Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania arrived Tuesday at an intimate dinner for Democrats thinking about state politics to deliver an urgent message.
They had real power, he said. Use it.
“The states are no longer just our laboratories” for testing policies, Mr. Shapiro told the group of Democratic donors, strategists and state legislators, who spent their evening dining on pretzel-wrapped mini hot dogs, vegan Caesar salads and beef short ribs at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. “Now, they are the bulwarks of democracy.”
The states, he added, are “the most important, consequential counterbalance to Donald Trump’s lawlessness and Donald Trump’s overreach.”
The governor’s remarks were delivered at the kickoff for the States Forum, a new initiative designed to help expand and entrench Democratic state legislative successes across the country at a time when the national party, locked out of power in Washington, remains adrift.
The States Forum, which has not been previously reported, is part ideas journal, part convention gathering and part network of state legislators and policy thinkers, who are focused on state-level initiatives that could be translated to additional states and even the national stage.
The initiative was founded by the team behind the States Project, a well-funded outside group that has spent more than $130 million on state legislative races in the past two election cycles. The States Forum will be a separate entity with an initial budget of $4 million.
In an interview, the founders of the initiative, Daniel Squadron and Adam Pritzker, said they hoped to build a network to discuss and execute ideas aimed at addressing some of the country’s biggest challenges — affordability issues, for example — from the state level up.
“We do think the brand is toxic and lacks a clear set of values and policy products and communication and distribution capabilities,” Mr. Pritzker said. “The opportunity, to be positive here, is to export the lessons we’ve learned in the states.”
If there was a glimmer of hope for Democrats amid a disastrous 2024 election, it was found down ballot, where some Democratic state legislators outperformed the top of the ticket and the party broke Republican supermajorities in North Carolina and Wisconsin. These local legislators were able to escape the drag of the national Democratic Party largely through a resolute focus on local issues.
As Democrats wrestle over the party’s direction and weigh their responses to an aggressive Trump administration, Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Squadron also hope to drive conversations about the party’s brand, vision and ability to communicate.
The project is rooted in a commitment to four principles: representative democracy, effective government, fair markets and personal freedom.
“Many of you are engaged in intense factional competition to define the opposition to MAGA and for the soul of the Democratic Party itself,” Mr. Squadron said on Tuesday night. “This forum is an opportunity to engage across factions.”
“The goal is not compromise,” he added. “It’s to discover radically American solutions to respond to what people want. That’s what can win over a supermajority of Americans.”
On Wednesday, during a forum held at an upscale hotel in Philadelphia, panelists discussed issues as wide-ranging as regulating artificial intelligence and social media, how Democrats can better connect with young men and how to break through in a fractured and rapidly evolving media landscape.
The gathering was intended as a sort of “demo day” for policy experts, Democratic strategists and lawmakers with varying views on the nation’s, and their party’s, biggest challenges.
And some of the panels did, indeed, highlight several of the divides and disagreements that Mr. Squadron had alluded to — a feature, not a bug, organizers said, reflecting the importance of open debate around how to tackle complex problems.
In a departure from other major Democratic gatherings, no sitting members of Congress were in attendance, organizers said, and plenty of state lawmakers had time in the spotlight.
For the uninitiated, there was a short speech — labeled a “tiny TED Talk” — from Assemblyman Howard Watts of Nevada, who described life as a state legislator (“I am my own constituent services rep, my own communications manager, my own events planner” for much of the year, he said), as he lamented how those constraints can limit the talent pool.
There was also discussion of policy and how to frame messaging around it. Mr. Pritzker told attendees that the Democratic Party embraced a “grab bag” of policy ideas.
“But without a clear, unified worldview, these products really struggle to resonate,” he said. “Distribution then falters because surrogates struggle to communicate a cohesive brand and message.”
He urged attendees, Oprah-style, to look under their chairs, where they found sticky notes. He encouraged them to write down a tagline for the worldview coming into focus at the forum, as the “Jeopardy!” theme song played.
“Government where it’s needed,” one person suggested. “Love thy neighbor, mind thy business,” another wrote. “Return to sanity,” a third note read.
Over lunch, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, who sounds increasingly like a presidential hopeful, delivered a well-received speech, lacing into Mr. Trump’s sweeping bill to extend tax cuts and slash social safety-net programs and stressing the role states play in pushing back on the administration. He also took some swipes at his own party, lightly jabbing at what some regard as the language police.
“There’s even a new one that we’re being asked to use, and it’s called ‘justice-involved populations,’” he said. “I, as governor, am working to reduce recidivism, get people back out, have more second chances than anybody before me has ever done. But you know what our inmates call themselves? Inmates.”
Both Mr. Squadron and Mr. Pritzker view the States Forum as filling a critical vacuum on the left, in an area where Republicans have long been organized. In the interview, they drew a comparison to the State Policy Network, a loosely knit coalition of state-level conservative think tanks that was founded by a former board member of the Heritage Foundation more than 30 years ago.
Catching up to an organization as sprawling as the State Policy Network, with tens of millions of dollars in funding built over the years, will require yet another shift for Democrats: to off-year fund-raising, moving away from campaigns.
The States Forum is hoping to break what has become the boom-and-bust fund-raising cycle for both Republican and Democratic campaigns — a flood of cash running up to an election and very little afterward. It aims to focus more money on state political infrastructure by introducing donors to local, state-based organizations and legislators who are often off the radar of national donors.
“We also are extremely frustrated at the amount of money that is spent in federal elections relative to not just state elections but state policymaking,” Mr. Squadron said, adding, “The lack of attention, focus and dollars on states, whether it’s state politics, whether it’s state idea generation, whether it’s the state sort of conversation ecosystem, is a huge problem.”
“If you are annoyed about that,” he said, “it is because it is annoying. If you think that we should do something better, you’re right. The answer is the states. It’s the only answer I’m sure of.”
Katie Glueck is a Times national political reporter.
Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections.
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