Month: January 2025

The Council of State Governments is visiting state capitols across the Midwest in early 2025 to discuss the organization’s programs and services with the region’s legislators, other policy leaders and staff. The dates below are set. If you would like to set up a time to meet in person during these state visits, please call us at 630.925.1922 or reach out via email to the CSG Midwest staff person listed for each state. (Note: Virtual visits with CSG staff are available throughout the year.)

• Jan. 22-23: South Dakota | Jon Davis
• Jan. 28-29: Nebraska | Tim Anderson
• Feb. 11-12: Iowa | Laura Tomaka
• Feb. 19-20: North Dakota | Tim Anderson
• Feb. 25-27: Kansas | Laura Kliewer
• March 4-5: Indiana | Derek Cantù
• April 29-30: Illinois | Mitch Arvidson

CSG’s visits to Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin will be finalized soon. Much of the organization’s work for legislators in this region is done through CSG Midwest’s support of the bipartisan, binational Midwestern Legislative Conference.

CSG Midwest’s products and services include:

• the Bowhay Institute for Legislative Leadership Development for newer lawmakers;
• the MLC Annual Meeting (this year’s event is being held July 27-30 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan);
• the work of six binational, nonpartisan MLC policy committees;
• policy research and assistance;
• the Under the Dome in-state policy and professional development program; and
• publications such as Stateline Midwest.

CSG Midwest also provides secretariat services and support to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus , the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission and the Midwestern Radioactive Waste Transportation Project.

Nationally, CSG supports the work of state officials and advances excellence in state government through support of the CSG Center of Innovation, the CSG National Center for Interstate Compacts and the CSG Justice Center, as well ongoing leadership programs such as the Henry Toll Fellowship.

The post Connect with CSG: We are visiting every Midwestern state capitol in early 2025 appeared first on CSG Midwest.

Midwestern state legislators in their first four years of service are encouraged to apply for a 2025 fellowship to take part in the Bowhay Institute for Legislative Leadership Development (BILLD). Now in its 30th year, BILLD counts more than 1,000 current and former lawmakers as graduates, including many top state legislative leaders and others who now serve in the U.S. Congress. The Council of State Governments’ Midwestern Legislative Conference administers the highly renowned leadership program.

All application materials must be received online or in the CSG Midwest office on or before Monday, April 14. The 2025 BILLD program will be held Aug. 22-26 in Madison, Wis.

BILLD is a unique educational and networking opportunity, bringing together newer legislators from across the region for five days of professional development, policy-focused sessions and leadership training.

• Link to online application
• More information about BILLD

 

 

The post Applications now available for 2025 BILLD Fellowship for legislators; deadline is April 14 appeared first on CSG Midwest.

What do you want your high school experience to be? What do you want to be prepared to do upon graduation?

Every young person may have slightly different answers to those questions, and Indiana legislators and education leaders say the time has come to offer diploma options that reflect the need for a more personalized approach. The result: a revamped set of graduation requirements that will take effect with the class of 2029, with schools able to opt in as soon as 2025-’26.

The Indiana Board of Education unanimously approved the new requirements in December, after a year of discussions and feedback from stakeholders. The General Assembly initiated the change with the passage of HB 1002 in 2023. In part, students will have the opportunity to earn one of six “readiness seals” depending on the graduation pathway they choose.

• The “enrollment honors” and “enrollment honors plus” seals focus on readiness for college. The requirements were developed in coordination with the Indiana Office of Higher Education. To earn the “honors plus,” students would need to complete 75 hours of work-based learning.
• The “enlistment honors” and “enlistment honors plus” seals signal a physical, mental and emotional readiness to join the military after graduation. To earn one of these seals, students would need to attain a certain score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, complete a course in public service or a year in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, meet school attendance goals, and take part in a mentorship experience.
• The “employment honors” or “employment honors plus” seals emphasize readiness for work. Students choosing this pathway would leave high school with a market-driven credential of value (for example, an industry-recognized certificate or even an associate degree) and will have completed at least 150 hours of work-based learning (“honors plus” requires 650 hours of work-based learning).

Along with directing state education leaders to develop a new diploma system, Indiana’s HB 1002 created new career scholarship accounts for students to take part in apprenticeships and internships or to attain industry credentials. The scholarship is up to $5,000 per student. The new graduation requirements further the goal of providing more work-based learning opportunities in high school.

The post New high school diploma options in Indiana emphasize personalized and work-based learning appeared first on CSG Midwest.

A state-by-state review of the November 2024 elections shows that early voting accounted for more than half of the total ballots cast in at least five Midwestern states: Michigan (60 percent), Illinois (54 percent), Indiana (54 percent), North Dakota (52 percent) and Kansas (51 percent).

Early voting includes ballots cast by mail or in person ahead of Election Day. Nationwide, the early vote was nearly 86 million, 54 percent of that total by mail and 46 percent in person, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.

Those numbers were not yet final, but point to about 55 percent of total U.S. votes being cast early — second only to the pandemic year of 2020, when early voting accounted for 69 percent of all ballots cast.

According to the MIT Election Lab, most Midwestern states now allow residents to request a “no excuse” absentee ballot. The lone exception is Indiana, where voters must check off one of 11 reasons for needing the absentee ballot in their application to vote by mail. Under Indiana law, however, counties must make in-person absentee voting available for 28 days before the election; polling sites also must be open on the two Saturdays immediately before Election Day.

In every Midwestern state, the period for in-person voting is more than a week, and it spans more than a month in Illinois, Minnesota and South Dakota.

A handful of states outside the region, mostly in the West, conduct all-mail elections, meaning every resident receives a ballot in the mail without having to request one. (Ballots can still be cast in person.)

According to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks state voting laws, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin are among 24 U.S. states that allow some or all voters to sign up to be on a permanent list to receive ballots in the mail.

A state law in Nebraska permits smaller-populated rural counties to conduct elections entirely by mail, and 11 do so.

The post Early voting remained a popular pick among voters in fall 2024 elections appeared first on CSG Midwest.