SOURCE: Wikipedia, 2020-06-02
According to the State Policy Network, "the Liberty Justice Center is the litigation partner of the State Policy Network's affiliate, the Illinois Policy Institute."
The State Policy Network (SPN) is an American nonprofit organization that functions primarily as an umbrella organization for a consortium of conservative and libertarian think tanks that focus on state-level policy. The organization serves as a public policy clearinghouse and advises its member think tanks on fundraising, running a nonprofit, and communicating ideas. Founded in 1992, it is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, with member groups located in all fifty states.
SPN characterizes itself as the "professional service organization" for a network of state-level think tanks across the United States. The Wall Street Journal and National Review have referred to SPN as "a trade association of think tanks."
The president of SPN is Tracie Sharp who is credited with implementing the IKEA model, formerly the executive director of the Cascade Policy Institute, SPN's Oregon affiliate.
The State Policy Network (SPN) was founded in 1992 by Thomas A. Roe (dec. 2000), a South Carolina businessman who was a Member of the Board of Trustees of The Heritage Foundation. Roe told U.S. President Ronald Reagan that he thought each of the states needed something like The Heritage Foundation. Reagan's reply was "Do something about it," which led Roe to establish the South Carolina Policy Council (SCPC). SCPC adapted Heritage Foundation national policy recommendations, such as school choice and environmental deregulation, to the state legislative level.
SPN was an outgrowth of the Madison Group, a collection of state-level think tanks in states including South Carolina, Colorado, Illinois, and Michigan that had been meeting periodically at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C. Roe was chairman of the board of directors of SPN from its founding until his death in 2000. Gary Palmer, co-founder and president of the conservative think tank the Alabama Policy Institute from 1989 until 2014, helped found SPN and served as its president.
Initially, SPN's network consisted of fewer than 20 member organizations. Lawrence W. Reed, the first President of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan-based free market think tank, fostered new state-level regular member organizations through delivery of his think tank training course. By the mid-1990s, SPN had a network of 37 think tanks in 30 states. By 2014, there were 65 member organizations, including at least one in each state.
Starting in 1993, the SPN has held an Annual Meeting around the country. These meetings serve as a chance for members to discuss and analyze policy priorities, train and build members, and refine operations, among other topics.
Policy initiatives supported by SPN members have included reductions in state health and welfare programs, state constitutional amendments to limit state government spending, expanded access to charter schools, and school vouchers. Another area of activity has been opposition to public-sector trade unions. Tracie Sharp, SPN's president, has said the organization focuses on issues such as "workplace freedom, education reform, and individual choice in healthcare."
The liberal magazine Mother Jones stated that in 2011 SPN and its member organizations were backing a "war on organized labor" by Republican state lawmakers. Legislative actions taken by the GOP included the introduction and enactment of bills reducing or eliminating collective bargaining for teachers and other government workers and reducing the authority of unions to collect dues from government employees. In Iowa, Governor Terry Branstad cited research by the Public Interest Institute, an SPN affiliate in Iowa, when asking to amend laws to limit collective bargaining by public employees.
In December 2013, The Guardian, in collaboration with The Texas Observer and the Portland Press Herald, obtained, published and analyzed 40 grant proposals from SPN regular member organizations. The grant proposals sought funding through SPN from the Searle Freedom Trust. According to The Guardian, the proposals documented a coordinated strategy across 34 states, "a blueprint for the conservative agenda in 2014." The reports described the grant proposals in six states as suggesting campaigns designed to cut pay to state government employees; oppose public sector collective bargaining; reduce public sector services in education and healthcare; promote school vouchers; oppose efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions; reduce or eliminate income and sales taxes; and study a proposed block grant reform to Medicare. Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the SPN member organization
National Review journalist John Miller reported that in 1990, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy shared much of its "brain trust" with Republican governor John Engler's election campaign. After the election, the Mackinac Center worked successfully with the Engler administration to effect policy changes in areas such as the promotion of charter schools and increasing competition in state contracting.
In 2006, three former presidents of SPN member organizations were serving as Republicans in the United States House of Representatives: Mike Pence of Indiana, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Tom Tancredo of Colorado. National Review described them as having "used SPN organizations as political springboards."
SPN introduced model legislation for state legislators to implement on the state level to undermine the Affordable Care Act. The organization also pushed for states not to expand Medicaid.
SPN is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Its independently audited 2013 Internal Revenue Service Form 990 showed $8 million in revenue and $8.4 million in expenditures, of which $1.3 million was used for grants and payments to other organizations. The organization received a Charity Navigator score of 88 out of 100 in its most recent evaluation.
