Melissa Quinn of the Washington Examiner compares legislative achievements in state capitals this year to the relative inaction on Capitol Hill.
State legislatures around the country have made significant progress passing bills on issues such as immigration, policing and healthcare, even as Republicans in Congress and President Trump have struggled to make similar progress at the federal level.
“States are coming up with innovative ways to address immigration issues — in education, healthcare, and economic development — that the federal government seems to ignore,” state Sen. Rene Garcia, R-Fla., said last week.
As expected, the states aren’t all seeing these issues as Trump sees them. Several Republican legislatures, for example, have introduced or passed bills prohibiting sanctuary policies and backing law enforcement, but others controlled by Democrats have pushed their own views on issues like healthcare.
California and New York, for example, have advanced legislation in at least one chamber of their state legislatures to examine the impacts of a single-payer healthcare system.
Still, many states with Republican majorities are managing to make progress on these issues in a way Trump supports, even as he struggles at the federal level to make similar progress.
