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 state think tank 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

  • The Beacon Center’s team is growing! The organization announced this week that it has added a new vice president of development, as a well as two new board members.
  • Commonwealth Foundation welcomes a new vice president, Stephen Bloom, whose experience in advancing economic freedom spans teaching, speaking and writing, and legislative service.
  • The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has opened a new office location in Lansing, Michigan, enabling the organization to make free-market ideas and resource more easily accessible to lawmakers and the Lansing community.
  • Texas Public Policy Foundation announced that David Balat has joined the organization as director of Right on Healthcare, a new national healthcare initiative.
  • Washington Policy Center has added a new agriculture policy director, Pam Lewison, to its team. Pam brings firsthand experience to her role, having grown up on a family farm in a small community. She will work on solutions to reduce the regulatory burdens on family farmers and taxpayers.

Success Stories

  • A Freedom Foundation legal victory in August forced SEIU and the state of Washington to cease unauthorized union dues deductions from 6,000 Medicaid-paid home caregivers, according to recently obtained state payroll data. A quarter of Washington caregivers are no longer having dues withheld from their pay, the highest percentage since the Supreme Court’s Harris v. Quinn decision made dues payment optional in 2014.
  • Utah law enforcement may soon need to obtain a search warrant before accessing individuals’ digital information stored on third-party programs like Dropbox or Google Drive. The Libertas Institute helped write the proposed bill, HB 57 (which may be the first of its kind), for Utah’s upcoming legislative session.
  • Ohio joined the ranks of states that are removing barriers to jobs by passing occupational licensing reforms. The Buckeye Institute has been a long-time champion for these reforms. Buckeye Institute’s Greg Lawson observed that, with these reforms, “…Ohio has gone from being one of the very worst states in the national on occupational licensing to the very best.”

State Think Tanks in the News

Research & Initiatives

  • Twenty-one nationally renowned public policy organizations filed amicus briefs with the United States Supreme Court in support of The Buckeye Institute’s case, Uradnik v. Inter Faculty Organization, calling for an immediate end to laws that force public-sector employees to accept a union’s exclusive representation.
  • Beacon Center’s latest report produces more questions than answers. That’s because the report takes a closer look at Tennessee’s economic incentive programs and finds that, in many cases, taxpayers have no way of knowing how much of their money is funding corporate handouts.
  • California Policy Center and Reform California have teamed up on a new campaign to help government employees understand their rights and exit their unions if they so desire.
  • Should cities replace high speed bus service with private ride sharing?
    Cascade Policy Institute released a report that recommends Portland’s transit department pursue a one-year pilot program which replaces one or more high-cost and low-ridership bus lines with ride-hailing services. The program would be supported by a subsidy funded by the costs saved by eliminating the bus line.
  • Center for the American Experiment takes a thought-provoking look at the salaries of teachers unions’ employees, finding that a third are in the top 5% bracket or higher.
  • A new study from the Civitas Institute reveals that North Carolina could add 43,000 jobs and grow average salaries over the next decade if the state eliminated corporate income tax. The Institute summarizes the highlights of a study in this infographic.
  • New research from the Foundation for Government Accountability found able-bodied Arkansans who left welfare under the new work requirement saw their wages more than triple in the first two years after cycling out of the program.
  • In June, the Supreme Court indicated in Janus v. AFSCME it was an open question whether the ruling prohibiting agency fees would apply to railway and airline employees subject to the Railway Labor Act. The Mackinac Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of three airline workers forced to pay agency fees to a union they did not willingly join. This suit is the first of its kind post-Janus to seek an answer to that question.
  • The Pelican Institute released a comprehensive tax reform package as part of its “Jobs and Opportunity Agenda for Louisiana.” With these solutions, the Institute’s envisions a simpler tax system that will boost the state’s economy while leading to better jobs and more money in citizens’ pockets.
  • Pioneer Institute has filed an amicus brief in Ben Branch v. Commonwealth Employment Relations Board, a case which will decide how the Janus v. AFSCME decision will impact the Massachusetts law that currently allows the union to forcibly collect dues from non-union public-sector employees.
  • Should West Virginia’s state government run hospitals? The Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia’s new report points out critical issues with the current state-owned hospitals and recommends partial to full privatization as a solution to the problems of underfunding and high staff turnover.
  • Truth in Accounting has started an initiative to encourage the Governmental Accounting Standards Board to require states to report the general fund using long-term, full accrual accounting calculations and techniques (FACT). Currently states are required to use unreliable, outdated accounting for the general fund which allows them to claim balanced budgets by ignoring millions of dollars in unfunded obligations. Truth in Accounting is asking citizens, legislators, and think tanks to submit a letter to GASB encouraging them to adopt FACT-based accounting.

State Policy Commentary

  • Mississippi families want—and need—more school choice, says Empower Mississippi. As evidence, Empower shares a few stories of real families who need more school choice options if they are going to meet their children’s unique needs.
  • The “Transportation and Climate Initiative” being promoted in nine Northeastern states by the Georgetown Climate Center is just another variation on a carbon tax. The Ethan Allen Institute outlines how the tax would work and draws comparisons to other recent carbon tax proposals that would penalize Vermont consumers.
  • The Free State Foundation makes the case for why Maryland should focus on reforming the regulations that stifle broadband deployment citing research by R Street Institute and the Tax Foundation showing the state has some of the highest wireless tax rates and most burdensome regulatory processes in the nation.
  • Hawaii lawmakers are proposing to build high-rise housing based on the so-called Singapore model, but the Grassroot Institute‘s research shows why this plan wouldn’t work in Hawaii (one factor may be
    the state’s taxpayer-funded public pension system that is more than $13 billion in debt).
  • What can education reformers in Wisconsin expect from new Governor Tony Evers, the former State Superintendent? The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty looks at Evers’ track record on school choice, K-12 spending, charter schools, and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).