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As state legislatures begin to pick up speed early in the 2012 session, a growing number of states that passed broad anti-immigrant laws over the past two years are seeing the error of their ways. Citing widespread economic devastation, a dramatically-worsened business climate, and a loss of public...
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A proposal to create a state-owned bank is gaining momentum in Washington State, where a bill modeled after the successful Bank of North Dakota was introduced in January with 44 co-sponsors in the House. In a speech at the outset of the legislative session, Speaker of the House Frank Chopp called it...
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Faced with a rapidly approaching deadline for establishing state-based health exchanges under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more than half of all states — including several with conservative control of their legislatures and governor’s offices — have already taken steps to impleme...
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January has seen the minimum wage emerge as a major issue in 2012 policy debates, with a virtual consensus for raising the wage emerging among all but the extreme conservative fringe. Prominent conservatives from former Massachusetts Governor Willard “Mitt” Romney to New York City Mayor...
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With conservatives continuing to back state efforts to suppress the vote as a critical election year begins, Connecticut officials chose the anniversary of Martin Luther King's birthday last Monday to announce a package of election reforms that would boost voter participation and protect the rig...
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A huge victory in Montana last week restored the state’s longstanding ban on corporate political spending on behalf of state political candidates and parties, overturning a lower court’s ruling and flying in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that grants...
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In a surprising move, the Obama administration this week ensured that even more of the debate around health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will take place in state capitols instead of Washington D.C. in the coming years. The role of the Department of Health and Human Services...
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This week, as the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) convened its annual States & Nation Policy Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, labor, civil rights, and activist groups took advantage of the opportunity to highlight ALEC’s role in advancing conservative legislatio...
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Facing another round of deep cuts to health care and education as a result of ongoing revenue shortages caused by the slow economic recovery, and on the heels of a new national survey reporting that most state budgets have now seen spending fall below pre-recession levels, some states are signaling...
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As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to raise awareness about growing economic inequality and unchecked corporate influence over our political system, a new report released last week by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that almost 80 of t...
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Over the past two years, workers have made impressive advances in about a half dozen states to protect themselves and their livelihoods from unscrupulous employers. But conservatives are increasingly mobilizing to undo these gains. Two separate efforts within the past month alone would make it harde...
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Progressives scored major victories at the ballot box this month as voters from every corner of the nation loudly and decisively rejected the overreach of right-wing legislatures and governors in 2011 — including attacks that took place this year on workers, voting rights, reproductive rights,...
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