Reid Wilson: "The Greatest Political Mind of Our Time"

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[00:00:33] Introduce our our star guest here is very exciting.

[00:00:37] Thank you.

[00:00:38] So read Wilson has joined us today with Flourish news.

[00:00:42] Um, I think there's nothing better than, um, reading his, uh, newsletter.

[00:00:47] But I think that you're going to have a special treat by actually hearing

[00:00:50] his musings on what he puts on paper with his talented staff.

[00:00:54] Um, but Reid found a blurbous news in October of 2022.

[00:00:59] I think the timing is interesting after we went through with COVID and as the states continue to get a lot of policy work done.

[00:01:08] And then we'll dive into that. But before he founded Pluribus, he had posts at the National Journal, Washington Post, and The Hill.

[00:01:18] And one of my favorite anecdotes about Reid is that the Comedy Central named him the greatest political mind of our time.

[00:01:26] And I happen to agree. Very impressive gentleman that we have joining us today.

[00:01:31] And so just to hop into conversation, I do think the timing of when you stood up Pluribus News, you know, is worth exploring.

[00:01:42] I remember hearing your name for the first time when I believe Chuck Todd had either had you onto his podcast or it was the show Meet the Press.

[00:01:53] But he announced his excitement that you were founding this new entity in operation.

[00:01:59] And just going into your background and your career, I believe that you were on Chuck Todd's.

[00:02:05] I have to say Chuck Todd is not just Chuck or Mr. Todd.

[00:02:09] It's a two name required. But I believe you were on one of his teams at one point.

[00:02:16] So how did you get into the news? How did the timing of your time with him line up with the eventual launch of Pluribus News?

[00:02:26] Yeah, so right out of college, I was looking for a job around town and I went into National Journal applying for an advertising sales position.

[00:02:34] And I'm very glad I didn't get that job. But while I was in there, they said to me, what do you know about National Journal?

[00:02:40] And I said, well, the hotline is foundational. I love it. I read it every day. It's 100 pages long.

[00:02:46] And I go through it with a fine tooth comb. And they said, you know, Chuck Todd's assistant just quit.

[00:02:52] Do you want that job? I said, yes. I tried not contain my excitement.

[00:02:56] So my first job out of college, I was Chuck's assistant, which I'm sure he regrets deeply.

[00:03:02] But, you know, over time I left and worked in real clear politics for a while.

[00:03:07] And I came back to the hotline under Amy Walter when she was running the thing.

[00:03:11] And Amy left to go be the political director of ABC News.

[00:03:16] And I took over the hotline for three wonderful years. It was probably the best job I'll ever have.

[00:03:21] But, you know, we model a lot of what we do at Pluribus on the hotline.

[00:03:27] I mean, our goal is to get you in the know about what's happening in the states in a quick and efficient manner.

[00:03:33] Get you in and out of our newsletter and hopefully make you smarter about something that no other newsletter really covers, which is what's happening in the states.

[00:03:42] And, I mean, it's such a joy to be covering, you know, the 500 fascinating stories that are happening across the country and not being one of the 500 people chasing one story under the Capitol dome.

[00:03:54] So, you know, in a lot of our reporting we will talk to these legislators who are taking big swings at what should be national issues.

[00:04:06] And when we say, you know, what's your motivation for new AI regulations or digital privacy or any of the big sort of areas of legislative interest these days?

[00:04:18] They all say to me, well, Washington isn't doing it, so we have to.

[00:04:21] And I love that. I love that sort of spirit of, you know, we need to do something, we need to step into the breach.

[00:04:27] And you know this as well as anybody.

[00:04:30] I mean these state legislators, they don't have the infrastructure of a member of Congress, right?

[00:04:34] They don't have 20 people around them coming up with good policy ideas.

[00:04:38] So when they are thinking about how to tackle housing or energy or the environment or infrastructure or whatever, you know, they look to what the state next door did.

[00:04:48] They look to the state across the country.

[00:04:50] These 50 legislators, 51 with DC, you know, they're not silos.

[00:04:56] They're organic beings sort of working together and improving their products and, you know, coming up with big new ideas.

[00:05:04] And I would say, look, the genesis of federal policy comes from the states.

[00:05:08] Think about welfare reform in the 90s, right?

