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

  • Veteran journalist Steve Wilson is joining the Mississippi Center for Public Policy as their senior writer. Wilson was previously with Watchdog.org where he was the leading voice in exposing the $7 billion Kemper County Lignite Plant boondoggle.
  • Are you planning a National School Choice Week event? Be sure to expand your audience and visibility by listing it on the NSCW website.
  • Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty has made changes to its team to position the organization for success in 2019. Jim Pugh has joined WILL as vice president for development. Collin Roth has been promoted to WILL’s director of communications, and Libby Sobic will take on a larger role as director & legal counsel for education policy. WILL has also added former intern Jessica Holmberg to the team as a policy & communications associate.

Success Stories

  • The Institute for Justice recently won their First Amendment case in Oregon. Engineer Mats Järlström was fined by Oregon’s engineering board for publicly discussing the timing of red light cameras. The ruling restored Järlström’s rights to speak about his theories and invalidated Oregon’s restriction on the title “engineer” as “substantially overbroad in violation of the First Amendment.”

State Think Tanks in the News

Research & Initiatives

  • The Beacon Center released their highly anticipated 2018 Pork Report for Tennessee. Among the finalists: $174,000 in taxpayer dollars spent on a mayor’s extramarital affair and $5.5 million taxpayer dollars spent to move a company from the outskirts of Memphis to the downtown without creating a single job.
  • The James Madison Institute released a new policy study analyzing how housing prices are affected by impact fees and land-use regulations.
  • The Liberty Justice Center has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Illinois school district employee Erich Mandel against the SEIU, asserting the union’s opt-out window is a violation of Mandel’s constitutional rights.
  • The Mackinac Center released its annual report on the number of votes missed by lawmakers. In 2018, Michigan legislators missed a total of 1,671 votes — only two lawmakers missed more than 50 votes and about two-thirds of lawmakers missed none. Since the Center’s website, www.MichiganVotes.org, began tracking in 2002, the number of missed votes has plunged by about 95%, as it has become a campaign issue and point of pride for politicians.
  • The Mercatus Center and Institute for Humane Studies are hosting a seminar, Using Novel Data to Examine the Impact of Government Policies, on March 13, preceding the Public Choice Society Meeting in Louisville, KY. Sessions will address new empirical developments in research on occupational licensing; new research and opportunities to investigate how state and federal regulations affect productivity; and how trade agreements and other international rules affect trade and the economic health of different countries. 
  • The Tax Foundation has compared their State Business Tax Climate Index to the recent 2018 National Movers Study and found five of the 10 worst-performing states on the Index are also among the 10 states with the most outbound migration.
  • Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos officially rescinded a 2014 Obama-era “Dear Colleague” letter that was used to influence school suspension policies by threatening federal action if discipline policies resulted in a “disparate impact” on racial minorities. Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty conducted research that found that softer discipline policies harmed academic achievement in Wisconsin schools. And in June 2018, WILL spearheaded a letter from conservative leaders across the country to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos encouraging the cancellation of the 2014 “Dear Colleague” letter.

State Policy Commentary

  • A third-party study recently found that business flight out of California has “accelerated to an unprecedented level.” The California Policy Center notes that surprisingly the primary impetus for businesses to leave may be the state’s harsh legal environment and regulations rather than the excessive tax burden.
  • In the last five years Illinois’ population has shrunk by more than 157,000 residents, a decline so striking that a simple picture of the spreadsheet data on Illinois Policy Institute‘s Facebook page generated more than 2,000 responses and over 3,000 shares.
  • The Mackinac Center reports Michigan just passed new laws that prohibit local governments from requiring additional local occupational licenses in order to work legally. The new laws also ban local governments from creating new licenses or registration requirements in occupations not licensed by the state.
  • The Pacific Research Institute covers how the federal administration’s proposal to ease restrictions on health reimbursement accounts could help small business employees afford health insurance.
  • Using the recent announcement of Apple’s expansion in Austin as an example, the Texas Public Policy Foundation illustrates that corporate welfare, or government favoritism, is not part of capitalism.