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Title details for State Capture by Alex Hertel-Fernandez - Available

State Capture

How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States — and the Nation

by Alex Hertel-Fernandez
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Most Americans pay little attention to the massive number of elections that occur at the state level every year. Yet cumulatively, a party's success in state-level races across the country can produce major shifts in policymaking and governance. That is precisely what has happened in the US since 2010. In a wave election that year, the Republican Party began their ascendancy in state-level elections, and by 2016 had solidified their dominance. The party now fully controls 25 state legislatures and governorships-one of the largest advantages either party has had since the New Deal. After the GOP wave, a broad swathe of states began considering and enacting a near-identical set of conservative priorities-often even using the exact same text. Where did this flood of new legislation come from? How did so many states arrive at the same proposals at precisely the same time? As Alexander Hertel-Fernandez shows in the eye-opening State Capture, the answer can be found in a trio of powerful interest groups: the Koch Brothers-run Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the State Policy Network (SPN). Drawing from an impressive evidence base, Hertel-Fernandez explains how, since the 1970s, conservative activists, wealthy donors, and big businesses constructed a right-wing "troika" of overlapping and influential lobbying groups. But it is about more than this. It also teases out how conservative-corporate mobilization has fostered epochal shifts in the American political economy: the decline of unions, party polarization, and the skyrocketing concentration of wealth. State Capture will be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary American politics.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 3, 2019

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780190870812

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780190870812
      • File size: 4051 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      An examination of how coordinated conservative advocacy over the past few decades has "produced a stark rightward shift across the states, ultimately contributing to a dramatic redistribution of political power."As Hertel-Fernandez (International and Public Affairs/Columbia Univ.; Politics at Work: How Companies Turn Their Workers into Lobbyists, 2018, etc.) shows, the shift in focus--from Congress to state legislatures--by three key conservative groups has pushed forward a widespread right-wing agenda that has had remarkable, and alarming, ramifications. The author explores the work of this "right-wing troika" in gradually and successfully changing the direction of state legislation on specific issues dear to businesses and conservatives. This trio of special interest groups includes the American Legislative Exchange, created in 1973, which disseminates "model" legislative language that lawmakers can access for a yearly membership fee; the State Policy Network, created in 1986, which "testifies" to and markets the model bills produced by ALEC; and Americans for Prosperity, the organization of conservative activists created by the Koch brothers in 2004. With coordinated pressure on activists, donors, businesses, and politicians, these groups have been able to steer state legislatures in a "dramatic right-wing swing" in a variety of specific areas, including "stand-your-ground" (the right of individuals to use lethal force to protect against perceived bodily harm), right-to-work (draining labor unions of financial support), anti-Affordable Care Act measures, and voter ID laws. As the author asserts, the troika has no magic formula but rather a trial-by-error process of forming coalitions while relying on "overworked and underpaid state lawmakers" who can cut-and-paste prewritten policy proposals. In his systematic and impeccably researched work, Hertel-Fernandez discusses why liberal efforts to counter the troika have floundered and why this infiltration of right-wing state policy endangers the quality of American democracy.A highly specific, important study in understanding why attention to state legislatures and local elections across the country is increasingly crucial.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

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Languages

  • English

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