[00:05:11] A project of four Republican governors in the Midwest before Bill Clinton made it his big signature domestic policy achievement.

[00:05:17] The Affordable Care Act came out of Massachusetts. Don't tell Mitt Romney.

[00:05:20] And the one big bipartisan thing under Trump, criminal justice reform, was a joint project of, if you can believe it, the Koch brothers and George Soros together in states like Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas.

[00:05:31] So the next big federal thing, whatever it may be, you know, the next president's legacy is sitting on the floor of a state legislature somewhere right now.

[00:05:40] And that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. I love reporting these stories.

[00:05:44] So in October 2022, when you founded Pluribus News, and I recall Chuck Todd, you know, just heralding the arrival of a quality news platform like yours.

[00:05:57] And I actually had the same thought, you know, working on this being on the federal side and then going over to the state side about a dozen years before that.

[00:06:06] It was kind of like about time.

[00:06:09] The increase in state policymakers taking on those big issues was definitely on the ascendancy for some time when you stepped into it.

[00:06:18] So what was the impetus? Like, when did you decide I'm going to take this on myself? It's a huge undertaking.

[00:06:25] Yeah, it is. And I mean, I have a fantastic team behind me that's doing most of the work.

[00:06:33] I just I saw a hole in the market. You know, I think these I think the states are tremendously interesting.

[00:06:39] There is an increase in the amount of advocacy dollars that are going towards the state.

[00:06:45] So today about you know, I can find about 59, 60 percent of the amount of money spent on federal lobbying that's spent on state lobbying.

[00:06:56] But that's only in 27 states because the other 23 don't require the same kind of disclosure that the facts do.

[00:07:02] So, you know, do the math there.

[00:07:04] And basically people are spending as much to influence state policy as they are on federal policy.

[00:07:09] And there are a million people covering federal policy, but there's fewer and fewer people covering state policy.

[00:07:16] And I maintain I tell legislators this all the time.

[00:07:19] You know, if you're the chair of the House Appropriations Committee and state acts,

[00:07:25] you have such a more tremendous, such a such a larger impact on the lives of your constituents than if you're,

[00:07:32] you know, a backbencher member of Congress.

[00:07:35] So somebody should be covering these people.

[00:07:37] And I, you know, I cover them in in the sense that I respect their work and they're doing what they're doing.

[00:07:46] Sometimes they do stuff that isn't as good for their constituents,

[00:07:48] but hopefully they can they can all learn from each other and come up with best practices, best policies, good ideas for the future.

[00:07:55] And do you have a question for?

[00:07:57] Sure. Yeah, I'm just what what was it like when you made the jump from the Hill to starting your own business?

[00:08:09] Terrifying. It's I'll tell you, I mean, there are so many elements of this that I didn't expect.

[00:08:15] I mean, I spend a lot less of my time writing than I thought I would and a lot more time,

[00:08:20] you know, on the phone with the Colorado Department of Taxation because one of my employees is in Denver

[00:08:26] and I have to, you know, code her as 06.149 under the name of the tax officer.

[00:08:33] You know, whatever. It's spent a lot of time on hold.

[00:08:36] I guess I wasn't expecting that. But, you know, it's we've been around now for more than a year and a half.

[00:08:43] We have we're becoming more known in sort of the power circles.

[00:08:48] We love when legislators say, oh, we have pluribus news.

[00:08:51] Yeah, I know you guys. And we're getting, you know, people call us back.

[00:08:55] And that's that's the kind of thing that we're doing.

[00:08:59] And I sort of naively didn't expect that part.

[00:09:02] It's the case. A couple of quick questions, Maggie, before you jump in is and tell us a little bit about the revenue base subscription ad.

[00:09:12] So we we sell advertising against our newsletters.

[00:09:16] We've got two newsletters.

[00:09:18] We've got a couple of newsletters.

[00:09:20] We've got a couple of newsletters.

[00:09:22] And so we we sell advertising against our newsletters.

[00:09:27] We've got two newsletters of morning a.m. and what I call our digital magazine, which is all of our original reporting.

[00:09:34] We also have all of our stories behind a paywall or most of our stories behind a paywall.

[00:09:40] And and then we we host events with legislators and lawmakers from around the country.

[00:09:46] Some of those events are sponsored by by folks who want to help support us and have a have a conversation.

