: States should upgrade state-owned fleet efficiency, require “clean car” rules, increase gas taxes, and promote alternative vehicle refueling stations.

• Fix Transit Infrastructure: By prioritizing the repair of existing infrastructure before new highway construction, states lower motorist repair and injury costs and speed transit in existing areas.

• Encourage Less Driving: Use gas taxes and other tools such as car insurance incentives to encourage more fuel-
  efficient driving practices.

Energy Supply Alternatives

Policy innovations to diversify energy sources and link clean energy and jobs include:

• Sun, Wind, and Bio-Based Power: States can promote renewable energy markets through renewable portfolio standards, tighter environmental standards, and tax credit incentives.

• Clean Energy Funding: Through public bonds, pension funds,state-managed investment pools, and leveraging federal dollars, states can direct investment dollars into alternative energy production.

• Promoting Utility Decoupling: Decoupling breaks the link between sales and revenues in order to eliminate utilities’ incentive to increase sales of electricity to raise their profits.

• Upgrade Energy Infrastructure: Power plants should be upgraded, with interconnection and net metering standards used to encourage energy conservation and renewable energy production.

Green Building

Energy use by buildings outstrips even energy consumed in transit, so states are increasingly encouraging more energy-efficient building policies such as:

• Energy-Efficient Public Buildings: By mandating greenbuilding standards for all public and publicly-financed buildings, states can save both energy and money.

• Tax Incentives and Revised Building Codes: Incentives for retrofits to manufacturing plants and updates to state building codes can decrease future energy use in private construction.

• Appliance Efficiency Standards: States can drive production of more energy-efficient appliances by requiring higher efficiency standards for household and industrial goods.

• “Smart” Buildings: Incentives should encourage use of technology to monitor and conserve energy use to better coordinate energy grid demands and prevent unstable fluctuations in energy demand.

Green Jobs Training

Investing in green collar jobs provides strong economic pathways away from a pollution based economy. Green collar jobs alsodiversify economic growth and are enhanced by:

• Workforce Development and Skill Training: Training focused on green jobs can provide high paying career paths for workers transitioning from both poverty and older declining industries.

• Transit Equity Funding: Government-funded projects should promote job creation and training, civil rights and environmental justice, and transit access for minority and poor communities.

Broadband Buildout and Technology Investments

Why High-Speed Internet Broadband Matters: The deployment of universal affordable high-speed Internet: an important key to spurring economic development, creating more accessible and affordable healthcare, promoting energy efficiency policies and increasing educational opportunities must be a cornerstone of any progressive state policy. Unfortunately, where progressive US leaders in the past brought the world the Internet, the broadband penetration ranking of the US has dropped from 4th in the world in 2001 down to 15th in the world today, with Japan, Sweden, South Korea and most of Europe having broader broadband deployment, higher speeds and lower prices. The gaps in US broadband access and adoption simply reinforce a digital divide, especially in minority and poor communities.

A Cornerstone of Progressive Economic Policy: To compete on a global level and to ensure equity of services to citizens, states must promote universal affordable high-speed Internet. With universal and affordable broadband, states will be able to leverage technology as an economic development tool and a means of providing better healthcare services, smarter environmental policies and greater educational opportunities. Broadband can unify a diverse set of stakeholders, such as state economic councils, healthcare advocates, business leaders, unions, environmentalist and educators around the goal of affordable high-speed Internet for all.

Universal, Affordable High-Speed Internet Polices: The first step states must take to provide affordable high-speed Internet for all is to map existing access and adoption of broadband to determine where high-speed Internet access is lacking. Once under-served populations are determined, states can develop technology councils to plan the strategic deployment of high-speed Internet and related policies. State legislators need to ensure telecommunication polices focus on both universal and affordable access. In exchange for access to public right of ways or government funding to spur build-out, legislators must negotiate infrastructure build-out to underserved and un-served areas, community benefits, and consumer protections.

Increasing Technology Literacy Equalizes Opportunities: The digital divide between those who do and do not have access to - and the capability to use – high-speed Internet is a persistent problem. The digital divide, however, is not just a function of access to broadband, but also the lack of necessary technology literacy skills to function in our 21st century digital world. Therefore, states must compliment broadband deployment with digital education programs and fund community technology centers to ensure that residents of all ethnicities, social economic backgrounds, and ages understand how to be producers for, as well as consumers of, this new media economy.

