During the month of July, the State Oversight Academy team traveled more than 7,000 miles across the United States — more than the circumference of the moon — to talk about oversight in state legislatures at regional conferences for the Council of State Governments. CSG’s regional conferences are some of our favorites every year. For people who spend most of their time working with very different legislative institutions across the entire country, it is a special treat to get smart, thoughtful people from many states — and many parts of their governments — together in a single room.
This year, our CSG travels took us to Portland, OR; White Sulphur Springs, WV; Columbus, OH; and Baltimore, MD. It was our pleasure to lead sessions on legislative oversight at three of those four conferences for legislators, staff, and other state government aficionados.
Conversations and sessions were lively and included fiscal oversight, prison operations monitoring, and big-picture examinations on how legislatures can best leverage their oversight authority in pursuit of facts. We love hearing from legislators about their oversight work. We love sharing best practices nationwide within committees, audit reports, and the impactful legislation resulting from coordinated, bipartisan oversight efforts. Most of all, we love hearing about what people learn from Levin Center workshops. Across the political spectrum and the nation, from Concord to Sacramento, we hear legislative oversight “opens up a whole new world” and “changes the game” in legislatures. Of course, we could not agree more!
As we buckle up for an election season and another busy year in more states, we’re so glad to have had the opportunity to spread the good news about oversight, experience wonderful hospitality in four very special places, and get to know people from across the country this summer.
And the good news is, if you’re ready to open a whole new world and change the game in your own institution, you don’t even have to wait until next summer; we’ll come to you!
