Are We Becoming Two Nations?

The New York Times ran a series this week on how state governments were increasingly taking divergent paths.  With a fifty year high of 36 governments under single party control, the policy approaches of the states are varying more and more:

California, where the state capital is controlled entirely by Democrats, has expanded the range of nonphysicians who can perform surgical abortions, while states held by Republicans, like Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, passed new limits.

In Connecticut, dominated by Democrats, lawmakers approved legislation that for the first time allowed citizens to register on Election Day to vote. But in North Carolina, Republicans, who control state government for the first time in more than a century, have outlawed same-day registration and passed some of the most stringent voter identification rules in the country.

Colorado, held by Democrats, has limited magazines in weapons to 15 rounds and required background checks for private gun sales, while Kansas, where Republicans enjoy legislative supermajorities, passed a rule opening most city and county buildings to people carrying weapons.

In a sense, this is the natural outcome of the conservative revolution of the 1980s-2000s.  States rights means that different states may look very different.  What will be fascinating (and perhaps terrifying )to see is what happens in the decades ahead to national unity, particularly if half the country is diverse, has a great social safety net, and improved health outcomes, and the other doesn’t (the Times has a useful graphic here).

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.