Shadow Government: Why Your Red State Still Governs Like California │ Noah Wall

[00:00:14] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. Many conservatives spend most of their time focused on Washington, D.C., but Noah Wall's organization, the State Leadership Initiative, focuses on something different, the states. Noah argues that while conservatives have won a lot of elections over the past several decades, many Republican-led states are still governed by bureaucratic systems that operate very differently than voters think. We're going to start with a big picture and talk to Noah Wall about exactly what the state is.

[00:00:44] exactly what's going on in these states and how we can make a difference. Noah, welcome to the show. Noah Wall, The Jenny Beth Show, It's so good to be on Jenny Beth. Thank you for having me. So tell us about State Leadership Initiative. Why did you launch it? What does it do? Noah Wall, The Jenny Beth Show, Absolutely. I launched State Leadership Initiative just over a year ago. My goal was to start an organization to tackle and amplify the, you know, the amazing work that the conservative movement has done in the states. You know,

[00:01:13] there are tremendous organizations that have been working for decades to tackle issues like taxation, gun rights, you know, the issue of life, deregulation, and they've done a tremendous job on that. In fact, I like to sort of begin, you know, the reason for SLI is that the conservative movement is absolute proof that when we work together and we focus on specific issues and make them a priority, we can win.

[00:01:43] And just as an example to that, I mean, everyone knows that, you know, Republican states are better on guns. Typically, you know, they have stronger pro-life protections. But a lot of people don't know that Republican states have actually a 20 percent lower overall tax burden than blue states. And that's like across the board. And so it is an incredibly powerful story of what the conservative movement can do when it puts its mind to something and makes it a true priority.

[00:02:11] SLI is focused on tackling the areas that the conservative movement hasn't gotten around to that around to yet. And specifically, we were started to tackle the the issues of conservative governance in red states. So, you know, if it doesn't matter where you live, if it's Texas, Georgia, you often find that you elect Republican governors and you don't get everything you want.

[00:02:37] And sometimes, you know, there's a lot of political reasons for that. We've identified what we think is a central reason, which is that there are vast networks of NGOs on the state level that have never been tackled, that have never been, you know, criticized in any way. And our goal as an organization is to focus on shedding a light on these, providing an alternative and making sure, you know, what we call the shadow government.

[00:03:05] So the constellation of NGOs that represent the bureaucracies of state governance. We want to make sure that there is a conservative alternative and that we are working to defund the organizations that are absolutely destroying, you know, governor's ability to actually fulfill their campaign promises. OK, and many conservatives assume that red states are fundamentally different from blue states.

[00:03:31] But you're saying you found that there's this vast network of non-government organizations in place and that is affecting how they're governing. Is that correct? And in what else is making it where even though they're controlled by Republicans, it's still they still operate kind of blue? Yeah. So, you know, when you look at, you know, any you can take a look at any single department of government.

[00:03:59] I mean, everyone, you know, the the issue that will likely resonate with your your listeners to kind of illustrate the problem. So, you know, just a few years ago, conservatives, you know, started noticing that in libraries across the country, you know, that could be in a rural, you know, in a rural library in a red state. They would be having, you know, pride celebrations in the month of June.

[00:04:22] And, you know, they would have, you know, kids, you know, books focused on the LGBT agenda and they would be prominently displayed. And these are like across the board, rural Kansas. You know, you know, I live in Fairfax County, Virginia. You'd expect that, but you wouldn't expect that in a red state. But we found that this was literally across the board. Well, so why is that? You know, many of your listeners probably already know the answer.

[00:04:47] The American Library Association is, you know, has been prolific in get, you know, standardizing practices of state libraries. So that as like an entryway example, every single aspect of governance has a national association just like the American Library Association that focuses in on that ask on that, you know, department or project. And has made them uniformly woke across the board. So what does that mean?

[00:05:18] So, you know, you can look at the Department of Transportation in every single state in the country. Every single state in the country, their Department of Transportation has an office of, you know, that provides grants and contracts to people on the base of race and sex.

[00:05:38] The reason that that exists is because of the American Association of Highway Transportation Officers that has proliferated this as a best practice. So a lot of these are not even necessarily laws. They're ultimately best practices that are put into place that are, you know, that are proliferated around the country that make states like Georgia, states like Texas, et cetera, governed from a, you know, simply, you know,

[00:06:07] a best practice standpoint the exact same way as states like California, Illinois, et cetera. So so that is an example of, you know, and there's like literally every single area of government, you know, and to tell you like how prolific this is, you know, you can take like the Department of Motor Vehicles. There is a National Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators is a 30 million dollar organization.

[00:06:37] And that is why one of the main reasons why every single DMV in America has the same sort of issues and has, you know, faces the same sort of problems because they're effectively standardized through best practices through these national associations. And so those are the types of things that we're shining a light on and trying to put an end to. And you use the free shadow government before.