In 2013, Sharp told Politico that like most nonprofits, SPN keeps its donors private and voluntary. In 2011, Mother Jones reported that SPN is largely funded by donations from foundations, including the Lovett and Ruth Peters Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation, and the Bradley Foundation. A 2013 article by The Guardian said that SPN received funding from the Koch brothers, Philip Morris, Kraft Foods and GlaxoSmithKline. Other corporate donors to SPN have included Facebook, Microsoft, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, and Comcast. Between 2008 and 2013, SPN received $10 million from Donors Trust, a nonprofit donor-advised fund. In 2011, the approximately $2 million investment from [disinformation group] Donors Trust accounted for about 40% of annual revenue.
Further information: Political activities of the Koch brothers | Koch Family Foundations
Funded (in part) by the Bradley Foundation.
The Donors Capital Fund granted US$192,000 to the Alaska Policy Forum (APF) in the organization's first two years, 2009 and 2010.
APF is free-market think tank and a member of the State Policy Network (SPN) of conservative and libertarian think tanks which focus on state-level policy. The grants from Donors Capital Fund were most of the funds raised by APF in that period.
In 2010, the Donors Capital Fund granted US$1.75 million to State Policy Network.
In 2013, the member organizations in the State Policy Network sought funding from the Searle Freedom Trust. In December 2013, The Guardian, in collaboration with The Texas Observer and the Portland Press Herald, obtained, published and analyzed 40 of the grant proposals. According to The Guardian, the proposals documented a coordinated strategy across 34 states, "a blueprint for the conservative agenda in 2014."
The reports described the grant proposals in six states as proposing campaigns to:
[ExposedByCMD.org, 2020-09-21] More Than 100 Funders of State Policy Network Revealed
SPN provides grant funding to its member organizations for start-up costs and program operating expenses. In 2011, SPN granted $60,000 in start-up funds to the Foundation for Government Accountability, a free market think tank based in Naples, Florida. SPN also provides practical support to its members, who meet each year at SPN conferences. SPN member organizations exchange ideas and provide training and other support for each other. A spokesperson for the progressive advocacy group People for the American Way said in 2008 that SPN trained its member organizations to run like business franchises. In a 2013 statement to The New Yorker, SPN president Sharp denied that SPN was a franchise and said that member organizations were free to select their own staff and priorities.
SPN is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization that drafts and shares state-level model legislation for conservative causes, and ALEC is an associate member of SPN. SPN is among the sponsors of ALEC. A 2009 article in an SPN newsletter encouraged SPN members to join ALEC, and many SPN members are also members of ALEC. ALEC is "SPN's sister organisation," according to The Guardian.
SPN member think tanks aided the Tea Party movement by supplying rally speakers and intellectual ammunition.
As of 2015, SPN had a membership of 65 think tanks and hundreds of affiliated organizations in all 50 states. Membership in SPN is by invitation only and is limited to independently incorporated 501(c)(3) organizations that are "dedicated to advancing market-oriented public policy solutions." According to Politico, SPN's associate members include a "who's who of conservative organizations", including the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, FreedomWorks, Americans for Tax Reform, and American Legislative Exchange Council. In 2011, SPN and its regular member organizations received combined total revenues of $83.2 million, according to a 2013 analysis of their federal tax filings by the liberal watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy.
Source: Wikipedia (captured 2020-09-08)
The Roe Award was established in 1992 and fittingly named after the late Thomas A. Roe (dec. 2000), Jr., founder of State Policy Network. Roe was a loyal supporter of the state-based think tanks, providing support through his South Carolina-based Roe Foundation. In addition to being SPN's founding chairman, Roe was a successful businessman, generous philanthropist, and a man who consistently rolled up his sleeves to get a job done. After years of success in building free-market think tanks at the national level, Tom led the charge to help the states develop their own engines of liberty -- an aspiration that President Reagan himself encouraged Tom to pursue.
