If you are a PROGRESSIVE...A New "Think Tank Lobby" for "50 State Strategy!"

[KoKo]

{A New Activist Progressive Group.....check it out...what do you think? Sirota, Brock, MoveOn are Founders...along with others.)


THE CONSERVATIVE THREAT IN THE STATEHOUSES

Backed by many of the largest corporations in the country and networked into conservative think tanks and allied political operations, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has helped draft and promote state legislation across the country that has crippled social service budgets, deregulated industries, slashed medical care for the poor and undermined consumer and worker protections in state after state.

* More than 2400 state lawmakers -- roughly one-third of all state legislators � are claimed as members of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

* 34 state Speakers of the House, 25 state Senate Presidents, 31 state Senate Leaders and 33 state House Leaders are ALEC members

* In 2004 alone, 1,108 ALEC model bills were introduced and 178 were enacted into law, a track record that ALEC and its conservative allies have been repeating year after year.


HOW PROGRESSIVES CAN FIGHT BACK

The key for progressives is to fight back, coordinate our own battles and think as strategically as ALEC and its allies do to win back power at the state level.

* First, we need to develop a deep national network of progressive legislators supported by grassroots organizations. Progressives need to use every tool of grassroots mobilization to deploy both strong policies and innovative strategies to beat the conservatives at their own game.

* Second, we need to promote a set of unabashedly popular and fundamentally sound issues that define the progressive state agenda in the minds of voters, such issues include:
o a higher minimum wage;

o extending health care to their states' citizens;

o progressive family issues like paid family leave and making pre-kindergarten available to all children;

o protecting workplace free speech and employee privacy;

o promoting a clean energy policy that builds jobs in each state;

* And, finally, progressives need to develop a larger set of policies that beat back the rightwing attack and strategically turn the tables on conservatives. Examples include
o easing the burden of property taxes to undermine "tax revolt" politics;

o promoting policies to raise revenues by cracking down on corporate tax evaders;

o undermining attacks by conservatives on families receiving Medicaid for long-term health care by funding long-term care through estate taxes on the truly wealthy;

o challenging attacks on the tort system by promoting the "right to trial" and exposing shady secret settlements that cover-up corporate wrongdoing;

o establishing "truth in contracting" laws to force conservatives to prove financial savings from privatization of government services;

o building new coalitions for prison reform by using money cut from prison spending for economic development in both the communities in which prisoners are released and the communities in which prisons are located;

o using public pensions to promote job growth and affordable housing, thereby building new constituencies with a stake in protecting them from privatization;

o reclaiming corporate property for public space, from free speech on big box retail sidewalks to opening up private land to fishing, hunting and other outdoor recreation;

o requiring insurance companies to provide contraception on the same terms as any other kind of medication as an issue to divide moderates from rightwing extremists;

o promoting resolutions against federal preemption of state laws as a way to expose the hypocrisy of conservatives on "states rights."


Progressives can keep reacting and playing defense against conservatives and their corporate sponsors, or we can learn these lessons and turn the tables on the rightwing. If progressive legislators are armed with the legislative tools and mobilized support of our grassroots organizations, we can reverse conservative dominance of public policy and begin a new era of progressive governance of our nation's statehouses.

http://www.progressivestates.org/content/52/governing-the-nation-from-the-statehouses-executive-summary