Broadband Rejuvenates the Economy and Promotes Better Healthcare, Environmental and Educational Opportunities: Broadband infrastructure offers to rejuvenate and sustain an economy. It is estimated that widespread adoption of high-speed Internet will add $134 billion to the U.S. economy annually and create 1.2 million new jobs per year. Technology also has the potential to provide better healthcare to remote and underserved communities, save billions in energy costs, promote environmentally friendly policies, and provide increased educational opportunities to all.

Local Investments for Technology-Based Growth: To help spur the job creation that accompanies more wired communities, states are promoting new state-based venture capital funds to jumpstart technology job creation and linking state-controlled financial capital, including public pension funds, to university innovation and local entrepreneurial energy. By dedicating some of those investments to “domestic emerging markets”, states can use their trillions of dollars of financial assets to assure both technology innovation and economic equity in our states.

Recent Developments: Broadband Buildout and Technology Investments

• Universal Affordable High-Speed Internet: Washington State and West Virginia passed legislation to map Internet access and develop overall state deployment plans. Minnesota adopted and mapping plan and created the Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force to develop high speed Internet goals and strategies for the state. Other states like Tennessee and Louisiana have taken steps backwards in approving “video franchise” bills that undermine community control and consumer protections without creating strong build-out requirements for underserved areas. More positively, Maine developed a model municipal franchising bill to help local communities negotiate for important consumer protections.

• Digital Literacy: This session, Washington passed strong digital literacy legislation as part of a larger high-speed Internet bill. The bill creates a web-based map of all community technology programs and allocates $500,000 for a community technology grant program.

• Leveraging High-speed Internet to improve Health Care, reduce Energy, and improve educational opportunities: Last year, the Federal Communications Council allocated $417 million for the construction of 69 statewide and regional broadband telehealth networks under the Rural Health Care Pilot Program. Vermont and Maryland have each provided funding to study smart metering and /or smart grids, as a means of reducing energy use. Virginia passed legislation to encourage telecommuting as a mean of reducing pollution. Idaho established a statewide educational broadband network.
• Local Technology Investments: While states continued to expand their technology investments, the hottest area was the biosciences, especially stem cell research, as states, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin, have begun providing seed money for research and hope for spin-off industries.

Resources: Broadband Buildout and Technology Investments

Universal & Affordable High-Speed Internet

Progressive States Mapping & Deploying High-Speed Broadband - http://www.tinyurl.com

Benton Foundation - Universal Affordable Broadband for All Americans - http://www.benton.org/node/8537

Educause Paper, A Blueprint for Big Broadband http://www.tinyurl.com/62qobf

Free Press, Broadband as a Public Service http://freepress.net/communityinternet/

SpeedMatters (CWA) http://www.tinyurl.com/2398r9

New Rules Project, Information Sector Policies http://www.newrules.org/info/

Increasing Technology Literacy

Center for American Progress, Broadband Divide http://www.tinyurl.com/5dfwkv

Center for Media Literacy - http://www.medialit.org/

Media Education Lab - http://mediaeducationlab.com/

Community Technology Centers’ Network http://www.ctcnet.org/

MAG-Net (Media Activist Grassroots Network) http://www.youthmediacouncil.org

Media Alliance - http://www.media-alliance.org/

Broadband for Economy,

Healthcare, Environment & Education

Progressive States Network, Telehealth http://www.tinyurl.com/6gyqk7

Ed.gov, Technology and Distance Learning http://www.tinyurl.com/6c3mct

High-Performance Commercial Buildings Project (HPCBS) http://www.tinyurl.com/2dxucd

Speed Matters, http://www.tinyurl.com/2t9hb2

Education Commission of the States: Distance Learning - http://www.tinyurl.com/2s7uz5

Local Technology Investments

Progressive States - Investment Models for Job Creation http://www.tinyurl.com/yrdbnr

Progressive States - Economic Strategies for Nurturing Innovation - http://www.tinyurl.com/5lf5l9

National Association of Seed and Venture Funds http://www.nasvf.org/

Pension Funds and Urban Revitalization http://www.tinyurl.com/5sb6p9

Building Wealth - http://www.tinyurl.com/2mjdg

Universal Affordable High-Speed Internet

States are working to encourage universal affordable high-speed Internet access through a range of policies:

• Map High-speed Internet Infrastructure and Access: Assessing who has access to and who is adopting broadband, at what speeds and at what cost can be a key step to statewide build-out plans.

