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Articles by Collin Roth
How Think Tank Websites Can Adapt to AI
People are used to searching the internet for answers. Now tech platforms provide them on the spot. Between ChatGPT and search engines that answer questions directly with AI, the old pattern of search, click, and read is swiftly breaking down. For think tanks, that changes what a website must do. It is no longer enough to publish strong research and assume readers will find it, click through, and read it closely.
Building a Durable Infrastructure to Secure Lasting Policy Change
By Collin Roth For more than 30 years, State Policy Network has inspired, built, and incubated a Network of state-based policy organizations to develop fact-based research and analysis to fight for free markets, limited government, and federalism. In that time, we’ve seen the Network grow and evolve to build the capacities and influence necessary to win, even in the toughest political climates.
SPN Strategy/Organization Accelerator: Year In Review
By Collin Roth, Director of Strategy Development at State Policy Network The work of a state think tank can be fast-moving and even hectic. Navigating a legislative session can mean meeting with lawmakers, building coalitions, producing credible and relevant research, and packaging it all up with communications and marketing campaigns. It’s often all hands on deck.
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
This letter, created by WILL, is a tool for Wisconsin parents. Parents can submit their concerns through this letter to school districts about an online forum called “TrevorSpace.” While the website is designed to be “an affirming international community for LGBTQ young people ages 13–24,” TrevorSpace is a chat room-style forum that allows adults and children to connect to discuss intimate topics including sexuality, gender transitioning, and how to keep information secret from parents.
School Board Resources
School board member finance training Delivered by Edunomics Lab at Georgetown, four virtual sessions, 2-hours each, from 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM CT starting September 16, 2022: Today’s financial choices are complicated. Districts are flush with cash, inflation is eroding wages, enrollment is down and under-enrolled schools are costly. And yet, districts must stay focused on getting students back on track.
Judge says DPI was wrong to filter information it released on School Choice results
The Brillion News JEFFERSON, Wis. - Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Bennett Brantmeier on Friday, September 18, ruled that the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI) broke state law when it released incomplete data on Wisconsin's School Choice Program to a "select list of media" ahead of a public relese of information in September of 2019. Judge Brantmeier imposed an order requiring the DPI to stop providing complete information to some members of the media, but not to others.
Coronavirus Crisis Requires Loosening Licensing for Medical Professionals
With the coronavirus pandemic threatening to overwhelm health care in the United States, states are moving quickly to find policy solutions to address the growing crisis. One critical tool that state lawmakers are using are emergency orders that loosen occupational licensing restrictions to ensure that as many medical professionals as possible can serve patients in their state. On March 12, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers issued Executive Order 72 declaring a health emergency.
A Primer on Occupational Licensing
A Primer on Occupational Licensing A Primer on Occupational Licensing
ISAs are a smart experiment for dealing with student loan debt crisis
DevCodeCamp, a 12-week software engineering boot camp in Milwaukee, announced last month that students could attend without paying tuition or taking out student loans. How? For the first time in Wisconsin, students at devCodeCamp can sign an income-share agreement, or ISA. Such agreements are a bet on a student’s future success in the workplace. Students who sign an ISA with devCodeCamp pay no tuition and incur no debt.
Opinion | Scott Walker’s Gift to His Democratic Successor
Labor unions rally to protest Act 10 in the rotunda of the Wisconsin state Capitol, Aug. 25, 2011. Photo: John Hart/Associated Press In Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery “The Adventure of Silver Blaze,” the dog that didn’t bark reveals the greater truth. The same might be said of Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’s first state budget proposal.
What School Choice Advocates Want Wis. Governor to See
COMMENTARY Tony Evers, the new governor in Wisconsin, has made no secret of his hostility to school choice. When Wisconsin expanded the private voucher program statewide in 2012, he called it “morally wrong.” And during the 2018 campaign he said he’d like to phase out the Milwaukee voucher program, the oldest such program in the country that serves 28,000 students. The new tone from Madison gives school choice advocates some cause for concern.
Congress won't reform disability, so let the states have a go at it
Federal disability insurance has been a reform cause for a long time in Washington. Driven by more than two decades of troubling enrollment growth in Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, a staggering price tag of $143 billion, and long-term solvency concerns, lawmakers in Congress have introduced disability insurance reforms that range from comprehensive overhauls to the creation of partial and temporary disability benefits. The bills have languished.
More Training and Support Could Result in More Disabled Workers Remaining in the Workforce
Wisconsin’s central economic challenge is a labor shortage. Despite record employment and a labor force participation rate five points better than the national average, 76 percent of Wisconsin business leaders in a June survey report they are having trouble finding workers. A strategy to meet workforce needs should include a variety of solutions. But the labor shortage and growing economy ought to spur a long overdue reform to federal disability insurance.