The Roe Award pays tribute to those in the state public policy movement whose achievements have greatly advanced free-market philosophy and policy solutions. It recognizes leadership, innovation, and accomplishment in public policy. The award is an eagle, a symbol of liberty and the courage and conviction necessary for its preservation.
| *Clint Bolick, at the time [2006] Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, was also the recipient of the 2006 Bradley Prize [local copy (html)]. | ||
| Year | Recipient | Organization |
| 2019 | Kim Dennis | Searle Freedom Trust |
| 2018 | John Kramer | Institute for Justice |
| 2017 | Not awarded (?) | n/a |
| 2016 | Clint Bolick* | Arizona Supreme Court |
| 2015 | Whitney Ball | Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund |
| 2014 | Jeff Coors | Golden Technologies Company |
| 2013 | Joe Lehman | Mackinac Center for Public Policy |
| 2012 | David R. Brown | Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs and The Heritage Foundation |
| 2011 | John Michael Tillman | Illinois Policy Institute |
| 2010 | Tarren Bragdon | Maine Heritage Policy Center |
| 2009 | Art Pope | John William Pope Foundation |
| 2008 | Brooke Rollins | |
| 2007 | Kevin Gentry | Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation |
| 2006 | Darcy Olsen | Goldwater Institute |
| 2005 | Jon Caldara | Independence Institute |
| 2004 | Sally Pipes | Pacific Research Institute |
| 2003 | Gisèle Huff | Jaquelin Hume Foundation |
| 2002 | Jo Kwong Gary Palmer | Atlas Economic Research Foundation Alabama Policy Institute |
| 2001 | Steve Buckstein Bridgett G. Wagner | Cascade Policy Institute The Heritage Foundation |
| 2000 | J. Stanley Marshall William H. "Chip" Mellor Lovett "Pete" Peters | James Madison Institute Institute for Justice Pioneer Institute |
| 1999 | Grover N. Norquist Robert W. Poole, Jr. | Americans for Tax Reform Reason Foundation |
| 1998 | C.C. Guy Edward T. McMullen, Jr. John M. Hood Joseph P. Overton | South Carolina Policy Council South Carolina Policy Council John Locke Foundation Mackinac Center for Public Policy |
| 1997 | Carl Helstrom Bob Williams | The JM Foundation Evergreen Freedom Foundation [now the Freedom Foundation] |
| 1996 | William Eggers John H. Fund Lawrence W. Reed | Reason Foundation The Wall Street Journal Mackinac Center for Public Policy |
| 1994 | John Andrews Joseph Bast | The Heartland Institute |
| 1993 | Joseph Dolan Thomas A. Roe J. Patrick Rooney | The JM Foundation The Roe Foundation Golden Rule Insurance Company |
Regular members are described as "full-service think tanks" operating independently within their respective states.
[resource, ExposedByCMD.org] State Policy Network
[ExposedByCMD.org, 2020-09-21] More Than 100 Funders of State Policy Network Revealed
[2019-10-11]: Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers. Firm's public calls for climate action contrast with backing for conservative thinktanks.
... Google said it was disappointed by the US decision to abandon the global climate deal, but has continued to support CEI. Google is also listed as a sponsor for an upcoming annual meeting of the State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella organisation that supports conservative groups including the Heartland Institute, a radical anti-science group that has chided the teenage activist Greta Thunberg for "climate delusion hysterics". SPN members recently created a "climate pledge" website that falsely states "our natural environment is getting better" and "there is no climate crisis." ...
[2019-06-06] Koch-Backed Tech Group Behind Tool Used to Push Union Opt-Out Campaigns. According to an online member update from the State Policy Network (SPN), the tool was designed in "partnership with several SPN member organizations."
The Lincoln Network, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit started with seed money from the Charles G. Koch Foundation, is behind online technology called "Edunity" that is being deployed to encourage teachers and other public sector union members to leave their unions.
According to an online member update from the State Policy Network (SPN), the tool was designed in "partnership with several SPN member organizations." SPN is a network of corporate-backed think tanks. Many of the groups in the network have also received funding from the Koch network of organizations and foundations. Other donors to SPN have included AT&T, Altria, Microsoft, Kraft Foods, Philip Morris.
According to SPN: "Lincoln designed and developed a technology platform to handle the end-to-end opt-out process from a public-sector union and provide leaving union members competitive benefits." The benefits to union members who quit their union using Edunity, would include "discounts to useful major retailers, from Target to Microsoft." ...
... As Rachel Cohen and myself wrote about recently for The Intercept, SPN is engaging in long and multi-faceted campaign to drain unions of members and resources. SPN publicly talks about empowering workers, but on a call with their donors that was published with our article, SPN leaders were more straightforward about their motivations. Describing the Janus case to the donors, Tracie Sharp, CEO of SPN said: "Once this ruling comes down -- and we do expect it to come down in our favor -- everything will change. The door to pass a dream list of free-market reforms is going to swing open for us."
"The flexible opt-out workflow feature is plug-and-play, and it can break through any type of barrier a union builds to prevent an opt-out," SPN boasted.
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