[00:09:53] So we've got sort of those three buckets of revenue.

[00:09:56] And hey, if you want to subscribe to this news dot com.

[00:10:00] And so I know there's a number of national publications that do a few key states.

[00:10:10] Are there any is there anyone doing?

[00:10:12] Do you have any competitors in this space?

[00:10:14] Not that not that you don't have to name them.

[00:10:16] We don't know.

[00:10:17] It's fine.

[00:10:18] Advertise the competitors.

[00:10:19] So we I don't think of them as competitors.

[00:10:21] I think of them as colleagues and friends, people that I learned from who are doing good work.

[00:10:27] I'd point to States newsroom, which is in about half the states now.

[00:10:31] They recently bought Pews state line.

[00:10:34] And then Center Square is another nonprofit that covers most of the states, most if not all of the states.

[00:10:40] The difference in the way that we differentiate ourselves is, you know, I think they would admit this.

[00:10:45] They come at things from a from a perspective.

[00:10:49] Right.

[00:10:50] States newsroom on the left center square on the right.

[00:10:53] I'm where the where the ones in the marketplace who are aiming to highlight the work good or bad of the Rs and the D's in a nonpartisan independent way.

[00:11:05] So we try to do things.

[00:11:07] We we try to tell the news regardless of fear or favor.

[00:11:11] The other the other thing we do differently, though, is we view these legislators again as sort of organically related to each other.

[00:11:21] So I don't have one Sacramento person and one Tallahassee person and one Albany person.

[00:11:27] You know, my reporters cover things through issue silence.

[00:11:30] I have one health care reporter who's job for health care in all the states.

[00:11:35] And that doesn't mean she's going to write about all 50 states every year, but every year there are five or 10 big trends that you can eye on and she'll keep track of.

[00:11:43] We do the same for energy and the environment disruption and technology infrastructure and then what I call the money bucket, which is, you know, budget taxes, regulations, things like that.

[00:11:54] I do think that when I read when I read your publication, it does feel like I'm reading the local news.

[00:11:59] And I think that that is where you have stepped in with the state house staff kind of those reporters going away.

[00:12:05] Like I've always thought, is he does he subscribe to every single local paper and then he sources beyond what he reads?

[00:12:14] Like it's just your process has always fascinated me and you don't need to give your special sauce out.

[00:12:20] But I do think that that is what makes your platform unique.

[00:12:24] Well, my subscription budget is through the roof, put it that way.

[00:12:28] So when whenever some newspaper offers me a dollar for six months of coverage, yeah, I'm going to jump at that.

[00:12:37] Then I'm going to forget to cancel it and end up paying them 20 bucks a month or something like that.

[00:12:41] So, yes, we have a tremendous number of one of subscriptions to everywhere from, you know, the Orlando Sentinel to the Seattle Times and the Portland Press Herald to the San Diego Union Tribune.

[00:12:54] No, I don't I don't subscribe to the union tribute. The LA Times. There we go. That's my that'll be my Southwest one.

[00:12:58] But I do think it's the it's the layering on those sources that and then having really smart writers putting them in their strength of their issue back.

[00:13:08] I mean, we made we made conscious effort to hire mid career professionals as opposed to, you know, and with all due respect to the to the young kids who are coming into the business.

[00:13:18] We're we're our team is not a bunch of bloggers just turning out content like they're writing real stories and it takes them a while to do the research and to write it out.

[00:13:27] You know, that can be frustrating to me, but that's OK. They do they do just excellent work.

[00:13:34] So you talked about how your how your staff lends itself to the trends and how in these neighborhoods of states or even same political leanings, you can start to see things bubble up.

[00:13:48] So in terms of twenty four, you know, what are the top five top three issues that you've seen just explode?

[00:13:55] Yeah, so I'll start with housing because I think this is this has been a year of tremendous big housing bills that have come out of everywhere from Colorado to Oregon to New Mexico, Washington and Florida did some stuff on housing last year.

[00:14:10] And, you know, people are coming to grips with the with the fact of this housing shortage that we face across the country.

[00:14:18] And they're doing things like preempting cities from from zoning certain neighborhoods as single family, which by the way is absolutely fascinating because I'm hearing from legislators who are hearing from mayors.