• State High-speed Internet Deployment: Direct state funding to extend high-speed Internet access, especially to poor urban and rural areas, so that all communities can capitalize on the opportunities that high-speed Internet offers. High-speed Internet councils can assist in creating strategic deployment plans and manage funding.

• Broadband & Video Franchise Regulations: Build-out requirements can create a clear timeline towards universal access, prevent redlining poorer communities, support quality high-wage jobs in the telecom industry, and protect consumers. Statewide video franchise laws should protect local franchise cable fees, fund public education and government (PEG) stations, and protect consumers.

• Protect Community Services: Municipal and community power to protect consumers or provide direct services should not be prohibited by state law.

Increase Technology Literacy

Beyond investing in physical infrastructure, states need to invest in education and community media infrastructure to overcome the digital divide:

• Fund Community Technology Centers: Strengthening the national network of community technology centers will create real-world technology training for the next generation.

• Education and Job Training: Public schools and job training programs should provide education on how to use technology and connect students and displaced workers to technology-related jobs.

• Support Alternative Media: State money should support alternative online media and public access channels to amplify the voice of marginalized and under-represented communities.

Leveraging High-Speed Internet for Economic Development, Health, Energy and Educational Opportunities

High-speed Internet infrastructure will pay for itself through policies such as:

• Economic Development: Assuring that all employees have ready access to broadband in their homes, can attract industry, increase productivity, create jobs and increase tax revenue in states.

• Telehealth: Merging technology and medicine can reduce healthcare costs by permitting remote monitoring of patients, allow doctors and hospitals to share data and images, and provide efficient chronic disease management and emergency service to remote areas.

• Energy Savings: Telecommuting, efficient energy use through the interactive monitoring of homes and offices and SmartGrids all help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and our carbon footprint while offering large economic payoffs. Utility regulations can be modified to encourage more efficient energy use through the interactive
  monitoring of “smart” homes and offices to avoid wasted reserve power.

• Distance Learning: Subsidizing hardware, training, and high-speed Internet connections can expand access to advanced classes and create “virtual field trips” or other advanced learning opportunities. With ubiquitous broadband access, students from any geographic location and income level can take advantage of otherwise unattainable educational and job training opportunities.

Local Technology Investments

State governments are increasingly using public money to leverage local entrepreneurial use of technology infrastructure to create jobs, including:

State Venture Capital Funds: More than thirty-six states run venture capital funds, often in association with universities and state pension funds, to invest in new local energy, life science and high-technology industries that can benefit from expanded high-speed Internet infrastructure.

“Emerging Domestic Markets” Investments: To assure that state investments help bridge the digital divide, some state pension fund investment programs and new local venture capital funds target their investments to communities underserved by traditional capital sources.

In a debate too often dominated by rightwing tax cut rhetoric, there is a real opening for progressives to demand a fairer, more accountable tax and budget system. State residents are frustrated by governments that they believe tax low- and middle-income residents too much and upper-income residents and corporations too little. Hidden economic giveaways to companies receiving tax breaks and government contracts only add to voter distrust that state budgets serve those with money, not the average taxpayer. In response, a range of reforms at the state level are creating more transparent tax and budget decisions. This transparency will strengthen voter trust that their tax money will actually go towards the important public services that they do support.

Tax reform that eases the burden on working families while demanding that the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share must be a core goal of the progressive movement. A Gallup poll showed that 67% of Americans think upper-income people and corporations are paying “too little” in taxes, with many state polls showing up to 80% of voters calling for higher tax rates on the wealthy. This desire reflects the reality that the wealthy and corporations pay a lower percentage of their income in state and local taxes than do working families. Redistributing the tax burden away from working families is therefore a key part of creating broader political support for new funding for social programs and public investments.

Promoting truth in budget reforms should be a prime strategy that tracks what the tax burden is for different income groups, the extent of corporate loopholes and other tax giveaways, the hidden deals made when contracting out public services, and which companies receive state economic development money and government contracts. Such reforms give the public the tools for a more robust understanding of what really goes on with state money. And once special deals for corporate interests are exposed, it becomes easier to enact reforms that save taxpayers money and free up resources for other needed state programs.

