This weekly round-up shares the latest news about what the Network is doing to promote state-based solutions that will improve the lives of families, workers, and local communities. If you are an SPN member and have an update you’d like us to include in next week’s round-up, please email us at updates@spn.org (all submissions are subject to SPN approval).

Announcements

• America’s Future Foundation introduces their 2019 Buckley Award winners.
• Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry will be the keynote speaker at the Competitive Enterprise Institute‘s 35th anniversary dinner on June 20 in Washington, DC.
• The Yankee Institute welcomes Meghan Portfolio to the team as its new Development Manager.

Success Stories

• Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom transparency and accountability language for Minnesota’s Prescription Monitoring Program was amended onto the HHS omnibus bill.
• Due in large part to Idaho Freedom Foundation‘s efforts, a new law ensures Idahoans get to vote before government goes into debt for extravagant projects. 
• Michigan has uniquely bad laws on auto insurance with the government mandating high costs, limited choice and no ability for insurers to negotiate over rates when a person is injured. Unsurprisingly, this has driven costs to the highest in the nation. But, after years of urging and policy research from the Mackinac Center, a bipartisan agreement has been reached for major reforms.
• University of Connecticut professor Steven Utke has won a settlement against American Association of University Professors union officials for deducting union fees from his paycheck without his consent. The union is returning more than $5,000 in union fees to Utke who was represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense & Education Foundation.
• One month into the Louisiana legislative session the Pelican Institute is seeing progress on advancing some of its proposed reforms. For the first time since 2002, a comprehensive tax reform package, which incorporates the Institute’s proposed policies, has been introduced and is awaiting a hearing.
• In a win for conservation and property rights, Maine’s supreme court recently decided that rockweed cannot be harvested without owner consent. The Property and Environment Research Center and Pacific Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief in the 2017 case explaining how upholding property rights is good for rockweed sustainability.

Research & Initiatives

• The Cascade Policy Institute addresses claims that Oregon is suffering “a 30-year disinvestment in education.”
• Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom is gathering signatures for a follow-up letter to President Trump. In November, CCHF sent a letter to the President, co-signed by 37 other organizations, asking him to undo the administrative mandate that forces senior citizens to enroll in Medicare or lose their Social Security benefits. 
• It’s been suggested that Americans would be better off if the United States was more like Sweden. Do the Swedes know something that we don’t? Free To Choose Network’s latest production, “Sweden: Lessons for America?”, illuminates key ideas and enterprises that sparked the reform and continue to help Sweden maintain its lofty economic position.
• Last month, United Domestic Workers finally admitted an employee had forged homecare provider Maria Quezambra’s signature on a union membership card and offered to refund some of the dues they had fraudulently deducted from her Medicare checks. The union did not meet her requests for the full amount, and with the help of the Freedom Foundation, she has filed a lawsuit against UDW for violating her First Amendment rights.
• The Dormant Commerce Clause prevents states from imposing undue burdens on interstate commerce, but that may be exactly what state net neutrality mandates will result in. The Free State Foundation explains why state net neutrality restrictions, whether imposed by new laws or executive actions are in violation of this clause. 
• Organizations seeking to establish new litigation centers take note: Goldwater Institute has published a new revised edition of The First Line of Defense: Litigation for Liberty at the State Level, a blueprint for working in courtrooms, legislatures, and communities nationwide to empower people to live freer, happier lives.
• A new Illinois Policy Institute study shows Illinois could lose up to 95,000 jobs and the economy could suffer up to $18 billion in economic impact in 40 years if it tries to use a progressive tax to pay off the state’s unfunded pension liability.
• The Independence Institute is proactively educating Colorado voters about the National Popular Vote and the related ballot initiative coming to voters in November. In addition to op-eds and speaking engagements, the Institute developed a handout that shows how countries with NPV elections see severe sectionalism and election of candidates that are unacceptable to most of the electorate.
• The Independent Institute‘s recently released book, Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America, offers an authoritative analysis of the many problems facing higher education, particularly its triple crisis: excessive costs, inadequate classroom performance (as measured by student academic achievement), and the failure to prepare graduates for success in life beyond the academy.
• ESG funds that champion environmental and social causes have been increasingly popular investments for public pension funds. However, a recent study by the Pacific Research Institute found that ESGs have historically underperformed funds investing in the broader market over the long-term, making them problematic for pension funds that should be committed to maximizing fund growth.

Think Tanks in the News

• The Alabama Policy Institute shares that Alabama lawmakers are considering a bill that is being called “one of the most comprehensive and effective campus free-speech laws in the country.”
• Three thousand and one hundred feet is standing between some Navajo Nation families and a good education. The Goldwater Institute is asking the Arizona Department of Education to reverse a recent policy that prevents Arizona families from using education savings accounts to pay tuition at a New Mexico school less than a mile from the state border.
• The Libertas Institute was on Fox & Friends to discuss why socialism is so popular among young people.
• The Mackinac Center for Public Policy released an updated estimate of cigarette tax evasion and avoidance among states. The estimate found a correlation between high excise taxes and rates or smuggling.
• Where do we draw the line between the proper role of government and unnecessary government interference? The Mississippi Center for Public Policy offers insights.
• How can we reduce long wait times (and in some regions long travel times) for healthcare? The Pacific Research Institute highlights how telemedicine could not only improve access to healthcare, but it could also give patients access to a wider variety of specialists and high quality doctors.
• The Rio Grande Foundation makes the case for how New Mexico can provide its residents with jobs and the country with affordable, clean energy if state politicians allow them to build the requisite infrastructure.
• Are lawmakers really trying to help low-income Missourians find affordable housing, or are they simply underwriting the interests of the state’s well-connected real estate developers? The Show-Me Institute addresses why restarting Missouri’s low-income housing tax credit program is still a bad idea.
• The Sutherland Institute offers insights into how to talk to millennial voters.
• States’ rights are making a comeback. The Texas Public Policy Foundation has the scoop.

Events & Opportunities

• Scholarships for The Steamboat Institute‘s 11th Annual Freedom Conference & Film Festival are available for students and young professionals. Winners receive full conference registration, travel, lodging, and networking with conference speakers.