[00:14:31] The mayors will come to the legislators and say, please preempt me. And, you know, cities don't like to be preempted on anything.

[00:14:37] But if the state preempts the cities on zoning or housing within the states, the bad guy and not the city.

[00:14:43] And so the mayor gets to be, hey, you know, oh, my hands are tied. Nothing I can do. I just find that absolutely fascinating.

[00:14:48] So number one, number two is technology, whether it's, you know, youth privacy bills or requiring parental consent before you get on before a kid gets on social media networks.

[00:15:02] And then the big one that is starting this year, but certainly not going to finish this year is AI state.

[00:15:08] There's a group of 90 or 100 state legislators who are convenience. It's bipartisan, multi-state folks getting together talking about AI, trying to understand what it is and what government's role is in promoting, excuse me, promoting the industry or setting up the guardrails necessary around AI.

[00:15:29] And we hear from so many legislators who say we're doing this because Congress isn't and we can. And I just I love that spirit.

[00:15:38] And then the third effort, and this is this is much more of a long term thing and a long term shift that I've seen over my 10 or so years covering state legislatures.

[00:15:48] The overriding issue that undergirds absolutely every conversation I have with a legislator is about workforce.

[00:15:55] There are, you know, we know about the massive workforce shortages in, you know, high tech manufacturing or restaurants when you can't see the table because there's no waiter to take care of you.

[00:16:11] But these workforce shortages go across absolutely every element of society. I remember having this great conversation with Texas Senator Drew Springer, who was telling me about a new, I think it was a 300 bed mental health hospital that opened in his district in Wichita Falls.

[00:16:28] And he said, yeah, it's great, but we don't have the staff. What good is a 300 bed hospital if you can't open the front door?

[00:16:36] So that was, I mean, that that stuck with me. That was kind of a conversation I had two years ago and it's always stuck with me.

[00:16:41] The really interesting shift in this that I've seen is after starting this reporting sort of in the wake of the Great Recession, I heard so many governors talking about the businesses that they had recruited to their state.

[00:16:54] You know, some of these governors were bragging about bringing a dozen jobs to a city or state or something.

[00:17:00] And now I'm listening to governors bragging about bringing workers to their state.

[00:17:05] You know, there are campaigns from South Dakota and Michigan and Rhode Island and West Virginia that are meant to bring to like attract new people to their states.

[00:17:16] And it's a bipartisan thing. I just named two blue states and two red states.

[00:17:20] It's really fascinating to watch that shift where governors are now bragging about the people rather than the businesses.

[00:17:27] Well, in terms of the 24 legislative sessions, I think to date we have 27 still in, but we probably know what's coming down the pike for the election or 25 even now, even with those 27 still on today because I think we've got 23 there.

[00:17:50] They're signing died and done.

[00:17:53] For the election, what do you think lawmakers felt like they needed to take home to say that they did for the 24 election?

[00:18:04] That's an interesting framing to that question.

[00:18:08] I think the R's, the Republicans are going to go home and talk about education savings accounts, which was big last mostly last year in 2023.

[00:18:17] A few other states have done something this year.

[00:18:21] I think Democrats are going to go home and talk about things like broadband expansion, a number of these housing bills.

[00:18:30] I think both sides are going to talk about privacy, specifically youth privacy, protecting kids online.

[00:18:36] That's been sort of the big low-hanging bipartisan fruit though different states have approached it in different ways.

[00:18:42] And then we're going to see a lot of conversation around culture war issues.

[00:18:46] There's just no other way around it.

[00:18:49] So many states last year, specifically last year, took action on transgender rights, abortion rights or restrictions thereof.

[00:19:01] The red states were going one way, the blue states were going the other.

[00:19:05] I think we can already see it in what California Governor Gavin Newsom is doing and paying for these abortion rights ads that are airing in Alabama and elsewhere like that.

[00:19:16] And then just turn on Fox News and you can see what the R's are going to talk about quite a lot.

[00:19:22] I think you'll see now that I say it that way, I think you'll see a number of red states trying these sort of Texas style immigration laws that allow local law enforcement to pick up undocumented people.

[00:19:36] Those bills have already passed in Iowa, Alabama.

[00:19:40] Alabama? Yeah, it's Alabama.

[00:19:43] Florida had one last year, correct?

