The Heartland Institute

Today, North Carolina is expected to vote to allow the process of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for natural gas. This comes just a month after Vermont became the first state to completely ban the process, even though the state has no known resources that actually could be tapped this way. Many environmental activists ...

It has been a year since Wisconsin’s Act 10, which limited collective bargaining rights for most public employees, went into effect. The passing of these reforms has led to next week’s nationally significant recall election of Governor Scott Walker. As the media is talking about ad money and polls, research organizations such ...

Teachers unions react badly to teachers who don’t fall in line behind them. The unions’ methods range from public shamings and labor complaints to coordinated pressure on administrators to fire or withhold promotion from dissenters. Joy Pullmann, managing editor of School Reform News, compiled the evidence into a 10-page ...

“Color of Change,” Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy, and other extreme leftist groups’ attempts to defame the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are not surprising. Rather than discussing and debating actual policy, these groups have resorted to ad hominem attacks and bullying tactics. What is ...

One of the most dreaded days of the year is approaching … tax day. This year Tuesday, April 17 will be the last day people can file their taxes. It is also the Tax Foundation’s Tax Freedom Day , which calculates that Americans had to work more than a quarter of the year just to pay all the nation’s taxes for ...

In what has been one of the most anticipated cases in decades, the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States earlier this week. In total, 26 states filed lawsuits against the federal health care law, and a ruling is expected in June ...

Last week, The Heartland Institute held a conference call on the policy issues related to the booming natural gas industry. Heartland’s energy and environment legislative specialist, John Monaghan, and James M. Taylor, Heartland’s senior fellow for environment issues and managing editor of Environment & Climate News, discussed ...

Earlier this week our friends at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) graciously hosted me and Heartland’s senior fellow for budget and entitlement policy, Peter Ferrara. We went to Oklahoma City to speak about why the state should consider phasing out its income tax. Peter explained that any state could eliminate ...

More and more states are struggling to reach lofty renewable energy mandates. Twenty-nine states have renewable power standards (RPS) that require the increased use of selected renewable power sources within the state. Many of these mandates were set, with no scientific basis, with goals of 15 percent by 2015 or 25 percent ...

Another successful National School Choice Week is in the books, and what a success it was. According to organizers, “Tens of thousands of people from all backgrounds participated in over 400 School Choice Week events in all 50 states, over 30 governors, mayors and legislators paid tribute to School Choice Week in proclamations ...

This week was President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, and in many states the governors’ State of the State addresses. The main focus remains rebooting the economy. While the proposed solutions vary from executive to executive, in many cases there is a lot of overlap between the issues brought up by the ...

On Saturday, January 21, National School Choice Week 2012 will kickoff in New Orleans, Louisiana. This event will lead off a week (January 22–28) during which tens of thousands of Americans will shine a spotlight on the need for effective education options for children. Many states and cities proclaimed National School ...

Earlier this week the National Conference of State Legislatures highlighted some of the top issues it believes will dominate the legislative agenda in 2012. The list includes many issues The Heartland Institute has been researching and helping state lawmakers with already. Issues like pensions, natural gas, jobs, Medicaid ...

Happy holidays to everyone! As we get ready to ring in 2012 it gives us a chance to reflect upon 2011. For The Heartland Institute we had one of the best years yet. We saw a big increase in the number of lawmakers join our legislative forum for the first time and record attendance for lawmakers at our Sixth International ...

In August of 2010 The Heartland Institute began getting involved in a revolutionary education reform issue known as the Parent Trigger. Heartland published the first policy report on the Parent Trigger idea and helped promote the idea across the country. The idea, which first passed into law by the California Legislature ...

As you may already know, The Heartland Institute produces and sends out six monthly newspapers addressing the major domestic public policy issues to every national and state elected official in the U.S. plus 8,400 county and local officials and thousands of civic and business leaders. Earlier this week you may have seen the ...

I hope everyone had a fun- and food-filled Thanksgiving! This week, I and a few other Heartland staffers are attending the American Legislative Exchange Council’s State’s and Nation’s Policy Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. The event brings together state lawmakers from across the country to debate prospective model legislation ...

Before free markets were established, the colonists had nothing for which to be thankful. ... But after free markets were established, the resulting abundance was so dramatic that the annual Thanksgiving celebrations became common throughout the colonies, and in 1863, Thanksgiving became a national holiday. Richard J. Maybury ...

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order granting review in three cases regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). This is a significant event with so many state legislatures debating whether to implement the various aspects of this law, such as insurance exchanges. The Court is expected hear ...

Welcome to the inaugural edition of The Leaflet, a weekly policy roundup produced for lawmakers by The Heartland Institute’s government relations department. For those of you not yet familiar with us, we are the nation’s only non-partisan think tank that focuses on the 50 state legislatures. Our mission is to discover, develop ...