Lisa McKinney

States are battling an unprecedented opioid epidemic. There is new agreement among the treatment community--backed by research--that medication-assisted treatment for addiction and harm reduction measures, such as syringe exchange programs and easy access to naloxone, are effective. This eCademy webcast will highlight innovative programs, practices and policies focused on the prevention and treatment of substance abuse and opioid addiction in the states.

Idaho Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis and Connecticut Deputy Speaker Bob Godfrey have collected a few tips for legislating effectively over their combined 46 years of state legislative service. CSG’s Capitol Ideas magazine sat down with them during the 2016 CSG National Conference in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, to get their thoughts on what freshman legislators need to know as they start their terms.

As the only organization representing all three branches of state government, CSG, in 2005, established an Interbranch Awareness Working Group, which later became the Interbranch Affairs Committee, that seeks to foster collaboration and understanding among and between the branches of state government. We asked the 2017 CSG Interbranch Affairs Committee co-chairs why interbranch cooperation is so important and how the states are helping to promote more multibranch approaches to public policy. Here’s what they had to say.

Among the many concerns currently facing America’s health care system, few are more significant, both medically and fiscally, than long-term care, or LTC. With the continuing rise in the population of U.S. citizens 65 and older—statistically, the demographic most in need of LTC—states need to begin preparing for the growing pressures that will be placed on their budgets as a result of the nation’s aging population.