Progressive Incubators

Tim McFeeley

November 05, 2004

Failing to gain the White House was a crushing blow for Democrats and progressives, but it also overshadowed the successes we've had at the state level, says Tim McFeeley of the Center for Policy Alternatives. Democrats gained control of state legislatures in Colorado, Oregon and Vermont, among others, on Tuesday. States can be the greenhouses for progressive growth—if we stay organized.

Tim  McFeeley is executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives .

For progressives, the 2004 election may feel like a brick wall.  For at least the next two years, and more likely four years, progressives will be firmly blocked from enacting any decent policies at the federal level.

Yet, at the state level there is good news to report.  On November 2, Democrats claimed control of at least seven legislative chambers:  the Colorado House and Senate, the Oregon and Washington Senates, and the Vermont, North Carolina and Montana Houses of Representatives.  In contrast, the Republicans only gained control of three chambers: the Tennessee Senate and the Georgia, Oklahoma and Indiana Houses of Representatives.

Progressives also won many crucial ballot measures:  increasing the minimum wage in Florida and Nevada, approving stem-cell research in California, legalizing medical marijuana in Montana, promoting renewable energy in Colorado, and banning nuclear waste dumping in Washington.

Action In The States

In the wake of an election like this, progressives rightfully ask, what should we be doing differently? The answer? We should be putting greater focus on the state legislatures.

That’s where we can test new proactive policies and strategies.  That’s where we can craft messages that connect with Americans’ values.  That’s where we can prove our ideas work.

Historically, progressives have viewed the federal government as the protector of civil rights and the moving force for social justice in America and, as a result, we have resisted the devolutionary trend toward state control.

But in recent years, progressives have started to take advantage of the states’ role in the federal system as “laboratories of democracy.”  In many areas of public policy, state legislators have become the vanguard of the progressive movement.

State legislators are proposing some of the nation’s most far-reaching, proactive measures.  They are making legislatures a testing ground for the newest political debates.  And they are winning progressive victories with cutting-edge policies.

In just the past two years:

• While the federal government increased racial profiling in the name of fighting terrorism, Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Montana and New Jersey all banned racial profiling.
  
  
• While the Bush administration increased its power to prosecute and imprison through the USA PATRIOT Act, Alabama, Connecticut, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Tennessee and Washington all enacted sentencing reforms which decrease jail sentences and sanction drug treatment instead of incarceration.

• While the Justice Department pushed federal prosecutors to demand the death penalty, South Dakota and Wyoming banned the juvenile death penalty, Illinois implemented substantial death penalty reforms, and seven states (Colo., Conn., Ga., Ohio, Mont., Nev. and NM) guaranteed death row inmates the right to DNA testing to prove their innocence.
  
• While the administration opposed an increase in the federal minimum wage, legislatures in Illinois, Rhode Island and Vermont (as well as voters in Florida and Nevada) approved higher state minimum wages.
  
• While Bush sided with the prescription drug manufacturers on a host of policies to maintain high drug prices, nearly every state has taken some action to lower drug prices, led especially by Maine, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan and Vermont.
  
• While the federal Food and Drug Administration refused to make emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) more accessible, Hawaii and Maine enacted laws to make ECPs available from pharmacists without a prescription, and New York and New Mexico required hospital emergency rooms to provide ECPs to rape victims.
  
• And while the administration encouraged companies to plunder our natural resources, states have enacted dozens of pro-environment laws:  lowering fuel emissions, cleaning up power plants, banning mercury, requiring energy efficiency, mandating recycling, and restricting greenhouse gases.

Progressives have even won victories in “red” states: Georgia cracked down on payday lending; Idaho allowed some juvenile offenders to get criminal records expunged; Kansas and Oklahoma sanctioned in-state tuition at state colleges for undocumented immigrants; Tennessee became the first state to enact an anti-offshoring statute; and Utah repealed term limits.

Conservative Are Organized. Are We?

Clearly, the conservatives understand the opportunities in the states.  For the past 30 years, conservative interests have built a coordinated infrastructure of state-based think tanks, researchers, advocacy groups and state legislator networks to advance their ideology. According to a study conducted by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (“Axis of Ideology: Conservative Foundations and Public Policy”), between 1999 and 2001, conservative foundations and wealthy individuals contributed $21.4 million into state-centered institutions to affect public policy.

For the past 16 months, we at the Center for Policy Alternatives have been working with five other progressive organizations (Demos, NAACP-NVF, Progressive Majority, Center On Wisconsin Strategy and the Economic Policy Institute) to study how to create a more coordinated coalition of progressive legislators and policy advocates in the states. This Progressive State Collaboration (PSC) has issued findings and a suggested plan of action in its report, “Winning in the States.”

This report identifies five broad areas of need that, if addressed, will lead to a significantly more effective movement in the states:

• Greater support for state legislators, to include leadership development, team building and movement building, as well as policy framing and coordination.
• A concerted effort to increase the number of progressive legislators.
• Targeted, intense support of state legislative issue campaigns at critical times.
• Expanded support for state-level organizations and organizing projects.
• And more coordination among progressive groups working at the state level.

Center for Policy Alternatives Strategy

The Center for Policy Alternatives is at the forefront of the progressive movement in the state legislatures.  We will continue to support state legislators with the values-based leadership, networking and policy tools so they can lead the fight for a progressive agenda. And we will continue to work with progressive organizations across the nation to build our collective strength at the state level.

Whatever else progressives do now, we must do it together.  The 2004 election brought us closer.  If we continue to stand and fight together, on both the federal and state levels, we will ultimately prevail.