More transparency will highlight that tens of billions of dollars each year are lost to these corporate tax loopholes and subsidies that deliver little in return. One of the grossest signs of the problem is that Wal-Mart has managed to squeeze over $1 billion in government subsidies for opening stores the company was planning to build anyways. Voters clearly are repelled by these corporate deals and loopholes. According to a Center for American Progress poll, the public overwhelmingly (77% to 20%) supports reforms to increase corporate taxes and “close loopholes used by companies to avoid taxes.” Progressives need to establish clear policies to eliminate such wasteful use of taxpayer dollars.

The other side of budget malfeasance is insider privatization deals that hand fat public contracts to politically connected corporations. Privatization often just pads the corporate profits of those receiving public contracts and leasing government-owned assets like highways. All across the country, “pay to play” corruption has led to indictments of public officials selling off government to the highest bidder. And the cost is not only the public trust, but poorly delivered public services, fraud, and the undermining of state economies as companies pay poverty wages and even offshore jobs overseas. Policies that create accountability standards for government contracts therefore prevent corruption and help guarantee that public money is used to promote broader public policy goals.

Resources: Tax and Budget Reform

Tax and Budget Transparency

Progressive States, Disclosing Corporate Tax Dodgers http://www.tinyurl.com/38hntm

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities - Corporate Tax Disclosure http://www.cbpp.org/2-13-07sfp.htm

AFSCME, Truth in Spending http://www.tinyurl.com/5jppg2

Good Jobs First, Company-Specific Subsidy Disclosure http://www.tinyurl.com/2v5goo

Citizens for Tax Justice, Corporate Tax Avoidance http://www.ctj.org/html/corp0205.htm

Making Taxes More Progressive

Progressive States - Raising Revenue Through Fair Taxes http://www.tinyurl.com/2f7rsn

ITEP, Guide to Fair State and Local Taxes http://www.itepnet.org/guide.htm

ITEP, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis http://www.itepnet.org/whopays.htm

Reforming Government Contracts

Progressive States Network Stopping Privatization Profiteering http://www.tinyurl.com/2k8b6n

Progressive States Ending “Pay to Play” on Government Contracts http://www.tinyurl.com/yt8eyh

AFSCME, Responsible Contracting http://www.afscme.org/issues/1517.cfm

Public Citizen, Pay-to-Play and State Governments http://www.tinyurl.com/l5pta

AFSCME Privatization Update http://www.afscmeinfocenter.org/privatizationupdate/

Fixing Failed Tax Subsidies

Progressive States, Reforming Failed Tax Subsidies http://www.tinyurl.com/yvk576

Good Jobs First http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities http://www.cbpp.org/state/index.html

IETP, Tax Expenditures: Spending By Another Name http://www.itepnet.org/pb4exp.pdf

Progressives envision a democracy that truly represents the interests of all citizens while placing the common good above private interests. Additionally, eliminating inequality and social marginalization requires the robust participation of a diverse group of Americans in civic life. Absent such participation, basic elements of the progressive agenda – tax fairness, universal healthcare, and strong civil rights protections – cannot be obtained. Achieving broad participation and a responsive government is, therefore, not only an important progressive goal in its own right, but also an essential tool for achieving other reforms.

Americans are disgusted by the constant news of government corruption, inside deals that benefit powerful corporations, and electoral and political systems that they see as rigged. Fed up with corrupt government officials and an unresponsive political system, many citizens don’t vote and are politically disengaged. Those who do vote are angry and concerned about the direction things are headed and their ability to have a positive impact. The opportunity is clearly at hand to forcefully push to clean up government by providing oversight and restrictions on lobbyists, ensuring electoral integrity by mandating the use of paper ballots, and taking the money out of politics with clean, publicly financed elections. These efforts are popular with voters and also bring more people into the political process.

Voters want leaders who will fight to clean-up politics and represent the people’s interests, not corporate interests. Progressives can distinguish themselves not just by rising above the political swamp to secure good policies for their constituents, but also by actively working to drain that swamp so that the political process functions fairly and without favor to the powerful and the well-connected. In New York, a 2008 Zogby poll showed 74% of the public supported public financing of elections, while in Arizona, a local KAET poll showed 66% support for that state’s clean elections system. Fundamentally, championing fair and clean elections gives progressives a strong political advantage in the public debate.