This Is the Perfect Time for Federal Disability Reform
This Is the Perfect Time for Federal Disability Reform
Disability Reform: A Good Economy Makes This a Good Time to Start
Job seekers line up at an “Amazon Jobs Day” fair in Fall River, Mass., August 2, 2017. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) We’re facing a labor shortage, and Congress can help. Nationwide, the unemployment rate is below 4 percent. Here in the Midwest, no state has a rate above 5 percent, and Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have rates below 3 percent. After a slow, sometimes halting recovery, Rust Belt states in 2018 now have more jobs than they can fill. It’s an unfamiliar problem, if a good one to have.
To ‘Save’ Jobs, Wisconsin Republicans Set a Dangerous Precedent | National Review
Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison (Wikimedia) A plan to offer Kimberly-Clark $100 million in tax incentives to keep its operations in the state is crony capitalism at its worst. Every so often, life hands us a lesson in why principle matters. While compromise is often necessary, it comes at a cost: When we abandon a strongly held commitment to something — say, free markets or fiscal responsibility — we weaken our ability to insist upon it in the next case.
Marijuana Legislation Is Federalism in Action
The decision by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in January 2018 to rescind an Obama-era marijuana policy that allowed states to move forward with legalization has pushed federal lawmakers to find a legislative solution that embraces an important constitutional principle. The Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act introduced on June 7 by Sens.
Donald Trump's tariffs: Conservatives say they are a bad idea in every way
President Donald Trump’s first year in office has been a triumph for jobs and the economy. The administration has been the most aggressive ever in pursuing regulatory reform, ensuring businesses have a predictable and competitive environment free from red tape. The badly needed and long overdue tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by the president in December are unleashing investment, wage gains and job growth.
Donald Trump's tariffs: Conservatives say they are a bad idea in every way
President Donald Trump’s first year in office has been a triumph for jobs and the economy. The administration has been the most aggressive ever in pursuing regulatory reform, ensuring businesses have a predictable and competitive environment free from red tape. The badly needed and long overdue tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by the president in December are unleashing investment, wage gains and job growth.
Donald Trump's tariffs: Conservatives say they are a bad idea in every way
President Donald Trump’s first year in office has been a triumph for jobs and the economy. The administration has been the most aggressive ever in pursuing regulatory reform, ensuring businesses have a predictable and competitive environment free from red tape. The badly needed and long overdue tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by the president in December are unleashing investment, wage gains and job growth.
Donald Trump's tariffs: Conservatives say they are a bad idea in every way
President Donald Trump’s first year in office has been a triumph for jobs and the economy. The administration has been the most aggressive ever in pursuing regulatory reform, ensuring businesses have a predictable and competitive environment free from red tape. The badly needed and long overdue tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by the president in December are unleashing investment, wage gains and job growth.
Donald Trump's tariffs: Conservatives say they are a bad idea in every way
President Donald Trump’s first year in office has been a triumph for jobs and the economy. The administration has been the most aggressive ever in pursuing regulatory reform, ensuring businesses have a predictable and competitive environment free from red tape. The badly needed and long overdue tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by the president in December are unleashing investment, wage gains and job growth.
Donald Trump's tariffs: Conservatives say they are a bad idea in every way
President Donald Trump’s first year in office has been a triumph for jobs and the economy. The administration has been the most aggressive ever in pursuing regulatory reform, ensuring businesses have a predictable and competitive environment free from red tape. The badly needed and long overdue tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by the president in December are unleashing investment, wage gains and job growth.
Donald Trump's tariffs: Conservatives say they are a bad idea in every way
President Donald Trump’s first year in office has been a triumph for jobs and the economy. The administration has been the most aggressive ever in pursuing regulatory reform, ensuring businesses have a predictable and competitive environment free from red tape. The badly needed and long overdue tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by the president in December are unleashing investment, wage gains and job growth.
Donald Trump's tariffs: Conservatives say they are a bad idea in every way
President Donald Trump’s first year in office has been a triumph for jobs and the economy. The administration has been the most aggressive ever in pursuing regulatory reform, ensuring businesses have a predictable and competitive environment free from red tape. The badly needed and long overdue tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by the president in December are unleashing investment, wage gains and job growth.
Donald Trump's tariffs: Conservatives say they are a bad idea in every way
President Donald Trump’s first year in office has been a triumph for jobs and the economy. The administration has been the most aggressive ever in pursuing regulatory reform, ensuring businesses have a predictable and competitive environment free from red tape. The badly needed and long overdue tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by the president in December are unleashing investment, wage gains and job growth.
