Shawn Fleetwood writes for the Federalist about efforts to root out bureaucratic waste in governments run by conservative elected officials.
The general political consensus is that, because a state is run by Republicans, it’s automatically governed better than Democrat-run states. And while that may be true in some areas of public policy, in others, the situation is just as bad.
It was that realization that spawned the State Leadership Initiative (SLI). Launched in February 2025 by an alliance of conservative leaders, SLI embarked on a mission to root out bureaucratic malfeasance in Republican-run states. In essence, it sought to ensure that red states are actually governed like red states.
Now, a year after its creation, SLI is sounding the alarm that the bureaucratic sabotage of conservative governance in these Republican-run states isn’t simply bad. It’s worse than originally thought.
“We thought that there were a lot of structural problems that the conservative movement hadn’t been able to get around to yet. And that all turned out to be true, and way truer than I even believed at the time,” SLI Founder and President Noah Wall told The Federalist.
The problems infecting red-state governments quickly became evident in the months following SLI’s launch.
The conservative group released a “Shadow Government” report uncovering how left-wing bureaucracies are undercutting conservative priorities in GOP-run states. The analysis more specifically noted how “national associations of state officials,” which often masquerade themselves as “nonpartisan” while advancing “progressive governance,” accomplish this goal by issuing “policy templates, draft[ing] regulations, broker[ing] federal grants, and shap[ing] the internal culture of government agencies.”
Among the organizations flagged in the report are the Environmental Council of States, National Association of Medicaid Directors, and National School Boards Association. The latter group gained nationwide fame in 2021 after it practically begged the Biden administration to use domestic terrorism laws to target parents protesting against racial indoctrination and unscientific Covid policies at school board meetings.
