Historically, the R Street Institute has focused on issues of high complexity and low salience. While R Street has since expanded into a host of different policy areas, many of them still don’t grab major headlines. Even so, the reforms R Street advocates for are vitally important and will ultimately make the states better places. We support freer markets and limited, effective government, and these guiding principles direct R Street’s state policy agenda.
As state legislative sessions lumber into gear, R Street’s 2020 agenda is also coming into focus. R Street will engage in dozens of states, working on issues like property and casualty insurance reforms; helping veterans and military spouses get back to work by removing unnecessary licensing barriers; allowing women to obtain birth control from pharmacies without a visit to the doctor; substantively reimagining different states’ occupational licensing regimes; promoting tobacco harm reduction; and advocating for criminal justice reforms—especially clean slate proposals and juvenile justice reforms.
While these issues may seem unrelated, they are key pieces of one puzzle: Each reform will help improve Americans’ well-being in various ways. R Street’s work gives justice-involved individuals a second chance, cuts unnecessary regulations to make important products more accessible and affordable, removes barriers to work, and emphasizes public health over economic protectionism and misinformation.
During the course of the 2019 legislative season, R Street worked on a host of bills that eventually became law, and the organization is optimistic that 2020 will be the same. However, one of the strengths of the free market movement is the network of organizations working toward the same laudable goals. With that in mind, R Street cannot wait to collaborate with each of you to enact freer markets and limited, effective government in the new year.
