accountability mandates contained in the federal act. As long as the amount of money
appropriated for NCLB is “‘not even in the ballpark’ of what’s needed for true school reform
programs and accountability..” states will be faced with the politically painful choice of refusing
to abide by federal requirements, and thus forego federal aid, or raising additional state and local
revenues in the face of continuing opposition to higher taxes.
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The combined challenges of Medicaid, K-12 education, and pensions coupled with the
labor market pull for higher education and the rising tide of drug abuse all create huge pressures
on state officials to find sufficient revenues. If the nation’s economy grows and consumer
spending proceeds at a robust pace, then states and localities may well see a significant rise in
revenues from sales and income taxes. However, the pressure to return public services to their
pre-crisis levels will collide with the relentless demands to lower taxes made by anti-government
groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Tax Reform. No wonder NCSL executive
director Bill Pound said “The 2005 sessions will pose challenges for legislators across America.
With the federal government reducing payments for its share of Medicaid, and the continued
fiscal strain of No Child Left Behind, there aren’t many dollars left unspoken for in states.”
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Election Administration
The administration of elections in the United States is a responsibility of state
governments, and decisions by state officials, as the nation discovered in 2000, have the potential
to shape the national outcome. Election officials perform many tasks; for example, they oversee
new voter registration, decide where to locate polling places, select voting equipment, make
available absentee ballots, determine voter eligibility, and count the votes. The secretaries of
state who are the chief administrators of elections are not neutral civil servants, instead they are
political party members. Because they may be active in their party’s campaigns, their decisions
are sometimes seen as biased by the other party, and it is not unusual for some of their decisions
Convention