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This year, conservatives waged a comprehensive, fifty-state campaign against workplace policies that form the very foundation of economic opportunity and the middle class. As the smoke clears on 2011, progressives must make a sober assessment of this assault and its implications for 2012. The...
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As the national political conversation focused on deficits and budget cuts over the past few months, many state legislatures have at least noticed that the top concern of voters across the nation remains job creation. The New York Times - in an analysis of a list compiled by the National Conference...
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Last week, the United States Department of Homeland Security issued a decision stating their intention to mandate that states participate in the controversial, ineffective, and costly “Secure Communities” immigration enforcement program. This decision generated confusion and...
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During 2011 legislative sessions, most states chose to close severe budget gaps without revenue increases, instead opting for further damaging and deep cuts to critical education, health care, and social service programs. However, now that most sessions have ended, lawmakers, business leaders, and...
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Earlier this week, a bill to end employer discrimination against unemployed job seekers was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senators Blumenthal (D-CT), Brown (D-OH), and Gillibrand (D-NY). The Fair Employment Opportunity Act of 2011, also introduced last month in the House of Representatives...
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On Tuesday, President Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 to increase the debt ceiling and avoid default, marking the end of a manufactured crisis that saw the right wing engage in hostage-taking antics that threatened to push the nation toward economic catastrophe. The deal makes it...
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This week, the US Department of Health and Human Services released a decision stating that birth control will be part of the preventive health care benefits that must be covered under health insurance plans at no cost to consumers. The decision means no out-of-pocket costs, no cost sharing...
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As comprehensive immigration reform remained stalled in Washington, D.C. in the first half of 2011, common-sense state legislators across the nation took up the fight in their legislative sessions, defeating expensive and misguided enforcement bills that targeted undocumented immigrants and their...
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Lawmakers confronted massive budget shortfalls, persistently high unemployment, and myriad fiscal and economic obstacles during 2011 state legislative sessions. With states still reeling from effects of the economic downturn and with federal investment in state economies receding, lawmakers...
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(Note: With legislative sessions largely adjourned in statehouses across the nation, this week’s Dispatch is the first in a series of issue-specific session roundups from Progressive States Network highlighting trends in different critical policy areas across the fifty states.)
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On the eve of its adjournment, New York’s state legislature provided a new opportunity to create thousands of jobs for New Yorkers. The new law, the Power NY Act of 2011 (AB 7006-A), establishes the first statewide “on-bill recovery” program — allowing charges for...
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The national debate over job creation has reached a new low in a labor dispute involving a Boeing airplane manufacturing plant in South Carolina — a debate that is playing out just as reports show conservative state policies have demonstrably failed to create jobs this year and have...
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