Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Are state governments ready for today’s unique challenges?

Are state governments ready for today’s unique challenges?

A view of the state capitol of Texas.

Getty Images

Kevin Frazier is an Assistant Professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University. He previously clerked for the Montana Supreme Court.

The Founding Fathers intentionally set very few constitutional restrictions on the structure of state governments. Per the "Guarantee Clause" of the Constitution, “[t]he United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government so long as states.” It follows that beyond maintaining a “republican” form of government, states can delegate the people’s power in numerous ways, shapes, and forms. Yet, we, the people have lazily or stubbornly accepted state governments that nearly mirror the federal system’s branches, checks, and balances.


By shaping state governments in the shadow of the federal system, we have missed an opportunity to update state governments for the litany of unique challenges they face in a fast-paced, interconnected world. States play increasingly important roles in key aspects of daily life including access to housing and health care, disaster relief, and election interference mitigation. Given the shifting and significant role of states, what type of republican government has the greatest odds of managing complex and evolving issues should be an open and ongoing question. In other words, the discretion left by the Founding Fathers to states should be an asset that allows people to redistribute their power and reshape their governments rather than a tool collecting dust like a toaster at an autoshop.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Some states have opted to tinker with their republican roots but they represent the exception, not the rule. Moreover, those changes appear to have a limited effect in terms of improving a state government’s capacity to respond to modern issues and affording the people more control over their government. Nebraska, for instance, has a unicameral legislature but experts have mixed reviews on the impact of this relatively slight variation from the federal conception of “republican” government. Likewise, many states rely on elections to select or retain members of the judicial branch — this change has also had an underwhelming track record by way of empowering the people and improving governance.

Republican governance centers around one core idea--that “the people are the source of all political power.” At least that’s how Daniel Webster defined it. Alexander Hamilton added a guiding maxim--that republican governance “requires that the sense of the majority should prevail[.]” The U.S. Supreme Court, on the few occasions it has heard legal challenges based on the Guarantee Clause, has similarly emphasized the central role of popular decision-making. In In re Duncan, a case from 1891, the Court identified the "distinguishing feature” of a republican government as “the right of the people to choose their own officers for governmental administration, and pass their own laws in virtue of the legislative power reposed in representative bodies[.]"

State constitutions reinforce the people’s power to “choose” who exercises their power and when. Article II, Section 1 of the Montana Constitution, for example, states that “[a]ll political power is vested in and derived from the people. All government of right originates with the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole.” Florida’s Constitution contains similar language: “[a]ll political power is inherent in the people. The enunciation herein of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or impair others retained by the people.”

We, the people, used to act when we sensed our power was being taken and abused by other actors. The initiative and referendum system developed so the people could check and circumvent state legislatures that no longer listened to the people. Likewise, judicial elections spread when the people felt that political parties exercised too much influence over the selection of judges and their decision-making once on the bench. The upshot is that retaining our power often requires reimagining our democracy…again and again, reform by reform.

The good news is that we have the power to do just that--state constitutions make clear that we’re in the driver’s seat of our democracy; and the U.S. Constitution isn’t setting many roadblocks. The question is whether we’re willing to seize control back from political parties and special interests that have become far too comfortable using the people’s power.

Read More

While Pledging To Clean Up Toxic Chemicals, EPA Guts Hundreds of Environmental Grants

EPA Administrator Zeldin speaks with reporters on Long Island, NY.

Courtesy EPA via Flickr.

While Pledging To Clean Up Toxic Chemicals, EPA Guts Hundreds of Environmental Grants

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration promised to combat toxic “forever chemicals,” while conversely canceling nearly 800 grants aimed at addressing environmental injustices, including in communities plagued with PFAS contamination.

In a court filing, the Environmental Protection Agency revealed for the first time that it intends to cancel 781 environmental justice grants, nearly double what had previously been disclosed.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Andrew Harnik

Trump’s First 100 Days on Trial

100 Days, 122 Rulings

Presidents are typically evaluated by their accomplishments in the first 100 days. Donald Trump's second term stands out for a different reason: the unprecedented number of executive actions challenged and blocked by the courts. In just over three months, Trump issued more than 200 executive orders, targeting areas such as climate policy, civil service regulations, immigration, and education funding.

However, the most telling statistic is not the volume of orders but the judiciary's response: over 120 rulings have paused or invalidated these directives. This positions the courts, rather than Congress, as the primary institutional check on the administration's agenda. With a legislature largely aligned with the executive, the judiciary has become a critical counterbalance. The sustainability of this dynamic raises questions about the resilience of democratic institutions when one branch shoulders the burden of oversight responsibilities.

Keep ReadingShow less
Policy Changes Could Derail Michigan’s Clean Energy Goals

New clean energy manufacturing plants, including for EV batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines, are being built across states like Michigan, Georgia, and Ohio.