A First Down, Not a Touchdown - RightWisconsin
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker recently signed two bills into law that free workers from red tape in order to obtain a cosmetology and barber license. We applauded him and the legislators for their efforts. Since 1996, the number of license types in Wisconsin have grown by 84 percent, affecting more than 440,000 current license holders. This growth has resulted in lower employment, hindered opportunity, and added costs to the economy.
New Study Shows Licensure Laws Kill Jobs in All 50 States
In America, everyone who can is expected to work. We don’t think of work as some kind of punishment but as an element of a meaningful and productive life. This goes for janitors, fast-food workers, and laborers as well as lawyers, doctors, and chief executives. We all have a role to play, and we all have different opportunities to contribute. But what happens when government erects barriers to work? And what happens when those barriers are completely artificial?
Holt, Roth: Weingarten slanders Milwaukee choice program
National teachers’ union president Randi Weingarten has a message for the thousands of students, parents, and teachers enrolled or teaching at private voucher schools: You are the pawns of bigots.
New Research Reverses Negative Findings About School Vouchers
Despite the efforts of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and President Trump, school choice has been on the defensive. Outlets like The New York Times, National Public Radio, and The Atlantic have all given attention to a series of new studies that purport to show that students in voucher programs in Washington DC, Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio were actually falling behind their public-school counterparts.
Yes, Kids In Rural Areas Need School Choice, Too
Particularly in America’s rural areas and small towns, student performance is often as bad as it is in urban centers. When someone mentions the phrase “failing school,” what image comes to mind? For most, it will be an urban school with a significant population of disadvantaged, minority kids. While this image is no doubt reasonable—many of the worst school districts in the country are urban—the problems of poor schools in other areas are too often forgotten.
Roth: Donald Trump's protectionist trade inclinations hurt Wisconsin
Like it or not, President Donald Trump has charged ahead with a clear goal of fulfilling many of his campaign promises. With the recent setback on health care, Trump can be expected to turn his attention towards an issue that helped put him in the White House: trade. Unfortunately, these protectionist policies will only lead to higher taxes and prices for basic goods, hurting the average American worker. Trade is no doubt a focus of the administration.
School Choice Successes Wisconsin: Higher Test Scores | National Review
During President Donald Trump’s Joint Address to Congress, 25-year-old Jacksonville, Fla., native Denisha Merriweather stood tall in the crowded House gallery. The President recognized Merriweather as an example of how school choice, in her case the Florida tax-credit scholarship, can open up opportunities for thousands of low-income children, often minority, who are trapped in failing public schools.
Collin Roth and Elena Ramlow: Give terminal patients 'right to try' experimental drugs
If a cure for cancer was discovered today, have you ever wondered how long it would take before the medicine could be used? One would think that if such a miracle of science and technology occurred, we would move heaven and earth to save as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible.
Bott, Roth: Wisconsin’s chance to unleash opportunity
Wisconsin license requirements have grown more onerous over the past three decades. Wisconsin has become a case study in what happens when lawmakers shrink the size of government and return power to the people. During the past five years, nearly 200,000 new jobs have been created and unemployment has dropped from 8.1% to 4.1%. This is no small achievement. But economic flourishing doesn’t have to stop there.
Collin Roth: Investment in STEM education could pay off for Wisconsin
This past summer, a Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) survey reported 70 percent of top business executives in Wisconsin expressed difficulty in finding quality workers. This has been a persistent trend in their recent economic outlook surveys, and has fueled a larger debate over whether the Badger State is held back by a “skills gap,” where open jobs go unfilled because the labor force lacks the necessary qualifications.
Milwaukee Biz Blog: Investment in STEM education could pay off for Wisconsin | BizTimes Media
This past summer, a Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) survey reported 70 percent of top business executives in Wisconsin expressed difficulty in finding quality workers. This has been a persistent trend in their recent economic outlook surveys, and has fueled a larger debate over whether the Badger State is held back by a “skills gap,” where open jobs go unfilled because the labor force lacks the necessary qualifications.
Critics of Wisconsin’s Public-Union Reforms Keep Firing Blanks
Five years ago this summer, Wisconsin’s budget-repair law, better known as Act 10, went into effect. The legislation, which significantly curtailed collective-bargaining rights for public employees, was a signature part of Gov. Scott Walker’s effort to close the state’s $3.6 billion budget deficit. It sparked chaos in Madison: Tens of thousands of protesters occupied the capital. Fourteen Democratic state senators fled across state lines in an effort to stop the bill from passing.
Does Sen. Scott Fitzgerald Actually Believe This?
A day after Donald Trump locked up the Republican nomination with a huge win in Indiana, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald announced he will join the "Trump Train " and that the Manhattan billionaire will actually help Republicans in Wisconsin.Matthew DeFour at the Wisconsin State Journal reports: Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, didn't endorse in the primary, but said he is ready to embrace Trump as the presumptive nominee, just as Republican National Committee...