[00:07:01] Elaborate on what you mean exactly when you're saying shadow government, because then I want to talk about the shadow government report you've got on your website. Absolutely. So the shadow government as a concept is is the idea that the bureaucracy. So, you know, you can elect any governor in the world. You know, it could be the most conservative person to ever get elected in your state.

[00:07:25] And when he takes office, he is, you know, he assumes control of the executive branch and he's allotted a certain number of political appointees, oftentimes in a very state by state. Oftentimes he's allowed, you know, he's got an office of the governor. He appoints the he appoints the secretaries of all the various departments. Oftentimes, you know, he can appoint, you know, one level below that. But the rest of the bureaucracy is effectively permanent.

[00:07:53] And they, you know, they're there, whether, you know, the same problem that President Trump had in his first term trying to tackle, you know, the vast bureaucracy of the federal government. Well, state governments have massive bureaucracies, too, and oftentimes have a correspondingly smaller percentage of political appointees. So you're combating this permanent bureaucracy. Those bureaucracies are not just standalone entities.

[00:08:20] Every bureaucracy has a professional association that specializes in that area of government and setting best practices of like how to, you know, how to implement Medicaid programs in states, how to, you know, apply, you know, XYZ grants, you know, and the best way to do this.

[00:08:41] And these professional associations started out with the goal of just, you know, making states work on similar, you know, playbooks, trying to say, you know, this is the best way to handle these things. But over time, they have started to work contrary to conservative principles and contrary to, you know, the limited government values that red states espouse.

[00:09:05] So the idea is that the idea is we want to expose these associations that most of the time nobody's ever heard of. You know, we were in we were in a red state. I'm not going to embarrass the person who who said this. We were talking to, you know, the head of the department and they had never heard of this association. You know, the National Association of Medicaid Directors, because they never went to it.

[00:09:34] The bureaucrats would be members of these associations, not even the political appointees. So it's truly, from our point of view, a shadow government that operates behind the scenes for the benefit of bureaucracies to enshrine values that are not aligned with red states. So in a few minutes, that's what that that's what the shadow government is from our perspective.

[00:09:59] OK, that's really interesting that they've never even heard of that organization. So I pulled up on my website and we'll make sure that we include links to this in in the description and so that people can find it. But very, very quickly, let me just say that your website is very easy to find. It's stateleadership.org, stateleadership.org. And I've clicked through reports to the shadow government report.

[00:10:27] And I want to talk about some of the recommendations in a minute. But as you were sitting there talking about the National Medicaid Association, I don't think I have the whole acronym correct. You've got, yes, the National Association of Medicaid Directors. You've got it right there in the report and you've got kind of like a brief page, half three quarters of a page summary about what they do.

[00:10:52] They act as a pressure mechanism against red state reforms, the declared equity, not outcomes as a bedrock of Medicaid. So it's a great document as a springboard to learn more about exactly what you mean when you're saying shadow government. So you're not just saying they, you're naming and defining exactly who you mean when you say they. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:11:15] Like these are, you know, these are associations of individual people that are advocating for values that are uniformly progressive. So an important part of this is that we did an analysis of every single association, you know, every we picked about 25 associations. We looked through every single one and we actually, you know, there's literally like hundreds more of these.

[00:11:44] But we, you know, of these 25, not a single one of them you could even consider remotely centrist. So the idea is that, you know, these associations, they're all based in D.C. or overwhelmingly based in D.C. They are staffed by progressives and they adhere to leftist progressive values.

[00:12:10] And what that ultimately looks like, you know, the left does a really good job of, you know, playing for long term goals. So, you know, you find that when you look at these associations and studying them very closely, you find out that states like California, states like New York, you know, Illinois, etc. They are super involved in these organizations.

[00:12:33] So they take these associations very seriously in taking leadership roles with them in ensuring that their staff like truly participate in the strategy and planning for policies. And so what it does is it gets blue state buy in to make, you know, standardized best practices that effectively create a national standard for every single state in America for, say, Medicaid.

[00:12:58] So, you know, if you look at, you know, Medicaid programs across the country, they're similar because they all receive federal funding, but they're also similar because this association does an incredibly effective job from their perspective of, you know, pushing for standards of how to apply these programs. And so an example of that also on our website is a standalone report that we did on the Georgia Medicaid program.

[00:13:26] And the National Association of Medicaid Directors was involved in this. And what they did was they assisted the Georgia Department, you know, the Georgia Department of Health in their renewal of a contract for the health care providers for the Medicaid program. And in that RFP.

[00:13:46] So, you know, that a request for a proposal that they sent out to, you know, all of the prospective Medicaid providers in the state, they inserted highly political questions that, you know, basically, you know, like, for example, one of them was, you know, how would you handle, you know, a child who came into the Georgia Medicaid program and said they were or, you know,

[00:14:13] went to a doctor paid for by Medicaid that would want to, you know, wanted to explore changing their gender. Would you notify their parents if you answered? Yes, we notify their parents, which is what Georgia state law, to my understanding, requires. You were penalized on that RFP.

