A new organization, the State Leadership Initiative (SLI), led by dynamic young conservatives Noah Wall and Nate Fischer aims to make Red States the driving force behind our country’s next Golden Age.
Wall and Fischer's see returning control of federal programs to the states as the central goals of building Economic Dynamism, Financial Strength and Digital Sovereignty.
But why focus on Red or Republican States?
It turns out Red States may be drowning in as much or more bureaucracy as some Democrat states.
In an interview with Shawn Fleetwood of the Federalist, the SLI leaders explained, in modern times, state governments are largely “considered [to be] almost an afterthought,” and have effectively become “clients of the federal government” when it comes to key implementing policies and programs.
“Most of the action takes place on the federal level, but that’s not how it’s supposed to be historically,” Wall said. “States were supposed to play the important role in leading and guiding their residents and their communities to advance their values. … They were designed to be distinct and separate from [the federal government].”
Conversations between Wall and Fischer about how states — particularly those controlled by Republicans — can “distinguish themselves” in the current system led to examinations of existing state governments, their policies, regulations, and more. What they soon discovered, according to Wall, is that “the current state of red states is that they are effectively blue states with lower taxes.”
As an example provided to the Federalist, the SLI president cited figures from an August 2024 analysis by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, which ranked states according to their total number of regulatory restrictions. The study found that, as of 2023, several Republican-run states were more regulated than those run by Democrats.
Red states such as Texas (5th) and Louisiana (10th), for example, were ranked higher on the list than blue states like Colorado (12th) and Maryland (21st).
Wall also noted figures from the American Legislative Exchange Council’s “Rich States, Poor States” 2024 report, which found higher numbers of public sector employees in numerous GOP states than in Democrat ones. Taken from the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2022 data shows that red states such as Wyoming, Kansas, and Nebraska boast more public employees per 10,000 residents than blue states like New York, Vermont, and California.
Speaking with The Federalist, SLI Co-Founder Nate Fischer attributed Republicans’ failure to address these expansive bureaucracies in their states to the “managerial system that pervades our institutions.” He specifically cited colleges as an example of this dynamic, in which leftists capture an institution and then status quo Republicans accept it without pushback.
“Politics ends up producing red states [that] have largely accepted the same form of regime as all these other institutions that have drifted left,” Fischer said. In “blue states, [Democrats] have a structure that enables their aggressive pursuit of their political agenda. In many cases, Republicans kind of have a structure that is fundamentally opposed to their agenda. So, most of the time [Republicans] will stick to kind of easy policies on the margins [rather than enacting substantive changes].”
The first prong of this plan is to form leadership teams in each of the group’s initial target states: Florida, Indiana, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming. SLI is currently in the process of staffing these teams, Wall and Fischer explained to the Federalist.
This includes working alongside groups such as the State Freedom Caucus Network to pass legislation critical to dismantling these red states’ overzealous bureaucracies and cutting wasteful spending. Wall specifically noted how freedom caucus legislators oftentimes don’t possess the resources and support enjoyed by the establishment, and that SLI intends to provide that backup through its collaborative partnerships with other conservative organizations.
“Right now, there’s very little infrastructure that will stand up and publicly support the legislators that are out there” fighting for our interests, Wall said. “When legislators are willing to stand up to do the right thing, there needs to be a support network there to back them up.”
The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action, Center for Renewing America, and the Job Creators Network are among several organizations that SLI will partner with to accomplish its mission.
Speaking of the organization’s launch and mission, Heritage Foundation President and SLI Board Member Kevin Roberts told The Federalist that the creation of SLI sends a message that “the era of [conservatives] playing defense is over,” and that “it’s time to go on offense.”
If you are ready to go on offense in your state, go to https://stateleadership.org/ to connect with the State Leadership Initiative and click here to donate to support their crucial mission.
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