Attempts by the right wing to disenfranchise voters have become more sophisticated, and progressives must redouble their efforts to protect voting rights. The rightwing is cynically ginning up fears of voter fraud in order to undermine the voting rights of poor and minority communities, tactics which they are confident gives them an advantage before elections even begin. Progressives need to block “voter ID” laws and other restrictions on voting and registration that serve to perpetuate social inequalities. To address blatant attempts to disenfranchise voters, progressives should introduce voter protection legislation that criminalizes voter intimidation and deception. Reflecting Americans’ profound belief in voting rights, 80% of the public supports restoring the right to vote to ex-felons who are not currently in prison.

Progressives also need to become leading voices in demanding fundamental changes in election procedures to ensure access for all voters. Beyond defeating suppressive election policies, positive reforms such as election day registration and mandating the equitable distribution of ballots can thwart the right wing’s disenfranchisement strategies and ensure that every qualified citizen has a chance to be heard on election day.

Promoting participation by a more diverse group of voters will increase support for progressive candidates at the ballot box, and give added strength to initiatives such as universal healthcare and paid sick days. One of the largest impediments to real progressive reform is the skew in the electorate toward more conservative demographics-- richer, whiter, and more-privileged individuals. Expanding electoral participation to include a larger, more diverse set of voters will increase support for the host of progressive reforms that are supported by a substantial majority of the population, but are not as popular with the current electorate. Improvements in voting procedures such as universal registration, combined with reforms that make more peoples’ votes matter such as a national popular vote for president, will dramatically increase the pool of voters to the benefit of progressives.

Recent Developments:

Clean and Fair Elections

• Reducing the Influence of Money Over our Democracy:
  This year, North Carolina expanded clean elections to include three state level offices: Commissioner of Insurance, State Auditor, and Superintendent of Public Instruction. Four of six candidates have qualified for public financing. Supreme Court and appellate judges have had the option of public financing since 2002, and 11 of 12 candidates are participating this year. Hawaii passed a public financing pilot program this year that will apply to the Big Island County Council. New Hampshire is studying public financing and will be issuing a report at the end of the year.

• Growing the Electorate: Several states have made changes to their voting systems that will increase the pool of voters. North Carolina, Tennessee and others have reinvigorated their National Voter Registration Act compliance and dramatically increased the number of voters registered at public assistance agencies. Minnesota has enacted a voter re-registration law that automatically updates registrations when a person changes their address with the United States Postal Service.

• Making Every Vote Count: Four states – Maryland, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Illinois have enacted the National Popular Vote Compact. The compact has now passed 18 legislative chambers in a dozen states. Tennessee and Iowa have decided to replace all touch screen voting machines with optically-scanned paper ballots to restore faith in their elections. Minnesota enacted an innovative election recount law that allows candidates in races with less than a 5% margin of victory to have a hand recount of votes in up to three precincts. If discrepancies are found recounts are conducted in more precincts.

• Resisting Vote Suppression by the Rightwing:
  Following a wave of voter ID laws across the country in the last few years, attempts to pass additional laws have lately been defeated by strong and vocal opposition. Attempts to pass voter ID bills were defeated recently in Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois and Texas. In Kansas a bill was passed, but it was vetoed by the governor. The Supreme Court has upheld Indiana’s strict ID law and that decision will give momentum to new voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements in the coming year.

Resources: Clean and Fair Elections

Reducing Influence of Money over Democracy

Progressive States, Clean Money Public Financing of Campaigns - http://www.tiny.cc/QX2CE

Public Campaign, Clean Money Clean Elections http://www.publicampaign.org/

Common Cause, Money in Politics http://www.tiny.cc/YDQ8e

U.S. PIRG, Money and Politics http://www.tiny.cc/YDQ8e

National Conference of State Legislators Campaign Finance - http://www.tiny.cc/ASrQk

National Conference of State Legislators Center for Ethics in Government http://www.tiny.cc/ASrQk

Growing the Electorate

Progressive States, Steps States Can Take to Help Voters Register http://www.tiny.cc/6FtA2

Project Vote http://www.projectvote.org

Demos, Election Day Registration http://www.demos.org/page18.cfm

Demos National Voter Registration Act Implementation Project - http://www.demos.org/page149.cfm