[00:14:34] And, you know, so like that's an example of, you know, these associations have an incredibly powerful like, you know, they have the ability to shape policy that never makes it to the legislature and is never even like I'm, you know, I'm not blaming the Georgia governor for this.

[00:14:54] I don't think that his political appointees were ever even aware that this was happening because this happens way down on the, you know, on the scale of, you know, it all happens, you know, at lower levels of the bureaucracy than ever really make it to the governor's office. So, you know, so what we believe is that, you know, in many cases, if they can't reform these programs, that we need to make sure that, you know, we consider withdrawing, you know, particularly from the Medicaid Directors Association.

[00:15:24] You know, we think that some of these associations states should just straight up withdraw from. Yeah, I think that they should withdraw from it. So a couple of things about what you are saying. Back in 2020, Tea Party Patriots Action created a how to, well, we created two how-to guides. One, to teach people how to go to their school board meetings and speak out.

[00:15:49] And another one about what critical social justice theory was in diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory. We started with critical race theory, and then we learned what critical social justice theory was, and the guide wound up being really large and very informative.

[00:16:07] The one on school boards and how to go speak to it, my colleague Kelly wrote this particular guide, and she started digging around and found the National School Boards Association. Now, I realize school boards are usually elected, so it's a little bit different than what you're talking about because it's an elected position rather than an appointed position. But we were shocked because they were pushing equity. They were pushing equal outcomes.

[00:16:37] They were speaking of safe schools and urging. And safe schools sounds good until you understand that they're talking about the whole child, and the whole child includes school climate and social-emotional learning and restorative justice and mental health and all sorts of other things that the schools really don't need to be involved in. And school board members sign up. They go to these meetings. They go to the association meetings.

[00:17:03] They hear all this very politically biased viewpoints. They're not getting the other viewpoint. It's being paid for usually with tax dollars. They take the things that they learned, and then they go implement it at the school board level. And you saw it when you used to work for the state treasurers association. HFOF, yeah. And that's probably how you realized, oh, my gosh, this is such a problem, and it spans beyond just the treasurers.

[00:17:33] Which is why what you've created here with this document, which probably just scratches the surface, and you've only been around for a year. Before long, you're probably going to have a tome on each of these. Yes. So that's the goal. So version one of the report that we put out last fall, just tackled 25.

[00:17:58] We are – our next version of the report is going to tackle over 100 of these, and you could quite literally do several hundred. Yeah. Because there's – and if you get down to the local level, there's an entirely different constellation. But to your point about the school board – the national school board association is – that is absolutely – that is a perfect example of what these national associations do.

[00:18:28] Because what – so if you are a conservative mom, you get elected to the school board, you show up – oftentimes before you show up to your first meeting, they send you to a training for the national school board association that trains you how to be a school board. And you go – you assume that you're going to meet with a bunch of experts who know what they're talking about and can guide you in being successful in your job. Well, what do they do?

[00:18:54] They do – they indoctrinate you from day one that you are not – that you are not – that they give you guardrails on which you are allowed to and not allowed to. They'll cite legal cases. And what they're trying to do is scare you away from pushing back from the administrative side of who actually runs the school system.

[00:19:20] And so they try to put you in a box as a school board director and tell you that what you promised your constituents when you got elected is not possible and that you shouldn't try. And so they try to put you in a box from day one and that's – and that's what that – so I do consider that it's slightly different, as you mentioned, because you are dealing with elected officials. But it's their goal as an association. You know, they don't really represent the school board directors.

[00:19:49] They represent the administration and kind of the system more broadly than the school board directors themselves. Yeah, it's just – it's – when we first started studying this in 2000 – well, not 2000, but 2020, Kelly and I, our heads just were exploding every single day. We're sending messages back and forth and going, oh my gosh, look at this, look at that.

[00:20:14] It just – it's like peeling back layers of an onion and you never, ever get to the end because there's so many layers. And that's what you're trying to teach people. You're trying to make that exploding head feeling go away and say, okay, here's what's going on. Here's how – what we define shadow government. So we're not talking in theory. We're not saying they. We're not being nebulous with what we mean. Here's what it is.

[00:20:41] Here are very clear examples of organizations that have this kind of impact in your state, blue or red. But especially if you're a red state and you're wondering, why is my state not functioning more like Texas and Florida? And even those states have issues, I'm sure, with these same associations.

[00:21:01] And then in this particular guide, you've got a few recommendations like audit and restrict association meetings, sever the pipeline of model policies and best practices, prohibit ideological training and DEI programming, build parallel associations and infrastructure, and enforce transparency and political oversight. And one more, condition funding on fidelity to state policy.