Steve/Adobe Stock

Policy Changes Could Derail Michigan’s Clean Energy Goals

In recent years, Michigan has been aggressive in its approach to clean energy: It’s invested millions of dollars in renewable energy infrastructure, created training programs for jobs in the electric vehicle industry, and set a goal of moving the state to 100% carbon neutrality by 2050.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other state officials aim to make the Great Lakes State a leader in clean energy manufacturing by bringing jobs and investments to local communities while also tackling pollution, which continues to wreak havoc on the environment.

Now Michigan’s clean energy efforts have seemingly hit a wall of uncertainty as President Donald Trump’s administration takes ongoing actions to roll back federal climate regulations.

“We’ve seen nothing less than an unprecedented, all-out assault on our environment and our democracy,” said Bentley Johnson, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters’ federal government affairs director.

The clean energy sector has grown rapidly in the United States since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Congress appropriated $370 billion under the IRA, and White House officials at the time touted it as the country’s largest investment in clean energy.

According to Climate Power, a national public relations and advocacy organization dedicated to climate justice, Michigan was the No. 1 state in the nation in 2024 in its number of clean energy projects; from 2022-2024, the state announced 74 projects totalling over 26,000 jobs and roughly $27 billion in federal funding.

Trump has long been critical of the country’s climate initiatives and development of clean energy technology. He’s previously made false claims that climate change is a hoax and wind turbines cause cancer. Since taking office again in January, Trump has tried to pause IRA funding and signed an executive order to boost coal production.

Additionally, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in March that the agency had canceled more than 400 environmental justice grants to be used to improve air and water quality in disadvantaged communities. Senate Democrats, who released a full list of the canceled grants, accused the EPA of illegally terminating the contracts, through which funds were appropriated by Congress under the IRA. Of those 400 grants, 15 were allocated for projects in Michigan, including one to restore housing units in Kalamazoo and another to transform Detroit area food pantries and soup kitchens into emergency shelters for those in need.

Johnson said the federal government reversing course on the allotted funding has left community groups who were set to receive it in the lurch.

“That just seems wrong, to take away these public benefits that there was already an agreement — Congress has already appropriated or committed to spending this, to handing this money out, and the rug is being pulled out from under them,” Johnson said.

Climate Power has tracked clean energy projects across the country totaling $56.3 billion in projected funding and over 50,000 potential jobs that have been stalled or canceled since Trump was elected in November. Michigan accounts for seven of those projects, including Nel Hydrogen’s plans to build an electrolyzer manufacturing facility in Plymouth.

Nel Hydrogen announced an indefinite delay in the construction of its Plymouth factory in February 2025. Wilhelm Flinder, the company’s head of investor relations, communications, and marketing, cited uncertainty regarding the IRA’s tax credits for clean hydrogen production as a factor in the company’s decision, according to reporting by Hometownlife.com. The facility was expected to invest $400 million in the local community and to create over 500 people when it started production.

“America is losing nearly a thousand jobs a day because of Trump’s war against cheaper, faster, and cleaner energy. Congressional Republicans have a choice: get in line with Trump’s job-killing energy agenda or take a stand to protect jobs and lower costs for American families,” Climate Power executive director Lori Lodes said in a March statement.

Opposition groups make misleading claims about the benefits of renewable energy, such as the reliability of wind or solar energy and the land used for clean energy projects, in order to stir up public distrust, Johnson said.

In support of its clean energy goals, the state fronted some of its own taxpayer dollars for several projects to complement the federal IRA money. Johnson said the strategy was initially successful, but with sudden shifts in federal policies, it’s potentially become a risk, because the state would be unable to foot the bill entirely on its own.

The state still has its self-imposed clean energy goals to reach in 25 years, but whether it will meet that deadline is hard to predict, Johnson said. Michigan’s clean energy laws are still in place and, despite Trump’s efforts, the IRA remains intact for now.

“Thanks to the combination — I like to call it a one-two punch of the state-passed Clean Energy and Jobs Act … and the Inflation Reduction Act, with the two of those intact — as long as we don’t weaken it — and then the combination of the private sector and technological advancement, we can absolutely still make it,” Johnson said. “It is still going to be tough, even if there wasn’t a single rollback.”

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Keep ReadingShow less
A small earth by a book, scale of justice, and gavel.​

A small earth by a book, scale of justice, and gavel.

Getty Images, Tanankorn Pilong

Project 2025: Dramatic Environmental Changes Enacted

Last spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part series on Project 2025. Now that Donald Trump’s second term has started, Part 2 of the series has commenced.

In August 2024, The Fulcrum published an in-depth column on the Department of the Interior, examining how the implementation of Chapter 16 of Project 2025 could dramatically alter environmental protections in the United States.

Keep ReadingShow less