How Much (or How Little) Do Governors Care About Tech Policy?

The annual addresses given by governors across the county provide telling insight into their policy priorities, their state’s key challenges and their vision for the future. While each offered a handful of location-specific twists, traditional themes of job growth, economic development and education made it into nearly every speech. Health care, taxes and pension reform got considerable air time too, as governors took the opportunity to report positive stats and ask for legislative support for their newest initiatives.

 

But what did the speeches say about technology? Most mentioned technology only in the context of the oft-repeated themes mentioned above — computers and connectivity for schools and support for emerging industries that promise highly skilled tech jobs. Others got specific on transparency initiatives, broadband plans, telemedicine endeavors and the use of big data systems in public safety and other program areas.

GovTech editors read through the 2014 State of the State addresses, looking for the ways that each governor’s plans included innovative uses of technology. Click on each state below for insight into the technology initiatives mentioned and our thoughts on how they did based on a rating scale of 0 to 5, with 0 being no technology mentions and 5 representing extensive technology plans.