NCSL / 2015 Legislative Summit

Enjoy a dialogue between legislators and Medicaid officials from two states about promising practices, challenges, and opportunities to reform Medicaid to make it more efficient and effective.

Do defined benefit plans provide a better bang for states' pension benefit buck or do defined contribution plans deliver comparable retirement income at the same cost?

Officials of the Seattle Police Department discuss their pilot program on body-worn cameras. See use of cameras, view video records and learn about and discuss the potential benefits and drawbacks of body-worn cameras in addressing public confidence in policing.

As states move forward with medical and adult-use recreational marijuana policies, the struggle intensifies among federal, state and local governments for control of marijuana law. Learn about the legal issues associated with intergovernmental marijuana authority and enforcement; and hear about interstate litigation and states' rights.

This session provided an overview of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent term, and decisions in several cases with implications for states and states' rights.

The Supreme Court has spoken and decisions again rest with the states. Find out how a growing number are seeking flexibility and experimenting in several areas by changing, limiting or expanding Medicaid, by including market-based health insurance approaches and other alternatives. Learn what's happening next with health exchanges. Hear state experts discuss how some may seek waivers to take a different approach in addressing coverage, cost and quality.

Jon Meacham is the New York Times best-selling author of "Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power" in which he paints a portrait of Jefferson as a flawed, contradictory, elusive man who embodies an eternal drama—and one we confront today: The struggle of leadership to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world.

Piper Kerman is the best-selling author of "Orange is the New Black," which was made into award-winning Netflix series. She discusses her first-hand experience as a convicted drug offender, and her ideas about rehabilitation, re-entry services and other corrections and sentencing policies.

William Kristol is a commentator and analyst and the founder and editor of the political magazine The Weekly Standard. He spoke to the GOP breakfast Thursday at the 2015 Legislative Summit.

Economist Christopher Thornberg discusses the trends affecting the U.S. economy.

Gretchen Onstad, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington. She is an environmental chemist who utilizes analytical chemistry to characterize sources of pollution, to study human exposure to environmental pollution and to examine control measures for preventing exposure.

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is the only person in U.S. history to be asked to remain in that office by a newly elected president. President Barack Obama was the eighth president Gates served. He previously served under President George W. Bush. On Gates' last day in office, Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor. An Eagle Scout and president of the Boy Scouts of America, Gates is the author of "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," a profoundly personal story and an insightful look into two administrations and the wars that defined them.

Andy Jassy is a senior vice president and leads the Amazon Web Services business (AWS) and the Technology Infrastructure organization for Amazon.com. AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides software developers and businesses with cloud-based infrastructure services. AWS has grown tremendously since its inception in 2006 and is now the underlying infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of businesses around the world from start-ups to enterprises to government agencies.

Brian Baird is president of Antioch University Seattle and a former member of Congress. Baird, a psychologist, regularly teaches professional development courses to attorneys and judges on the topics of communications, ethics and the psychology of persuasion.

Johnnye Lewis, Ph.D., is a professor at the College of Pharmacy, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. She directs the Community Environmental Health Program. Lewis is a toxicologist and the principal investigator for the Navajo Birth Cohort Study, a community driven study on the relationship of uranium exposures, birth outcomes and child development on Navajo Nation.

Charles Stewart III is a political science professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one of the co-directors of the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project. He has recently researched the effects of absentee and early voting in terms of their impact on voters, election administration and turnout. In August 2015, Stewart spoke with NCSL about early voting and more. In this three-minute video, he says that early voting is used by regular voters more than by occasional voters, and that overall turnout does not change based on the availability of early voting options.

David Becker directs The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Election Initiatives. He supervises work in election administration, including research and reform efforts to improve military and overseas voting; assess election performance through better data; use technology to provide voters with information they need to cast a ballot; and upgrade voter registration systems. In this role, Becker testifies before state legislatures and other government entities, presents at relevant conferences, serves as a media resource, and identifies and implements partnerships.
In this interview, Becker talks about how states can improve their voter registration systems, what trends have developed in voter registration over the past year, and what to expect in the future as the country approaches a presidential election year.

David Osterberg, MS, MA, is a clinical professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Iowa in the College of Public Health. He is director of the Research Translation Core of the Superfund Research Program at the university. He works on Water resources, renewable energy and superfund chemicals, translating science into public policy.

Elena Craft, Ph.D., is an expert on air toxics issues, focusing specifically on reducing criteria and greenhouse gas emissions from the energy and transportation sectors. She has worked to reduce emissions especially around port areas and environmental justice communities. She has also worked to reduce toxics used in shale gas drilling practices such as hydraulic fracturing. She has been an integral strategist in designing and initiating comprehensive clean air measures, as well as in developing standards to measure environmental performance. Her efforts have led to the creation of clean truck programs in Houston and other ports around the Southeast.

Erin Haynes, DrPH, MS is an associate professor in the Division of Epidemiology, Department of Environmental Health in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Her primary research interest is to work with communities, particularly those in rural Eastern Ohio, to understand their exposure to environmental toxicants through research and education. Specific research interests include evaluating health outcomes in children resulting from exposure to multiple metals, such as lead and manganese, and secondhand tobacco smoke, and investigating the potential exposures related to unconventional natural gas drilling.

Robin Fuchs-Young, Ph.D., is a professor in the College of Medicine and the Institute of Biosciences and Technology at the Texas A&M Health Science Center of Texas A&M University. Her laboratory research program focuses on mechanisms of breast cancer development, particularly the interaction of genetic susceptibilities and environmental/dietary risk factors that contribute to aggressive forms of this disease. The scope of Dr. Fuchs-Young’s research also includes breast cancer health disparities and the bio-physiological mechanisms underlying disproportionately poor outcomes in women of color. She is a member of the editorial board for Endocrinology.

Former State Representative Ted Celeste is the founder and director of the Next Generation initiative, a project of the National Institute for Civil Discourse. This initiative aims to cultivate a culture where discourse and collaboration typify public policy development.