[00:19:45] It was one last year, but the Texas one is the sort of the foundational one that's being sued and it's being litigated in court right now.

[00:19:52] But I think you can expect a lot of red states to do that, to do immigration type legislation.

[00:19:59] So when I always think about where we end at the end of the spring, you know, recognizing that there are states that have a longer periods to work on big bills.

[00:20:08] But you usually know kind of what's going to be discussed over the interim and on these big national policy agendas over the summer.

[00:20:16] So and I always think about, you know, what was the camel's nose that got underneath the tent?

[00:20:22] Like what got through like one state that's going to go?

[00:20:27] Like last year, I thought housing, it hadn't really taken off.

[00:20:31] The mayors were talking about it, but no one had done a really big bill, maybe outside Florida.

[00:20:36] So in terms of like issues that we think will go next year, you know, what got through?

[00:20:42] What got inside the tent?

[00:20:45] Yeah. One thing that reminded me of this while you were asking this is a big part of my job is to manage the ebb and flow of the calendar.

[00:20:57] So when you think about what gets under the tent, it's like what did Iowa do in January?

[00:21:02] Because Iowa always gets off to a real hot start and then you sort of shift focus to Georgia in February and Florida in March.

[00:21:09] And, you know, California doesn't really become a thing until they do their their budget in May and then their end of session stuff in September.

[00:21:16] I just I love that.

[00:21:18] June. Yeah, it's like there's all every month.

[00:21:21] There's always a new state that I'm paying attention to.

[00:21:24] That keeps it sort of keeps it fresh for me.

[00:21:27] I point to last year and Iowa was the first to move on an education savings account.

[00:21:33] And it was, you know, it was the product of four or five years of work.

[00:21:37] But then they did the whole thing in two weeks.

[00:21:39] And that really kicked off, I think a lot of the other red states on education savings accounts.

[00:21:45] Yeah, you read.

[00:21:47] Reid, I love how you have set up the framework where the reporters are working on an issue and and and not by state.

[00:21:59] Very interesting and and I think very, very smart.

[00:22:03] So you're almost two years into it doing better than you thought.

[00:22:10] Tougher how two years in how what are your thoughts?

[00:22:16] Like you wish you were getting your paycheck from a W-2 again or right.

[00:22:22] Well, I wear a corporation.

[00:22:24] So I'm on the payroll.

[00:22:26] Yeah. Every now and then when I feel like paying myself.

[00:22:29] No, I'm just kidding.

[00:22:31] But I mean, the business side is hard.

[00:22:34] I mean, these are these are muscles I've never exercised before.

[00:22:37] So it's a learning process.

[00:22:40] I'm talking a lot more about, you know, financing terms and things like that than I thought I would be.

[00:22:46] But hey, it's new and exciting.

[00:22:48] You know, I had this I had another period in my in my career where I sort of felt felt like I was going through the paces and felt a little stuck.

[00:22:57] And my response then was to write a book.

[00:22:59] And this time it was to start a new business.

[00:23:02] So there are ways ways that I can exercise new muscles every now and then.

[00:23:08] And this has been this has been an exciting one.

[00:23:11] That is a fun epidemic book in twenty eighteen.

[00:23:15] It's right behind me.

[00:23:17] Yeah, yeah.

[00:23:19] And and what do you see as the same challenges going forward in the coming year as you've been working on?

[00:23:27] You know, the challenge that we face repeatedly is conveying the importance of the states to an audience to a to a group of advertisers who have been exclusively D.C. focused.

[00:23:40] People spend a lot of money advertising on this sort of the D.C. area newsletters.

[00:23:45] And I won't go into their their details, but they they, you know, they focus on D.C.

[00:23:52] And intellectually, everybody knows that they need to be focused on the states.

[00:23:56] If you go and win the million dollar lobbying fight in Phoenix or Boise or Austin, you're going to be in a much better position when it becomes a 50 million dollar lobbying fight here in D.C..

[00:24:07] However, every dollar you spend advertising in the states is a dollar that your board or your CEO doesn't see advertising in D.C..

[00:24:15] And that's been that's a that's a hurdle.

[00:24:17] And I think increasingly people are paying more attention to the states, spending more on the states because they know that that's how the foundation of future policy is is built.

[00:24:30] We just have to do the better job.