FairVote, 100% Registration Project http://www.fairvote.org/?page=1543

Brennan Center for Justice, Voter Registration http://www.tiny.cc/nuqil

Making Every Vote Count

Progressive States, National Popular Vote A Turnout and Civil Rights Issue - http://www.tiny.cc/dbiQ6

National Popular Vote http://www.nationalpopularvote.com

Voter Action http://www.voteraction.org

VoteTrust USA http://www.votetrustusa.org

Common Cause, Redistricting - http://www.tiny.cc/ZA7ac

Brennan Center for Justice, Post Election Audits http://www.tiny.cc/a0Tlc

Resisting Vote Suppression by the Right Wing

Progressive States, The New Voter Suppression and the Progressive Response - http://www.tiny.cc/LxBKv

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under LawVoting Rights Project - http://www.tiny.cc/I2vzn

People for the American Way, Protecting Democracy http://www.tiny.cc/4tSod

Project Vote - Caging Democracy: A 50–Year Historyof Partisan Challenges to Minority Voters http://www.tiny.cc/eHwjZ

Brennan Center for Justice Restrictions on Voter Registration Drives - http://www.tiny.cc/oSg51

ACLU Voting Rights Project, Felon Enfranchisement http://www.tinyurl.com/29r7wpl

Reduce the Influence of Money

Over our Democracy

The only serious way to end the corrupting influence of money and corporate control on our politics is to change how elections are financed and government decisions are made.

Options include:

• Clean Elections: Public financing of elections, as implemented by states including Maine, Connecticut, and Arizona, is a key way to decrease special interest influence. This is especially important for judicial elections where campaign donations directly threaten th independence of the judiciary.

• Ban “Pay to Play” Campaign Donations: To stop corruption in public contracts, states have passed laws to bar companies bidding on contracts from making campaign contributions to government officials.

• Lobbying Reform: Best practices include monthly disclosure, independent oversight of lobbying activities, expenditures bans on gifts to legislators, and waiting periods before departing government officials can lobby their former colleagues.

Grow the Electorate

Reforms can help increase the percentage of people who vote and increase the diversity of the electorate, which are essential elements in bringing about progressive change.

• Universal Registration: States can take responsibility for registering voters automatically when they interact with a state government agency, pay state taxes, or updating registration addresses through the Postal Service; states also need to establish specific requirements for achieving NVRA compliance.

• Election Day Registration: In order to encourage maximum participation, a number of states allow people to combine the process of registration and voting on the same day.

• Expanded Youth Voting: States have enacted a number of programs, from 17-year olds to vote in primaries to school-based registration to encourage more youth voting and civic involvement.

• Mail in Voting Options: Through permanent absentee and other mail-in voting methods, states are making it more convenient for people to vote.

Make Every Vote Count

Fair and secure elections are necessary to restore trust in government.

• National Popular Vote: To avoid Presidential campaigns focusing only a handful of states, state legislatures are creating an interstate compact to elect the president by national popular vote.

• Ballot Integrity: Voting systems that produce paper ballots are the only way to restore citizens’ faith in elections, to ensure that votes are accurately cast and counted, and to establish a record to resolve electoral disputes. Effective post-election audits and recount procedures are also essential to verifying the accuracy of election results.

• Redistricting Reform: Reforms to the apportionment process to reduce gerrymandering are important for keeping elected officials accountable.

Resist Vote Suppression by the Right-Wing

Faced with a public clamoring for change, the right wing has redoubled longstanding efforts to suppress the votes of those they think are least likely to support them – the poor, minorities and young people. Protecting the fundamental right to vote is a critical part of securing an equitable and prosperous future for all Americans.

• Stop Voter ID and Proof of Citizenship Laws:
  Progressives should block voter identification requirements, which do not address election fraud, yet rob citizens of the fundamental right to vote.

• Voter Protection: Voter protection bills sanction mass challenges to voters’ eligibility, intimidation and harassment, or deceiving voters about election procedures and who is eligible to vote.

• Third Party Registration: Progressives should reject or repeal restrictions on voter registration drives.

• Voting Machine and Ballot Distribution: Allocating voting technology and materials equitably ensures that some voters aren’t disproportionately impacted by long lines.

• Felon Re-enfranchisement: To promote social justice, states should repeal laws that disenfranchise felons, and incorporate re-enfranchisement of ex-offenders as an element of community reintegration.