State of the States
January 24, 2022
There were a few common threads to all state legislative sessions in 2021: The seated legislators all had to wrangle, wheedle, cajole or otherwise out-maneuver one another as they redrew legislative and congressional districts in accordance with new U.S. Census numbers. Throughout the year, state leaders also had to figure out how best to distribute monies from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) passed by Congress. And when the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act finally achieved passage in the nation’s capital, those same state legislators knew more money was coming for vital projects from highways to rail to broadband that would soon start moving forward like a bottlenecked freight train to stoke job creation and economic activity.