[00:21:29] It's six simple recommendations that you are making to the bureaucracy in these states and to the elected leaders so that they can try to grapple with the problem. So you're not just presenting the problem, but you're also trying to get solutions to it.

[00:21:46] Absolutely. And the good news when it comes to these associations and part of the way that they can be, you know, that that they might that we can tackle this problem is that these associations are overwhelmingly funded by state governments. So their business model for almost every single one of them is that they are funded through membership dues through all 50 states and they all include the territory.

[00:22:13] So there's like 56 members of most of these associations. So these, you know, membership dues can range from 20 to 30 thousand dollars a year to two to four or six hundred thousand dollars a year for some of the larger ones. And what you can these are just simple membership dues. So it's actually hard to find these membership dues on like a, you know, on a state transparency website because they're not appropriated.

[00:22:40] These are never like, generally speaking, ever put through legislation. These are simple discretionary memberships that states are part of. And so they're annual. You can just simply decide not to renew. And, you know, if so, you could just do that. And, you know, the bureaucrats always come up with some reason, you know, well, we won't be able to do X, Y and Z. And I think that there are some of these associations where we should try to reform them.

[00:23:10] You know, like the Transportation Association one has been around since like the 1920s and it was like responsible for standardizing like highway signs when they were building out the Eisenhower highway system. So like, you know, some of those like are probably like good to have. And, you know, we should just like not have them be political and you can generally get them closer to what I would consider to be neutral.

[00:23:38] If our states would take them very seriously and send political appointees who understand the lingo and understand how these leftists describe things, you can just very easily use your membership to say, hey, we're not going to be involved in, you know, if you guys don't cut this out, we might withdraw or, you know, we want you guys to reform. So like there's a lot of different ways that you can do it.

[00:24:02] But the first step is understanding the association exists, understanding the power that these associations have and then understanding that, you know, if you take it seriously, you can solve this problem because they are completely dependent on state funding. Well, and I think that's one of the things that's so powerful about what you're doing because you're teaching people about what they are.

[00:24:25] You're shining light on these associations and you're empowering the activists, but especially the elected officials right now. That's who really needs to understand because for an activist, they can go take it up with their elected official. But if the elected officials unaware that this is even happening, we've got to make sure they understand and then teaching them how to tackle the problem because it it feels like.

[00:24:56] Honestly, it just feels like slime. Like, it's really hard to get your hand around and hold on to it because it just it's just I don't know. It makes me think it's slime because I think they're also gross. But but but you're trying to show, OK, this is what it is. This is how you deal with it. And if we can't, then we need to stop funding it and look at alternatives. That's exactly right.

[00:25:24] And, you know, I think that for any governor in America, you know, when you look at, you know, when we saw with Doge over the last year, you know, happened when they cut off the USAID funding and you found out there were, you know, hundreds of thousands of NGOs that were paying exorbitant salaries to people in D.C. that were not in any way, you know, implementing, you know, the programs that their funding was supposed to go to.

[00:25:52] What what people need to understand is a similar system exists in the state level. You know, these are not like, you know, this isn't what Nick Shirley, you know, uncovered in Minneapolis. Like we're not talking about fraudulent, you know, daycare centers. What we are talking about, though, is an association that is responsible for setting up your governor to fail.

[00:26:17] If you're in a red state, these associations do not share the values of the governor that you elected. I don't it doesn't even matter how conservative or not you think your governor is like, you know, they don't share his values. They all hold California values across the board and states. Red states should not be subject to, you know, a fifth column that they are paying for with their taxpayer dollars.

[00:26:43] And so, you know, these are relatively like small money amounts. So it's not even like the membership dues. You know, it's nice to save six hundred thousand dollars a year. And if you tallied them all up, it's probably several, you know, probably 10 to 20 million a year in these types of memberships. You know, it's I guess those like that's it's nice to save that money.

[00:27:02] But the real savings is having, you know, an instant, you know, having a mechanism by which your state bureaucrats are getting indoctrinated and being told to execute policies that are counter to the values of the citizens of your state. Right. Bureaucrats have to be accountable to the culture and the you know, and the values of the state they work in. And right now, these associations make that impossible.

[00:27:30] Yeah. And yes, the money is important. You and I both are of the Tea Party movement. We care about government spending. We also care about constitutionally limited government.

[00:27:42] It's because it's it's because these associations wind up affecting policy, which is what you have in the Georgia Medicaid report that you did, which is a great example, a practical real world light, a real world study of how this is implemented. Like it goes from theory about the association.

[00:28:04] So to what is actually happening on the ground, but they can change policy when they change policy that can certainly affect the budget and it affects the quality and the outcome of whatever the agency is that it's supposed to be. Whatever the goal of the agency is, it affects how they're going to be able to to reach that goal. Exactly. And, you know, this problem is solvable.

