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For more than 50 years, a Lexington-based organization has been quietly working to strengthen the bonds between American states.<\/p>\n
Since the Great Depression, The Council of State Governments (CSG) has worked to \u201ccreate more harmony between states,\u201d said David Adkins, executive director and CEO of the nonprofit.<\/p>\n
The goal of CSG, he said, is to foster cooperation and education between states while providing states with the information their elected officials need to make more informed policy decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we, in a non-partisan environment, bring state officials together to learn from each other and how can we provide those state officials in all three branches of government with actionable data?\u201d Adkins asked. \u201cWe see ourselves as a research-driven, consensus-based forum in which state officials are convened to learn more about public policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
How the organization landed in Lexington is another story.<\/p>\n
CSG started in 1925 as the American Legislator\u2019s Association (ALA). The brainchild of Henry Wolcott Toll, a Colorado state senator, the ALA provided legislators with information and the opportunity to connect with their cohorts in other states. Toll believed that interstate cooperation was fundamental for states to maintain control over state issues.<\/p>\n
In 1933, the ALA created the Council of State Governments as a national organization that would serve all three branches of state government. Within five years, it had moved into its new home in Chicago.<\/p>\n
\u201cCSG took from its early origins this idea that states working together actually could accomplish a great deal that did not require a federal government to intervene,\u201d Adkins said. \u201cIn 1933, a long-distance phone call would have been very expensive. There weren\u2019t interstate highways. There wasn\u2019t much of a chance for state officials to have an opportunity to meet. And so, here came this idea for inter-governmental and state cooperation that we could be better and do better as a nation by having stronger states that learned from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1967, however, the leadership of CSG decided it was time for a move.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe leadership of CSG said, \u2018Let\u2019s see if somebody else wants to host the headquarters and a number of states submitted proposals,\u201d Adkins said. \u201cKentucky\u2019s was accepted. It agreed to build a building that was opened in 1969, which is still the headquarters that we occupy today. That\u2019s how we came to Kentucky. It\u2019s the first question I always get from people. \u2018Why is The Council of State Governments headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky?\u2019 Basically, because Kentucky was kind enough to build us a building.\u201d<\/p>\n
From its headquarters off Iron Works Pike and across from the Kentucky Horse Park Campground, the organization\u2019s more than 50 employees work to provide elected officials with leadership training, provide data and information on policy issues facing states, and work with states on topics ranging from justice and incarceration to innovation to implementation and investment of COVID19 pandemic relief funds.<\/p>\n
CSG has four regional offices located throughout the country, as well as a Justice Center in New York City. The Justice Center brings together state officials from all three branches of government to drive the conversation about criminal justice based on objective research.<\/p>\n
\u201cMass incarceration is a huge problem for states \u2014 as a result of three-strikes-and-you\u2019re-out laws; as a result of criminalization of substance abuse disorders; as a result of the ways in which behaviors that are symptoms of mental illness have placed people in correctional facilities,\u201d said Adkins, who is also a former Kansas state senator. \u201cWe are able to go into a state and evaluate their state-specific data \u2026 and give their policymakers options based on the data as to how they may restructure their sentencing laws to both protect public safety and reduce costs of building more prisons.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biggest issue facing states right now, Adkins said, is what to do with funding from legislation like the American Rescue Plan and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, now sometimes referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.<\/p>\n
The states have had an unprecedented infusion of resources from the federal government,\u201d Adkins said. \u201cMany of those resources will be onetime dollars and some states are very reticent to create programs that will require them, at some point, to step in and sustain those programs, but they also see that there is tremendous need.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, as a historic amount of funding for infrastructure comes to states, the question arises of balancing the needs and allocating resources and creating revenue streams that will support that infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope to bring people together to discuss things like, for example, the complexity facing states that generally fund infrastructure with gas taxes,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a world in which we\u2019re quickly moving to electric vehicles, \u2026 those taxation systems, which essentially are paid for when you buy a gallon of gas, are going to become obsolete. So we help states understand what the options are for replacing those revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Lexington, being home to CSG means having a nationally significant policy institute located in the city and a partner that shows off the city to the rest of the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re sort of a hidden jewel in that, we\u2019re very externally focused, but we have a commitment to be good corporate citizens,\u201d Adkins said. \u201cEvery year, we have 48 state officials from around the nation come together for an intense leadership boot camp here in Lexington \u2026 so we expose people from all over the country to Lexington, Kentucky, and that helps, I think, create ambassadors of these folks who have been here and who come here for meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n