newsletter
News From The States

Evening Wrap

Your daily analysis of trending topics in state government. The snark is nonpartisan.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Latest

Just when I'm awake, it's fine

You can trace the GOP’s all-out war on schools back to at least the 1990s, when Christian nationalists infiltrated the GOP with their anti-public education agenda in tow. It began quietly, with support for publicly funded charter schools, pushback against sex education and routine resistance against federal oversight.

Long live Roe

I almost opened today’s newsletter by writing that Sunday would have marked the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, had it not been overturned last June. But that’s incorrect. Roe happened, whether opponents of abortion like it or not — the same way that abortions happen (and will continue to happen) regardless of the success or failure of attempts to ban them. Abortion has always existed. Abortion will always exist. Roe is dead. Long live Roe.

Joy and sorrow, Democrats and Republicans

Pretend we’re at a bar, and I’m serving up shots and chasers in the form of political news. (It’s Friday, just go with it.) First up on our drinks menu: Medicaid expansion, which increased hospital funding and improved health outcomes for New Hampshire residents after taking effect eight years ago. Lawmakers will decide this year whether to renew it for a second time, per the New Hampshire Bulletin.

(It's both.)

My ongoing state of sickness is a side effect of parenthood, which is a nice way of saying that children are petri dishes. Children are also the focus of today’s news, in which adults do odd and unproductive things in the name of supporting them — like, for example, reading pornography during a school board meeting! (I feel compelled to add: This is a real-life example that I did not make up!)

So glad we're still talking about this!!!

What a thrill to come back from a long weekend of illness to discover that the Republicans have been using their taxpayer-funded positions of power to prioritize the important issue of our time: Attacking the general emotional and physical well-being of transgender children! It’s just extremely heartening to have enough examples of this to focus an entire newsletter on it, you know?

Chaos and inconsistency

With state legislatures coming into session in many states this month, most lawmakers are having their first chance to meet and grapple with the fallout from the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last summer to do away with the constitutional right to abortion. The result? Just as chaotic and inconsistent as you might imagine.

The arc of the moral universe

It’s Monday and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Like many of the government officials we cover, most of our staff is taking the holiday off, but let's have a look at what our various state newsrooms are saying about King and his legacy.

Holograms and flying cars

It’s Friday the 13th, which seems like an appropriate time to check in on the state of abortion rights.

We're all about empowering parents

During the midterm elections, we focused mostly on high-profile congressional races, gubernatorial contests and the many election-deniers vying to oversee elections. We talked much less about the insidious battle unfolding across the country in oft-overlooked school board races, where conservative candidates campaigned on plans to overhaul education policy based largely on right-wing rhetoric.

To make an appointment, press 1

Whenever I’m stuck on a starting point I just cruise on down to Florida, where the cup of news forever runneth over. Today’s dispatch: Millions of low-income families in the Sunshine State will likely lose their health insurance at the end of March following the expiration of a pandemic-era provision that required states to expand Medicaid coverage, per the Florida Phoenix.

You betcha

We talked yesterday about the difficult (a relative term) situation facing Arizona Republicans, who wield razor-thin legislative majorities under a Democratic governor for the first time in their political careers. The party’s tenuous grip on power coupled with the threat of Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen all but guarantees that GOP lawmakers will have to embrace compromise if they want to accomplish anything of consequence.

Preferable dysfunction

More than half of state legislatures had reconvened as of Monday, when lawmakers in nine states headed back to work. (An additional 13 legislative sessions will also kick off this week. It’s all happening!) For some, the new session is a chance to build on last year’s accomplishments, like sweeping changes to mental health services in Georgia.