Our Blog + Latest News
LPNC member Mario Benavente speaks with a local elected on the ground in Nashville at a LP event in Nashville, TN.

LPNC State Download 📣 | Protecting local democracy, funding public schools, & more! | June 2024

This quarter’s LPNC newsletter shares statewide updates, calls-to-action, and LP network updates.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) building in Washington, DC.

As FTC non-compete case is heard in federal court in Texas, Texas local electeds are standing up for everyday workers

A dozen local electeds in Texas are making their voices heard as the FTC non-compete case is heard in a federal court in Texas next month.

📬 LP Network Download | Leveraging federal funds, SCOTUS case, increasing affordable housing & more! | May 2024

Here’s a look at some of what’s happening across the Local Progress network this month.
Photo of LPTX members, parters, and potential new members standing in front of a sign that says "San Antonio" at the 2024 TX PGA.

LPTX State Download 📣 | Fighting for immigrant justice & reproductive rights for all Texans! | May 2024

Summer’s around the corner! See what’s coming up for our LPTX Chapter and how you can get involved in 2024!

Local Progress Members Demand New Approach To Transit Funding In New York

15 Local Progress members across New York sent a letter to Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins and Speaker Heastie, advocating for the passage A4120/S1981. The bills would direct the state Department of Transportation (DOT) to reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) by 20% by 2050.
Photo: Josh Katz| The state should no longer design roads where pedestrians are just an afterthought, like this entrance to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

New York Pols Back Gounardes’s Bill to Cut Driving by 20%

For decades, transit planners have widened roads and expanded highways as cities have grown. But these interventions have only increased traffic and worsened pollution. LP members in New York wrote to legislative leaders demanding state DOT take a new approach to planning.
People working together in a community garden (photo credit: Canva)

Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity for Local Leaders to Leverage Nearly Unlimited Federal Funds

We just released a new resource with our friends at the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center to help you take advantage of a once-in-a-generation federal funding opportunity!

LPNY State Download 🗽 | Housing, environmental, immigration work & more! | May 2024

This edition of the Local Progress New York newsletter covers our end-of-session legislative push and budget roundup!

LP Stands with Students and Condemns the Violent Suppression of Free Speech

As a network of local elected officials, we stand in solidarity with students calling for peace and denounce the use of law enforcement or carceral threats to quell discourse and dissent.

📬 LP Network Download | Taking action against criminalization, EATS Act, big labor win, job postings & more! | April 2024

Here’s a look at some of what’s happening across the Local Progress network this month.

LP School Board Download 📚 | New steering committee members, removing SROs, attacks on DEI, & more! | April 2024

Time for our school board newsletter. This month, we’re sharing the latest news and resources around the fight to remove police from schools, DEI debates, and advocating for strong, equitable public schools across the country.
A group of people listening to a presentation

Governing While Black: How the LP Black Caucus is Supporting Black Electeds Across the Country

Earlier this Month in Nashville, more than 20 Black leaders came together for the first-ever LP Black Caucus Convening. The group – which represented localities big and small, at all levels of local government – discussed what it means to govern while Black and how we can harness that collective power for transformative change.

Have a Media Inquiry?

Local Progress is a movement of local elected officials advancing a racial and economic justice agenda through all levels of local government. We are elected leaders who build power with underrepresented communities and fight to reshape what is possible in our localities all across the country. 

Want to get in touch with us for a story? Reach us at press@localprogress.org.

In The News

At Local Progress, we seek to make the aspirational pragmatic by showing how government can be a tool to create just and equitable outcomes and reshaping peoples’ understanding of governing from an institution to a collective responsibility. Here are some highlights of our media coverage:

A graphic shows a large magnet pulling away money from a human's pockets (Getty Images | Retrieved from Minnesota Reformer)

Rigged: Corporate behemoths are using junk fees and technology to keep prices high

Algorithmic price fixing has played a significant role in double-digit rent increases across the country. These inflated rents are exacerbated by consolidation in local housing markets that leads to both higher rates of eviction and higher profits for landlords.
An artist's rendering of the planned residential development at The Heights, a mixed-use development slated to bring 1,000 living wage jobs,1,000 affordable housing units, and strong environmental benefits to Saint Paul's East Side. (Image by LHB Corp)

Minnesota’s New Green Bank Is Powering a Net-Zero, Mixed-Use Development With Affordable Housing

St. Paul is tapping Inflation Reduction Act funds and the state’s new green bank to turn an abandoned golf course into a large-scale mixed-use development. Plus, it all runs on geothermal energy.
A construction worker carrying a large piece of wood in the hot sun with their face and body mostly covered up. (Photo courtesy Ivette Carolina Agudelo-Lopez + Yerba Buena Engineering & Construction, Inc)

Cities Want To Give Worker’s Heat Breaks. States Are Stopping Them.

As the climate heats up, LP's LiJia Gong makes the case that abusive state preemption is prohibiting localities addressing climate change.
Small child receiving medical care reaching out from a bed (Photo by Dzulhaidy Abdul Rahim / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

I’m the Mayor of St. Paul. Here’s How Our City Is Erasing $100 Million in Medical Debt.

More and more local governments are using federal funds to relieve residents’ medical debt. Mayor of Saint Paul Melvin Carter explains why it's a simple, straightforward way to meet our communities’ needs.

press Releases

After Grants Pass: organizing to house all our neighbors

In response to the Supreme Court's cruel decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, we will continue to organize for housing for all.

Local Progress Condemns Cruel Supreme Court Decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, Local Progress put out the following statement.

180+ State and Local Elected Officials Urge Congress to Reject the EATS Act

LP and the State Innovation Exchange (SiX) released letters calling on Congress to protect local and state governments ability to create policy that is responsive to the issues their own communities face in the agricultural industry. 

Local Leaders Denounce Senate Deal That Would Gut Asylum

In response to the Senate’s proposed border deal that would gut asylum in exchange for foreign military spending, Local Progress released this statement.

📬 LP Network Download | Traffic safety, ceasefire, history in Minnesota, & more! | January 2024

Here’s a look at some of what’s happening across the Local Progress network this month.