Editor’s Note
Welcome to The States Forum! A debut issue is always both exciting and anxiety inducing. But in this case, we are unfortunately publishing at a moment when anxiety for all Americans who care about the state of our democracy is much in the air. Our central goal with The States Forum—with the journal you are […]
Fair Markets For Rural America
Fair Markets for Rural America The role of anti-monopoly policy in mending the urban-rural divide Every election season, red and blue maps reinforce the myth of “two Americas,” the wealthy, liberal cities and the declining, conservative countryside. Pundits paint rural communities as economically stagnant, predominantly white, deeply bigoted places that vote against their own interests […]
The Legacy of Overton Park
How a monumental 1971 decision put the Establishment in its place—and left a broken public sector in its wake For decades, progressives have viewed the tug-of-war between left and right as one fundamentally focused on the size and power of government. Believing that the public sector, whether at the national, state, or local level, is […]
Combating Regulatory Attacks: From Response to Resilience
America’s federal regulatory landscape has become increasingly volatile and is rapidly deteriorating. Today, we face unprecedented challenges as long-standing protections are dismantled or severely curtailed across multiple fronts. The triple threat of judicial intervention, aggressive executive actions, and Congressional abdication has produced a regulatory rollback unlike any in recent memory. Now our health, safety, education, […]
Yes, College Matters
The Trump administration’s effort to withhold resources from universities that take positions it disagrees with is only the latest, and most extreme version, of a broader attack on the American higher education system from both the left and the right. Surveys have found that most Americans don’t think a four-year college degree is worth the […]
Assessing Land-Use Reform
As the housing crisis continues, tools are needed to keep pace with new legislative initiatives and other experiments that aim to fix the problem Across the United States, housing prices and rents have grown faster than incomes over the past several decades (Fig 1). Between 2000 and 2020, according to a 2024 analysis conducted by […]
Why We Should and Can Get Much Better at State and Local Politics and Government
American national politics today is crazy ugly and insanely destructive. Apologists can be found to excuse the inexcusable and sanewashers to dismiss the nonsensical, but our current commander in chief—even as he stumbles, abruptly changes course, or is momentarily stopped or even reversed—seems intent on the national suicide of turning our constitutional republic into a […]
Winning By Default
How to make courts work better without defendants, without lawyers—and, ultimately, without courts State civil courts are the backstop of American justice, handling 98% of civil cases filed in the United States. Their dockets are filled with the everyday crises that matter most: debt collection, housing disputes, and family law. Yet, these courts are largely […]
Blockchain Election Certification
As the potential for cyberattacks grows, so does the need for technology that maintains the security of—and faith in—our electoral process Across the United States, our democracy is under attack, from threats to voter access, to the spread of disinformation, and through attempts to interfere in our elections. In many jurisdictions, local election officials are […]
How State Legislators Can Rebuild Trust in American Democracy
Across the globe, citizens of many countries are expressing dissatisfaction with their governments. Since the 1960s, Americans’ trust in government has been in decline; as of 2024, a fraction of Americans say they trust Washington to do what is right, whether that’s “just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (21%). For political leaders […]