[00:28:31] It requires a little bit of political will because you are like, what are you actually taking away from the bureaucrats when you, you know, when and it's usually relatively senior career staff who are, you know, the actual members, the people participate in these associations. So what you're taking away is, you know, they're one to two week per year paid vacation.

[00:28:55] You know, these, you know, you need to remember these association meetings usually happen at very swanky Ritz-Carlton's in very nice parts of the country. You know, it's not uncommon for these to take place in, you know, Orange County, California in September. You know, like these are the, you know, they make these, these association trick like conferences very, you know, very nice.

[00:29:23] And, you know, you, they, you spend a full week there. It's all paid. You know, I mean, it's ultimately paid by the state and they end up staying, you know, several extra days. So you have a really nice long vacation where, you know, they just make you sit through trainings and telling you about why you should be doing things a certain way. And, you know, and so what's your take, you like, you know, these is these, you know.

[00:29:51] These associations provide, I think, you know, it's a way for them to inculcate a very specific culture into these bureaucracies that is, I think, very harmful. So that's what we've been, you know, that's what we've been working on, you know. And one thing as well, when it comes to association, I think it's very important to mention. So if you take like the state of Louisiana, abortion is illegal in, in Louisiana for every reason except for life of the mother.

[00:30:21] These associations that deal with health care, they, they take Louisiana, like state money, for instance, and they lobby for abortion in Louisiana. Like so like the state is paying to be lobbied against its own policies.

[00:30:41] And so you can find in most red states policies that these association like state laws, these associations actively lobby against and and try to erode and try to evade. And so I don't think that the state should be paying people to lobby against state law. Like that strikes me as a as a clear, you know, constitutional governance problem. And that is very often what's happening in these in these cases.

[00:31:10] And if you, you know, if you look into like the Medicaid Directors Association, like, you know, and it applies to all of them. On my point is these are these associations all have insanely egregious policies that they've been lobbying for, not just under the Biden years, but going back like at least a decade. So, you know, like the Medicaid Directors Association submitted like public comments saying that, you know,

[00:31:38] like trying to implement like health equity in organ donations, like for organ transplants. Like, what does that mean? Like they want they wanted race to play a role in who gets like organ donations. Like this stuff is crazy. And like, you know, red state should not be members of that stuff. So I think that there's like I think there's a very strong policy reason. I think we've covered the constitutional grounds. You know, I mean, like you can go across the board.

[00:32:08] But the point that we're trying to highlight is that generally speaking, these associations are completely unknown to the political class in these states. You know, there's not these they operate. You can Google most associations. They've never had a negative news story about them. And so that's like an opportunity because they've never been tested. And I think if we start challenging them, you know, we can, you know, in cases where we don't withdraw, we can actually just force them to behave better.

[00:32:38] Well, that would be a good thing. They need to behave better, especially when they're changing policy, lobbying against the state with the state's own tax dollars. There are things that need to be adjusted. I was interviewing someone very recently earlier this week, and we were talking. It was Con Carroll from the Washington Examiner. And we're talking about how in California, Xavier Bacera had an interview and a local interview.

[00:33:07] And he thought it was just going to be like a fluff interview where he didn't have very tough questions at all. And he was surprised to find out that even with a local interview, they were going to ask real questions of substance. And as you were speaking, it made me remember that conversation that I had with Con about the op-ed he wrote. It is it's the same thing. They haven't had anything negative written about them. They haven't been challenged.

[00:33:35] They haven't had to defend their practices and their policies. And it's time that they do that. If they're working and functioning as an arm and a branch of the government, then they have to be held accountable the same way we hold the rest of the government accountable. And oftentimes that is simply with our First Amendment rights, raising questions, asking questions, gathering together, going to our elected officials and telling them that we have grievances and want to get those solved.

[00:34:05] So it makes sense what you are doing, the reason that you're doing it and why it needs to be done. Let's shift gears just slightly to your state leadership index. What is that? And why do you decide to do it? How are you measuring states? And how's that going?

[00:34:24] Yeah, you know, I love like so there's so many organizations out there, you know, that do a tremendous job at grading different aspects of states. So ALEC, for instance, does a tremendous economic report card for states. It's they've been doing it for like 25 years. It's incredible.

[00:34:48] Like they, you know, and they've used that scorecard to make states better and to actually improve tax policy, et cetera. So we didn't want to recreate the wheel. And there's other associations that have graded other aspects of state government. So what we did was we went and looked for things that no one's ever scored states on. So, you know, we picked it. It seems a little eclectic, the different things that we that we took.

[00:35:16] But we're trying to show a different side of government that the conservative movement just hasn't focused on before. So what we did was we went and looked at things like what, you know, what is the percentage of state government employees in your like what percentage of your state population or state and local government employees, for instance. And what we found was actually really shocking.

[00:35:41] So if you take out, you know, like California and New York, the average red state has virtually the same number of government employees per capita as blue states. And some like there's a lot of red states that have more government employees than comparably sized blue states per capita, which is like crazy to me.

