State and Local Politics and Policy
It’s especially hard to get low-income Americans living in multifamily buildings across the digital divide. But states and nonprofits are finding ways to do it.
Two dozen states have active online sports betting and, while those states have reported record levels of wagering and revenues, they have questions about how to keep gambling responsible and get help to those who need it.
If Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas wins, he may owe it all to his law-and-order message. Meanwhile, the North Carolina Supreme Court and promoting partisan gerrymandering, Doug La Follette steps down and more.
Fecklessness with limited water. Big land hustles. A lack of rootedness. The state has long been a geography of personal reinvention, ambitious schemes and glowing hype.
Newcomers from liberal states don’t always tilt their new homes to the left. It’s the reason why migration politics is more complex than people give it credit for.
The Department of Children and Families has suffered from high turnover and vacancy rates for years but will soon take on the child protection investigations in the seven remaining counties the agency doesn’t already oversee.
The proposal would bar governments from being able to mandate a COVID-19 vaccine or future potential medical technologies and it would require private employers, health facilities to provide vaccine exemptions for religious beliefs.
An alliance of state lawmakers deserves credit for a collective effort to fight disenfranchisement of minority and Democratic voters. But they will need a lot more support to win the fight to protect the sacred right to vote.
Data suggests that nearly 60 percent of youth with major depression do not receive any mental health treatment. States are looking to use their federal funds to create programs to foster well-being among youth.
Louisiana's comprehensive 50-year master plan for mitigating the impact of extreme weather on vulnerable coastal communities can provide guiding principles for every region.
The majority of the nation’s firearm deaths – 57 percent – are gun suicides. To help curb these fatalities, some states have passed legislation that enables residents to limit their own gun purchases.
The technique, which teaches how to identify guilt and deception from the word choice, cadence and grammar of those calling 911, relies on junk science. But law enforcement agencies continue to use it.
Across the nation, hate crimes hit a record high in 2021, increasing more than 33 percent from the prior year. In North Carolina alone there are 28 hate and 17 active anti-government groups.
The state will continue to participate in the multistate voting registration system known as ERIC, even as other Republican-led states have pulled out amid misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Even though no congressional Republican voted for the biggest climate bill in the country’s history, red states were among the leaders in green power generation last year.
Millions of Americans could lose essential health-care benefits — despite remaining eligible — as pandemic-related policies end. There are practical strategies to sustain enrollment.
Since March 2020, more than 1 million people across the nation have died from COVID and there are still approximately 40,000 cases each day. Experts expect this won’t be the last pandemic; are we prepared for the next?
The June ruling struck down New York’s law on who can carry a concealed weapon, expanding Second Amendment rights. Critics say the court focused too much on history and didn’t consider the ruling’s modern-day impacts.
Missouri's Legislature has a plan to take over the police force in St. Louis. It's just one example of states taking direct control of public safety in their largest cities.
A tale of two trains: When something bad happens, local and state officials increasingly are shouldered aside. The people and the pundits now expect all solutions to come from Washington.
Twenty-seven states allow capital punishment, but public support for it has declined over the decades. Fifty-five percent of Americans support the death penalty for convicted murderers, the second-lowest support since 1972.
The state is among a handful of Republican-leaning states that have pulled out of the national system designed to improve voting roll accuracy known as ERIC. Many are skeptical that Missouri’s next efforts will be as efficient.
Pandemic assistance to families at risk of food insecurity has ended. As a “hunger cliff” looms, programs in public libraries can fill gaps.
Focusing just a small fraction of our economic development resources on supporting entrepreneurs can benefit all communities. And it’s good politics.
Before 2020, they seldom voted against certifying results. But in 2022, conservative officials in North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and New Mexico refused to do so.
The plans have a strong financial incentive to keep their members enrolled because states pay them per member, per month: The more people they cover, the more money they get.
Nearly a dozen counties in Oregon have voted to leave Salem behind and join Idaho. Local secession movements have sprung up in multiple states due to the urban-rural political divide.
Advocates of the bill say that it would empower parents to take charge in their kids’ education and limit the exposure to objectionable content, while critics say it would allow discrimination against kids.
Blue states have played key roles in all the recent GOP primaries. Plus, rejecting ranked-choice voting, the Pennsylvania House has already had two speakers this year, the seats for St. Louis Board of Aldermen are particularly competitive and Mississippi considers restoring its initiative process.
Lawmakers in some states are pushing to make it harder for defendants to avoid pretrial detention. There are better ways to protect public safety that don’t conflict with the presumption of innocence.
Indiana lawmakers are considering changes to an absentee voting measure that would alter who may deliver absentee ballot applications and what proof of identification is required to obtain a ballot.
