Regardless of who wins and who loses this November, Congress and the president are going to have to move fast if they want to avoid sequestration. But just what is sequestration and how will it impact states? To answer that question, NCSL’s Jon Kuhl sat down with NCSL Senior Federal Affairs Counsel Michael Bird. Michael is a fiscal policy expert, and is the committee director of the NCSL Budgets and Revenue Committee.

Learn more about about NCSL’s America’s Legislators Back to School program and read an article about the program from The Huffington Post.
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Turn on any cable news channel and you’re likely to see pundits dissecting the latest from the Obama and Romney campaigns. But you’re unlikely to hear about the 6,052 state legislative seats also up for election this year. That’s 82 percent of our nation’s state legislators. To get an overview of this year’s statehouse elections, NCSL’s Jon Kuhl spoke with NCSL elections expert Tim Storey. Tim is a nationally recognized elections expert and is frequently quoted by local and national newspapers, including USA Today and the National Journal.

Current party control of state legislatures can be found on NCSL’s StateVote page. And for more pre-election coverage of state legislative races and ballot issues, look for the October/November issue of NCSL’s State Legislatures magazine.
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In August, NCSL’s Immigrant Policy Project released a report showing that in the first half of 2012, lawmakers in 41 states enacted 206 bills and resolutions dealing with immigration. That’s a 20 percent drop from the same period last year, but still very much a hot issue, and not one that’s going away anytime soon. Shortly after the report’s release, NCSL’s Jon Kuhl sat down with the co-chairs of the NCSL Immigration and the States Task Force: Virginia Senator John Watkins (R) and Washington Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos (D).
 

This week’s Statecast focuses on the issue of hunger in America. NCSL’s Jon Kuhl sits down with the NCSL Foundation’s Hunger Partnership co-chairs, Georgia Senator Renee Unterman and Pennsylvania Representative Dwight Evans. The discussion on hunger continues with a look series of focus groups conducted to learn more about Americans’ attitudes toward hunger.