Former Scott Walker Campaign Manager Rick Wiley to Work for Donald Trump
"If the world was either fair or rational, Rick Wiley would never again work in politics. But, trust me, he will." That was Charlie Sykes writing last Fall at the end of the Scott Walker presidential campaign.As 2016 has shown us, the world is nether fair nor rational. And Sykes was right to predict that Wiley would find his way onto the political payroll again despite his gross mismanagement of the Walker campaign.
UW-Green Bay Prof: Punish Climate Change Deniers
University of Wisconsin - Green Bay Professor Emeritus Michael E. Kraft wrote in the Providence Journal that it is time to punish and hold accountable companies or think tanks that have "intentionally misled the public" on climate change. Our current limited policies reflect a history of science denial by fossil fuel companies and others that have sown confusion and weakened public support for doing more. Those who intentionally misled the public about climate change should be held accountable.
Influential Conservative Erick Erickson Endorses Paul Ryan
Amidst the hoopla surrounding the presidential primary in Wisconsin, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan picked up a major endorsement from Erick Erickson, an influential conservative blogger and talk show host.
Barbara Lawton Explains Bernie's Free Tuition Plan. It Doesn't Go Well
Former Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, a Bernie Sanders supporter, joined MSNBC's Chris Matthews on election day and was asked some rather pointed questions about Bernie's plan to provide free college tuition for all Americans."You're a politician. You're not some twenty year-old college student, gung-ho. You're smart. You know politics," says Matthews. "He's talking about free tuition at the University of Wisconsin. Wherever the campus is, free for everybody. Free at the University of Michigan. Free Berkley.
Huge Absentee Ballot Returns in WOW Counties
By now, you're probably aware of the importance and influence of the WOW counties - Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington - that make up the vote-rich conservative suburbs of Milwaukee. If a Republican wants to win statewide, they need to win, if not compete in these three counties.On Monday afternoon, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) released county-by-county figures for absentee ballot returns. Here is how the WOW counties performed in absentee ballot returns.
White Nationalist SuperPAC Pushes Trump With Wisconsin Robo-Call
A white nationalist superPAC is hoping to boost Donald Trump in Wisconsin ahead of Tuesday's primary with a robo-call to prospective voters. The call, from the American National superPAC, promises Trump will be presidential and put "America first." The American National SuperPAC makes this call to support Donald Trump. My name is Mary Mitchell and I am a member of the American Freedom Party. I am voting for Donald Trump because he will not only be presidential, he will put America first.
5 Deadly Numbers for Donald Trump in the Marquette Poll
The Marquette University Law Poll may not be the stone tablets taken down from Mount Sinai, but it is known as the gold standard of polls in Wisconsin politics. And if this final poll is accurate, Donald Trump faces major trouble in Wisconsin ahead of the April 5 primary.70% of Wisconsin Voters Hold Unfavorable View - Among all Wisconsin respondents, 70% had an unfavorable view of Donald Trump. This is up from 59% in January and 67% in February.
Who Said It? Donald Trump or the Democratic Party of Wisconsin?
Donald Trump landed in Wisconsin this week and promptly began attacking Gov. Scott Walker, the Wisconsin legislature, and the conservative reforms in this state.So, let's play a game. Who said it? Donald Trump? Or the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. 1.) "Local schools are struggling to do more with less in the face of budget cuts, our roads and bridges continue to deteriorate, and mass layoffs just hit a five-year high."Who said it?
Who's Challenging Paul Ryan? Meet Paul Nehlen
The Washington Times teased Monday that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is expected to get a Republican primary this Fall. RightWisconsin has learned that that challenger is Paul F.
Justice Bradley's Ex-Husband: Journal Sentinel Headline About Extra-Marital Affair "A Lie"
He called the headline "false" as well as "malicious and despicable." "I am outraged by the story in the Journal Sentinel accusing my former wife of having an extra-marital affair," said Gordon Bradley. "Not only is their headline a lie, they knew it before they printed it." "I told their reporter Patrick Marley that we were separated at the time of the relationship when he emailed me about it yesterday. They didn't even bother to print my quote.," Gordon Bradley wrote.
Susan Happ Won't Comment on Questions Raised About Defense of Child Molester
Susan Happ, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, once defended a habitual child molester arguing that the man was not a predator or threat to society. Before becoming Jefferson County District Attorney, Happ worked as a criminal defense attorney in private practice. Media Trackers has reviewed records from a 2000 case where Happ defended a man who admitted to repeatedly sexually abusing children at his wife's in-home daycare.
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