[00:36:03] So like red states have massive bureaucracies that like we talk about when we think about state government, we think that like red states are relatively fiscally responsible. And I think we certainly are. But at the same time, we have a massive bureaucracy problem with like the number of bureaucrats way too high.

[00:36:22] Then we went and looked at things, for instance, like we went and looked at the percentage of public school employees who are teachers. And the average is, you know, below 50 percent of public school employees are teachers. So most public school employees are not teachers. They are administrators.

[00:36:48] They are support staff, program administrators, et cetera. So like, you know, you know. So anyway, so we went we looked at that and then we looked at like university system bureaucracy per capita. So like how many like so I'm not talking about professors. We're not talking about sports teams like we're talking about university bureaucracy size per capita. Red states are far worse than blue states. And what does that mean?

[00:37:18] We are like we have university systems that are lavishly funded. Like I'm not against universities, public university like like, you know, having a public university program is something that many states have done since like the founding of America. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. But we've we have like an entire class of red state citizens who are we're like they're paid Democrat activists that get getting lavish salaries.

[00:37:47] These are like some of the highest paid people in the state, very highly paid. And they're they're not teaching students like these are, you know, bureaucracies of universities. And so red states are, you know, have far larger university bureaucracies than blue states. And what it shows is like Republicans have not. You know, we've done great again on the taxes. And some cases we've done OK on spending, but we've not curtailed bureaucracy size.

[00:38:17] And so we showed that we show a bunch of other, you know, economic indicators like, you know, the regulatory burden, you know, in red states is like some of the highest regulated states in America are red states like Texas. You know, you know, the Mercatus Center did a tremendous analysis. They do this every year.

[00:38:38] You know, so we included their work in in our report to show that, like Texas has is the fifth highest regulated state in America, like like on par with Illinois. That's crazy. Most people would not think that about Texas. You wouldn't you wouldn't think it at all. And then, you know, similarly, most people don't know that the most deregulated state in America is Idaho. Idaho, you know, which they've cut or like simplified 95 percent of all of our state regulations. It's crazy.

[00:39:08] And by the way, Idaho is booming. So what and the one major thing that I wanted to make sure that we did. So for every single, you know, metric, some of the metrics can be depressing, you know, like, you know, so you see Texas being super highly regulated. Or if you look at like, you know, you can look at these metrics and you can be shocked by the results. And you should be in many cases.

[00:39:32] But there's always a state that that for every single metric, there is a state that has done something to solve that problem. May just be one state. So I mentioned, you know, regulations like Idaho's deregulatory framework is an inspiration. They did an amazing job and they've got more to do. And I think they're still working on it. But like so there's always a positive example.

[00:39:59] So like on, you know, the the average state in America, five percent of their workforce or five percent of their population in every state in America, on average, works for the state and local government. Florida, it's four percent. So like a full percentage point lower, which is like really good, especially for, you know, for a big state like Florida.

[00:40:24] Nevada and, you know, and then their states had done even better, like for some reason, I still can't figure out exactly why. Like Nevada is like, you know, it's like three percent or something like that. Like Nevada apparently is a very small state bureaucracy, which, you know, I've talked to Andy Matthews, the state controller, and he's not even sure why. So like we're actually trying to figure that out.

[00:40:47] But Nevada is a really interesting state, though, because you've got Vegas and everybody, everyone in the world knows of Las Vegas, you know, like it's sort of like New York to people. Right. When they think of America, they think of Miami, New York and Vegas. And I suppose Hollywood also. Yet you leave Vegas and there are still a couple more cities down on the southern side. And then you've got a few cities up on the northern side.

[00:41:16] And in between, yes, there are some towns. It is sparsely populated because there's so much government land there. So some of it may just be because because they haven't developed all the rest of that state. So they don't have to have such a big bureaucracy for that further development that other states have. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just theorizing. It's a very different state. It is.

[00:41:45] Driving through it is much different than flying from one end to the other. Yes, I imagine. Yeah. It's so. Yeah. So it is fascinating. And but like, you know, nevertheless, they've somehow figured that out how to get that percentage lower. And, you know, so the point being, there are red states, you know, Arizona is just by the by also very low on the, you know, employees per capita, government employees per capita.

[00:42:14] So like there's red even some purple states, you know, have have done a good job on this. And but we wanted to make sure that people know that there is a model, you know, like Utah, for instance. You know, I have a lot of issues with Utah state government. I think that they are going in the wrong direction on a lot of things. Almost 60 percent of their public school employees are teachers. It's like, I think, 57, 57 percent.

[00:42:42] So like they are dramatically better in having a smaller public school system bureaucracy, far more efficient system than, you know, than your average. So like there are states that have accomplished, you know, solving each of the problems that we identify through these various statistics that we put in there. And that's the important part of this. There is some state that has solved almost every single problem that we want to, you know, that we are challenging states to tackle.

