## Notes from 12 May 2025 [[2025-05-11|← Previous note]] ┃ [[2025-05-13|Next note →]] I've been trying to follow how the ideas behind the Department of Government Efficiency ([[DOGE]]) are trickling down to US states. There's a useful contrast here. On the one hand, a [March 2025 report](https://manhattan.institute/article/radical-civil-service-reform-is-not-radical-lessons-for-the-federal-government-from-the-states) from the [[Manhattan Institute]] reminded me that many of the principles DOGE is now promoting (streamlining hiring, weakening tenure protections and reorganizing civil service roles) have been quietly (important distinction!) implemented at the state level for years. These earlier reforms differ in some (significant) ways from the DOGE approach, and the overall assessment of these earlier reforms is [complex](https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/napa-2021/studies/state-chamber-of-oklahoma-research-foundation-a-comparative-analysis-of-sta/A_Comparative_Analysis_of_States_Civil_Service_Reforms.pdf), [controversial](https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/kim_jung-in_201008_phd.pdf), and far from definitive. If anything, the report suggests, these cases offer a body of empirical experience from which federal reformers could learn, rather than starting from scratch. But at the same time, it's DOGE itself that now seems to be setting the tone. In [several Republican-led states](https://www.epi.org/blog/at-least-26-states-have-launched-their-own-version-of-doge-these-states-are-simply-rebranding-longstanding-efforts-to-undermine-government-in-service-of-the-wealthy/), lawmakers are pushing to create their equivalents, with new agencies or task forces charged with reining in bureaucracy. A wave of bills and proposals is expanding governors' authority to hire and fire more staff at will, and some are targeting long-standing job classifications for elimination. One recent example is [Louisiana](https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/louisiana-legislature-again-weighs-state-civil-service-changes/article_13332afe-18f9-59ab-88ed-9ab81494ca56.html), where the debate over these powers has become particularly active. Out of this moment, a new coalition has formed: the [[State Leadership Initiative (SLI)]]. [Launched in early 2025](https://stateleadership.org/), it is backed by national conservative groups, including the [[Heritage Foundation]] and the [[Conservative Partnership Institute]]. The SLI seeks to knit together a coordinated strategy for Republican state governance. Its goal is not just deregulation, but structural policy change - placing movement-aligned individuals in oversight boards, commissions, and administrative roles where they can reshape priorities from within. In [interviews](https://thefederalist.com/2025/02/19/meet-the-group-writing-the-blueprint-for-dismantling-bureaucracy-in-every-red-state/), SLI leaders described how many Republican states still operate bureaucracies that are functionally indistinguishable from those in Democratic states, which they called "blue states with lower taxes". Their goal is to change that by embedding loyalists and activating a support infrastructure for legislators willing to take on these systems. So while federal reform through DOGE may be grabbing the headlines, a more grounded, strategic push is now unfolding in state legislatures. Whether these new efforts will mirror the more technocratic experiments of past decades or evolve into something more overtly ideological remains to be seen.