Stateline: Legislative Review 2013

States Try to Rev Up Job Machines

States this year awarded tax breaks to businesses, touted worker-training programs and even poached jobs from each other to boost their economies and create work for the nearly 12 million Americans still unemployed.

Read More

Social Issues Divide States

Nowhere has the red/blue divide between the states been more apparent than on contentious social issues such as gun control, abortion, gay marriage, and immigration.

Read More

Tax and Spend: Legislatures Did Both

Resurgent revenues prompted tax-cut talk from Bismarck to Baton Rouge — but in some states, the tax breaks never made it to the governor’s desk. In other states, legislators used newfound money to pay for education, roads, or other areas that got short shrift during the recession

Read More

ACA Implementation Dominates State Legislatures

With the Affordable Care Act set to debut in January, state legislators debated dozens of measures related to the historic health care law—from overhauling insurance laws and designing health “exchanges,” to shoring up anti-fraud protections and increasing the ranks of doctors and nurses.

Read More

Majorities Drive Sweeping, Divergent Changes Across States

Gun curbs? Colorado got it done. Driver’s licenses and in-state tuition for immigrants in the country illegally? Done. A new school-spending plan, an elections overhaul, Medicaid expansion? Done, done, and done.

Read More

View the 50 Ways the States Changed America in 2013. 

States of Change in 2013