(Source: MIRS.news, Published 12/09/2024) State legislatures across the nation have seen an "explosion of lobbying" as gridlock sets in on Washington D.C. The upshot, as the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) sees it, is more bills regarding budget, workforce, technology, housing and education issues for 2025.

NCSL CEO Tim Storey said he had seen an increase in lobbying groups because of the gridlock that has happened in the nation's capital, forcing the policy to be dealt with at the state level. 

"Whatever your issue is, if you want to effect change, and you think you've got a good solution for whatever it is - education, transportation, how elections are run – you're going to have to make that change in the states, that's where change happens," Storey said.

He said Congress has passed a total of 100 pieces of legislation over the past two years with very few of those being consequential. Most have been the renaming of federal buildings and issuing coins.

"The strategies are very sophisticated, including the use of initiative as a tool in those states that allow that," he said.

Michigan is one of the 24 states that have a citizen initiative process.

Storey said of all the overarching issues faced by state legislatures, the top of mind would be the budget.

He said 2025 could see some financial stress start creeping in to the revenue growth and a small number of states could start to see shortfalls. An even smaller number of states could see some growth, because of a booming population.

"I think this is the year that state budgets are tight," he said.

Less money, less room for new programs and less money to throw at the problems that come after the budget.

"Stop me if you've heard this before, but I think workforce continues to be this underlying issue, because it cuts across every field," he said.

He said the labor shortage continued with 1.7 job openings for every one person looking for a job. 

The entire argument surrounding immigration could also exacerbate the issue if President-elect Donald Trump were able to follow through with his campaign promise of mass deportations.

"If there's a big drawdown of the workforce, it could have – because people are being sent out of the country – a huge impact on states. Legislators are talking about it on both sides of the aisle and sort of waiting to see what exactly happens in Washington," Storey said.

The third of the top five items was technological problems surrounding artificial intelligence, social media, cybersecurity and electric vehicles.

While electric vehicles have been top of mind for many in Michigan, AI has been lurking in the background. Storey said it wasn't just because it was the latest, greatest shiny bauble either.

"Frankly, there's certainly a contingent of lawmakers who are concerned about what we don't even understand and know about the implementation of AI and its continued pervasiveness in our daily lives," he said.

AI also makes cybersecurity a bigger issue, along with privacy issues.

"Cybersecurity, man, that just never goes away. The stakes seem to get higher. I think we've built 1,000 better mouse traps, and the mouse just keeps coming up with a new way to get after us on cybersecurity," Storey said.

Another stubborn issue that he pointed at below technology was the issue of housing, which Michigan has been pursuing.

On par with housing, he put up education.

"Legislators will be spending a great deal of time continuing to look at public education in the wake of the pandemic and what happened with learning," he said.

He saw Republicans continuing to push the expansion of school of choice vouchers.

He cited the tsunami of retiring Baby Boomers that would impact several of the top issues, including housing, the budget and the last of the areas in the economy.

He said the tariff threat from Trump could have massive impacts on the overall state welfare of the budget, workforce and economics. He said right now there was a lot of rhetoric, but not a lot of action.

"So, there's a big wait and see, but there's a high cognition that this change at the federal level could have a substantial major impact in the states," he said.

In terms of recession, he said in 2023 that 37 of the top 38 economists said there was more than a 95 percent chance of one during that year, and some even carried that prediction over into 2024. 

"So, woe to the person who tries to predict what the economy will do next year, but I don't see explosive growth in the economy with some of these cross pressures," Storey said.