[00:24:32] One, introducing ourselves to those CEOs and board members and two, making sure they know that the states are going to be the important play.

[00:24:42] I do think that you've done an admirable job, you know, building relationships with state leaders themselves so that not only are you building audience with the end recipient, but, you know, you're building brand with national organizations like in CSL and CSJ.

[00:24:57] And you speak at those organizations so that you're both developing those source lines, but also the end user.

[00:25:05] But yeah, I mean, it's a huge that's I think that's probably why in 2022 that it's been this always this question for me.

[00:25:12] Why did it take so long for an operation like yours to even stand up?

[00:25:17] You know, when when the work has been increasing for over a decade, probably since the Great Recession, which you referenced.

[00:25:25] Yeah, and I mean, a big part of that is the hole in the market and the market is getting holier, if you will, as you know, capital news bureaus hollow out.

[00:25:34] When I was a kid, there were 20, 25 people covering the state legislature in Olympia.

[00:25:39] And now there are I think it's four and a half.

[00:25:42] So that tells me something about just where news outlets are cutting and they've got to they've got to cut somewhere.

[00:25:51] The advertising market has changed. They've made this decision to cut in the states.

[00:25:55] And, you know, I'm doing my darnedest to make sure that that those states get the attention they deserve.

[00:26:01] Let me be clear, by the way, I'm not going to solve the local news problem myself.

[00:26:05] Like, that's not that's not our goal. That's not our mission.

[00:26:08] I'm not I'm not smart enough to do that on my own.

[00:26:11] But it's you know, it's it's an area where where sunlight deserves to be.

[00:26:16] And so we're going to we're going to shine what we can on there.

[00:26:20] The White Foundation launched a trust in media and democracy initiative in 2018.

[00:26:26] I think their last big report was in 2020.

[00:26:29] But I do think that they, you know, launched up before covid not knowing it was coming.

[00:26:34] But trusted in the media was at an all time low.

[00:26:37] Trust in institutions was at an all time low.

[00:26:40] So from your vantage point, just someone who's been in the business so long, you know, where is the news in 10 years?

[00:26:48] How do policymakers receive news, receive information in not the so distant future?

[00:26:57] Yeah, boy, I don't know.

[00:27:01] You know, the newsletter business is good right now in that one of the things that I think we learned over the last decade that will continue to be true is that we need to be where our readers are.

[00:27:14] I can't I can't rely on a reader going to www dot player news dot com, you know, and finding the story that I need them to find.

[00:27:23] So I need to be I need to be in their inbox with my newsletter.

[00:27:26] I need to be in their social media feeds and the proliferating number of social media outlets that are out there.

[00:27:34] I don't know. Blue Sky was Blue Sky, the one that just shut down.

[00:27:37] You know, Twitter and Twitter X and all the all the mastodon and things like that threads LinkedIn, all this stuff.

[00:27:47] I have to be where you want to consume your news.

[00:27:50] I can't wait for you to come to me.

[00:27:52] And now that's going to evolve as the next big thing evolves.

[00:27:56] I will I will hazard the guess that the device that you read your news on in 10 years probably hasn't been invented yet.

[00:28:04] The device you read it on in two years may not have been invented yet.

[00:28:07] So will the companies that adapt to the the habits of their own consumers are the ones that are going to survive and thrive.

[00:28:18] And so we're trying we're doing our best to to be absolutely everywhere that one of our readers might be.

[00:28:25] Jamie got a question.

[00:28:32] No, I just think it's I couldn't agree more.

[00:28:35] It's you know, I love the local news, but you are seeing a lot less beat reporters in state capitals.

[00:28:43] You know, as state governments become more and more relevant in our lives and become, you know, just naturally bigger and bigger.

[00:28:51] We really need more reporting, not less.

[00:28:54] And yeah, and I think what you're saying about being in the inbox is just so critical because it's how we get our news now.

[00:29:01] You you you wake up and you have, you know, half a dozen newsletters that you're signed up for and you go through them.

[00:29:08] You check your social media.

[00:29:11] We still walk out to the curb and pick up, you know, a few newspapers.

[00:29:15] But, you know, you're noticing more and more that there's not newspapers at the end of every driveway.

[00:29:20] So it's, you know, which is similar to kind of what you were saying, read about going to a website.

[00:29:26] So, yeah, Maggie, do you want to start the lightning round?

