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.
Identifying the Problems
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.
“These are networks of bureaucrats that are coordinating between [states like] California, New York, and Illinois in standardizing and creating best practices that are highly political and left-wing [and] that are controlling how red state governments operate,” Wall said. “These associations are all political. They’re all incredibly left leaning, and they’re using their power as bureaucrats to rig the rules of how government programs are run.”
SLI followed up its Shadow Government report with a 2025 index ranking states on a variety of policy areas (“governance,” “economic vitality,” and “cultural strength”). The group discovered that while red states differed on major issues (ex. gun rights and tax policy) from their blue counterparts, the implementation of such policies “often operate within a [left-wing] framework that remains fundamentally unchanged.”
Wall noted that the types of alliances outlined in SLI’s reports often fly under the radar because many conservatives don’t even realize they exist. He contrasted this dynamic with conservative-led efforts in recent years to push better tax and pro-life policies in red states, and said that while progress in these areas has been “amazing,” the lack of focus on the leftist infiltration of red-state bureaucracies has allowed the problem to thrive.
“It’s been our goal to make this an entire movement priority because it’s something that pretty much the entire movement agrees on,” Wall said. “The bureaucratic control that the left has is a huge problem … and so we’re trying to give [the conservative movement] a laser-focused strategy for [combatting] this.”
Applying the Solutions and Encountering Challenges
At the same time it was helping identify this bureaucratic bloat, the State Leadership Initiative’s team of activists were working alongside officials in its five inaugural states to help implement solutions addressing such problems, according to Wall.
SLI partnered with the governor’s offices in Indiana and West Virginia to pinpoint state boards and commissions that promoted DEI and other left-wing ideologies that ran counter to the will of Republican voters. These governors then purportedly took SLI’s recommendations and shepherded them into legislation that ultimately passed and have since become law.
According to a press release from Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s office, for example, the SLI-backed bill in West Virginia “eliminated 25 state board and commissions that were either redundant or barely met.”
Wall said that a “combined result of more than 100 boards and commissions are being shut down and reformed” across the two states “as a result of our recommendations to them.” He added that SLI is also working alongside its allies (like the State Freedom Caucus Network and American Legislative Exchange Council) in its other target states to enact similar reforms.
While SLI has enjoyed its early successes, it’s also run into its share of challenges, however,
Wall told The Federalist that while governor’s offices and state freedom caucus legislators have been “tremendous” and receptive to SLI’s efforts, the reality is that “every state has a swamp” that is resistant to reforming or cutting bureaucratic organizations that “have a lot of institutional power.” He noted that such lack of cooperation has made it difficult to unravel longstanding problems and fix “associations that are probably necessary but are engaging in … policies that are against the goals of these states.”
“Tackling some of these organizations has been challenging because these are big organizations that have a lot of institutional inertia behind them,” Wall said. “So, that’s sort of been the problem in dealing with the state swamp and some of the state legislators in each of these states. But that kind of gives you an idea of the power that these [bureaucratic associations] have.”
The Year Ahead
Beyond identifying bureaucratic associations in need of reform or cutting, Wall said SLI is looking to expand its reach into more red states across the country throughout the next year.
The group has already established a working relationship with the Louisiana Department of Health and is working on putting “together a program” with recommendations on which left-wing associations “to withdraw from,” according to Wall. SLI also recently held a “kickoff call” with the Missouri Republican Party and is similarly developing a blueprint “to partner with their executive offices” on such efforts in the Show-Me State.
The SLI founder said the group’s game plan for the next year also includes developing these individualized programs and recommendations for red states where there will likely be new Republican leadership. Citing freedom caucus and conservative candidates running for governor in Arizona and Alabama, he noted that the idea is to “hand them a playbook and say, ‘This meets your goals,’ and ‘Here’s a way to tackle this issue straight off the bat.'”
“Getting [these new governors] briefed and getting the toolkits ready for them to be able to execute executive orders to withdraw from the shadow government organizations or to commit to reforming them is going to be a critical measure of success,” Wall said. “A lot of this can be done through executive order. We don’t need to get 51 votes in a state legislature that requires a ton of lobbying. We can just go to a governor’s office; we can convince their team of the [issue’s] importance and the political win that can be involved in doing this.”
“States all pay for these associations themselves, and so it can save the taxpayer substantial amount of money,” he added.