[00:43:11] So, you know, we're not starting from scratch. What we're trying to do is take the models that already exist and help states realize that like someone's already dealt with this successfully. And, you know, we're just asking you to try what they've already done. And I think that's very important. Like I do not like black pilling, you know, or do mean or whatever people want to say, because like in America, like, you know, the beauty of our system is we really do have a lot of examples.

[00:43:41] Of a lot of really cool governance ideas that have been tried, been implemented and have succeeded. And so that's the goal from this report is to show a lot of different things that most people haven't ever really thought or talked about and try to introduce them.

[00:43:55] So we'll be putting out another version of that this fall where our goal is to kind of show year over year how things are going and as well try and develop these metrics to kind of show the story of what states can accomplish if they try and tackle these problems. I think it is just absolutely great. And I'm glad that you're scoring them and that you're planning to put it out every single year. And I love the optimism that you have that there is a solution and there's a state that's already implemented it.

[00:44:25] So it's not just a theory. There is a solution that's been tried and tested. Now we have to get more states to adopt it. So, Noah, you've got on the website your agenda and your agenda is threefold. It's economic dynamism, financial strength and digital sovereignty.

[00:44:49] Explain what each of those are, why they're important to your agenda and why you focus on these three items. Yeah. So we wanted to take a little bit of a riff from just what I think the conservative movement's been doing. Our objectives are the same. I think we're just talking about it slightly differently.

[00:45:11] And so, you know, one of the biggest concerns I have about state governments is they're just complete and total dependence on the federal government and on federal government funds. We want small government. And I don't think that's ever going to be possible if it's being dominated by federal rules and federal oversight.

[00:45:34] And I think for like I think that state dependence on the federal government, you know, really puts a hamper on states ability to do like really innovative things. And so what we're trying to do like on the economic side is to help free up states both from their domestic regulation. But we want states to actually like, you know, and I'll give you just a quick example.

[00:45:59] Most states, you know, for their education department, you know, for their school system, 10 percent of their money overall comes from the federal government. Probably half of that 10 percent is is actually money that they would not otherwise spend complying with federal rules.

[00:46:20] So if you were to just withdraw from federal government from Department of Education funds, if you just say we don't need the money, you're probably only going to have a five percent shortfall. Our argument is that you can easily make up that shortfall by simply cutting administrative size of school systems in your state. Like easily you can cut five percent of your funding there.

[00:46:44] So what we want to do, it's like if you were if you were able to cut federal dependence on education funds, for instance, I think that you can have a stronger, more dynamic like ability to do really interesting things in your state with the education system. But you have to sever the federal ties.

[00:47:03] Otherwise, you're like hamstrung, you know, even with the amazing things that the Trump administration's done, the Department of Education, you know, the reason that they haven't gotten rid of it is because states are like including red states are demanding that they don't get rid of it. So we want to like help states solve that addiction on federal funds. That's a long term goal. You know, our goal. So, you know, on the education side, you know, that's what that is.

[00:47:32] Financial strength. You know, I come from, you know, is that the State Financial Officers Foundation, which I'm still work very closely with? I think that there are so many red states that have underfunded pensions and and they have blue cities in their states that have, you know, Ohio comes to mind, you know, Cleveland.

[00:47:58] Like these are cities that are going to need to be bailed out at some point by taxpayers. And so I think that like taking a very strong stance on, you know, on financial like state financial issues, supporting the excellent work that the state state financial officers foundation has done. And, you know, I think the treasurers have done great work.

[00:48:21] I think we can take an outside role in pushing on those financial issues and in trying to make sure that that states are just less, you know, like when a good example of this is, you know, a lot of states suffered a massive like pension loss when Russia declared war in Ukraine.

[00:48:46] There was a lot of state pensions that were invested in Russia and they lost huge sums of money on those investments. And so like, you know, so providing, I think, leadership on those issues and, you know, making sure that we're aware of like, you know, when we say anti-fragile solutions on our website, like what we're talking about is like trying to avoid like these existential risks.

[00:49:08] And then finally, in digital sovereignty, I think that like everything that's going on with AI right now, you know, I think it's incredibly important that states take a leading role in ensuring, you know, on issues like privacy and on other, you know, sort of constitutional issues.

[00:49:25] I think that we need to make sure that states take a very strong stand to protect the First Amendment, to, you know, to ensure like we don't have a COVID style, you know, tech censorship again, I think is very important. And I think these states play a very strong role in that.

[00:49:45] And then, you know, on the Second Amendment side, you know, this may sound a little bit loony, but I truly believe that like the future of the Second Amendment involves like personal access to drones. You know, like I like I just it sounds a little wacky, but if you look at like how warfare is changing and I want to make sure that states are taking a role in defending the Second Amendment in in states, ensuring that new technologies are applied to the Second Amendment for, you know, for personal defense.