[00:29:31] All right. We're going to do we're going to end this conversation with our lightning round.

[00:29:36] This this week's version will be named the state.

[00:29:40] I'm going to ask you about five to six questions for you.

[00:29:43] Name the state based on your reporting and knowledge of them.

[00:29:49] So the first question, the state that has taken on the biggest issue that got it through to enactment.

[00:29:57] I'm going to point to those housing bills, the Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon.

[00:30:06] Colorado's was the most substantial. I think they yeah, I'll stick with Colorado's housing bills.

[00:30:12] They failed to get through last year. They got through this year.

[00:30:16] I think that's going to be a model for other states.

[00:30:19] State with its biggest issue that has gotten hung up at the finish line.

[00:30:25] The biggest issue that's gotten hung up.

[00:30:30] You know, I don't think you can overstate just how much of a how much of a problem California's budget is going to be.

[00:30:39] They're facing billions of dollars in holes.

[00:30:42] And while they're in a much better position than they were a decade ago,

[00:30:46] That's still that's going to that's going to cause a lot of cuts and it's going to cause, you know,

[00:30:50] Governor Newsom and Speaker Rivas to cut back some programs that they didn't want to cut.

[00:30:57] State with the most volatility this session.

[00:31:02] I think you got to say Tennessee.

[00:31:05] No, actually, no, I'm going to I'm going to say Arizona.

[00:31:08] There are there are some extremely hard feelings on the floor in Arizona, especially over the last couple of weeks.

[00:31:14] They've had to deal with this 1864 abortion ban.

[00:31:19] I've seen some nasty fights on the floor.

[00:31:22] I don't this was just so deeply personal to so many people.

[00:31:28] And and the fact is, Arizona is a narrowly divided state that ours have the smallest possible majorities in the House and Senate.

[00:31:38] That I think that contributes a lot to the volatility to.

[00:31:42] State where the governor and the legislature work most effectively.

[00:31:46] I'd point to Washington. Jay Inslee has has a legislature that that he's known for a very long time.

[00:31:57] They get each other. They're in sync.

[00:32:02] Then again, you know, I also have to say Tennessee because in his seven years in office, Bill Lee has never vetoed a bill.

[00:32:08] So that's that's pretty interesting, too.

[00:32:11] But those two states, I'd point to those working the best together.

[00:32:16] You had to get your home state, of course, with Seattle and Washington state that is the most challenging to cover.

[00:32:29] A state in the Great Plains, whether it's.

[00:32:35] South Dakota is pretty tough. Wyoming's pretty tough in large part because the legislators are so part time that they that they're you know, they've got other lives.

[00:32:44] They've got other things to do rather than answer the answer the phone when I call.

[00:32:48] So, you know, not to the it's not their fault, but those are hard states to cover when they when they just don't don't get back to the quarter.

[00:32:57] They don't have phones because they don't have offices.

[00:32:59] So it makes sense that you can't reach them.

[00:33:02] And last one state that is most fun to cover.

[00:33:06] Oh, I mean, they're they're all fun to cover.

[00:33:09] I had to say that. I mean, California's a kick.

[00:33:11] I go out there about once a year. I love I love Sacramento.

[00:33:14] I think it's fantastic. My father-in-law is in Phoenix and actually the speed he lives in the Speaker's District.

[00:33:20] So I go chat with the speaker there all the time.

[00:33:23] You know, I love my home state of Washington.

[00:33:26] I think the politics in Oregon are fascinating.

[00:33:29] Iowa runs really well and they're very responsive.

[00:33:32] And every every state has its has its benefits.

[00:33:36] And I can't pick a favorite.

[00:33:38] Well, Reid, thank you for the time.

[00:33:41] It's always so fun to chat and pick your brain.

[00:33:44] Jimmy, want to close this out?

[00:33:46] Yeah, Reid, that was great.

[00:33:47] Thank you very much.

[00:33:48] Thank you very much.

[00:33:49] And we will provide the links and the show notes so that listeners can go check you out and check out the newsletter.

[00:33:56] And for our listeners out there, thank you for joining us.

[00:34:00] And here we go with the new season and the new co-host Maggie.

[00:34:04] She's doing great.

[00:34:06] And I hope you all have a great week and see you next Monday.