[00:50:15] And ensuring that constitutional constitutional protections don't get eroded just because our technology is advancing. So those are all like broad, long term things that we're very focused on. That is very good. And I hadn't thought of drones that way. And as soon as you said it, a big light bulb went off over my head because you're exactly right. They're being used right now in war and they're there. They're I mean, they're going to.

[00:50:43] Yeah, we have so many, you know, we have an unfortunately high level of crime in many places across the country. And I think it is naive to assume that criminals will not use this type of technology to commit crimes in the future. And I think Americans have very explicit constitutional right to use that same technology to defend themselves.

[00:51:10] It's not I don't want to live in a future where I have to worry about drones. But I do know that the future will be brighter if Americans have personal access to these technologies and are blocked from it. But so I want states to take a leading role in demanding that that freedom. It's very good. I'm glad you're thinking of that. And we need to be thinking of those things, which is why what you are doing is such important work, Noah. What is it that the grassroots person who is listening and watching right now can do?

[00:51:39] And do you have action items for them or is it just reading the documents and what is it that they can do? Absolutely. So I would say two things. First of all, sign up on our website, stateleadership.org. Sign up for our newsletter. We keep you informed on our reports, our goal. So there's going to be a slew of new governors coming into office in January 2027.

[00:52:06] We are going to be working with those governors offices to ensure that they have a full suite. Of executive orders and legislative proposals, model policies rather, that they can use to tackle the shadow government issues and, you know, and other related, you know, left wing, you know, encroachment into their into their state government. So we're going to have all of that.

[00:52:35] It's going to be in states like Ohio, Arizona. Arizona, there's like really strong conservative candidates in a lot of these states around the country. And we want to make sure that they're fully equipped to go ahead and do that. And we're going to be partnering with them as they do. So our goal, you know, so if you can sign up on our website, we will keep you posted. We're going to be putting out states like entire packages. And so there's going to be huge opportunities for grassroots activists to do that.

[00:53:03] We're going to be putting them out one at a time as we're, you know, as we're capable, you know, like Alabama with, you know, Tuberville's campaign like like, you know, he's running an aggressive campaign for governor. We're going to be just publishing like solutions that, you know, a strong conservative in that state could use. And what we believe is that to get those things passed, you know, I'm a grassroots guy. I've worked in grassroots campaigns my whole life.

[00:53:29] Things happen when grassroots care about it and aggressively push for them. So I know that your listeners are just incredibly dedicated and we would love to have you, you know, taking those materials and showing them, you know, to, you know, showing them to your representatives, just making sure that you are making everyone aware that this is a problem that can be solved. And then secondly, I would say familiar.

[00:53:56] So here's a game I like to play whenever you have an interaction with state government, you know, whether it's going to the DMV and that's actually, you know, playing this game is how I found out about this. Whenever you like, so if you're at a state park and for instance, so if, you know, next time you go to a state park, doesn't matter the state.

[00:54:18] If there happens to be like an equity or like a landing, like equity statement or land acknowledgement or, you know, some other like DEI type black at a park, just as an example, Google National Association of whatever government agency you interacted with.

[00:54:39] You will find whatever the problem that you, you know, so like if you're at the DMV, you know, you can Google like National Association Department of Motor Vehicles, find out that that really does exist. And like, it's a game that you're, that your viewers can play to understand the scale of the shadow government.

[00:54:58] So like, you know, if you're at a state park and you see an equity plaque, Google state, you know, state association or National Association of State Parks, you will find that they have, for instance, a national program to get equity focused plaques in every single state park in America. And like, they claim to have accomplished this goal a couple of years ago.

[00:55:23] So like, you know, the impact of the shadow government can be seen in any interaction with your state government. And if you just Google the thing that you're interacting with, you will find the root cause of it. And it's a fun game to play to show the seriousness of this problem and to, and to really kind of familiarize yourself with your, with your opposition, trying to keep your state from governing the way that you'd like to see it. That is a good game.

[00:55:50] So I hope everyone signs up on your list and plays that game. And, and I hope that they go and read the reports. There are, the reports are not that long. It won't take long to read, but you'll learn so much. And it starts, the more that you learn about what these national associations do, the better equipped you will be to help us solve some of the problems. Noah, well, thank you so much for joining today. I really appreciate it.

[00:56:17] I'm so, so happy to see the amazing work that you're doing with State Leadership Initiative. Thank you so much, Jenny Beth. I really enjoyed being on. I sincerely appreciate it. And to get more information about the State Leadership Initiative, go to stateleadership.org. And Noah's X handle for the organization is Red States Lead. So be sure to go follow him there. I'm Jenny Beth Martin. This is the Jenny Beth Show. We'll see you next time.

[00:56:45] If you enjoyed today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about liberty and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes at JennyBethShow.com, as well as Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Instagram, X, and your favorite podcast platform. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots Action.

[00:57:11] For more information, visit TeaPartyPatriots.org.