The Overton Window

‘Make the case for reform’ Feb 21, 2025

Meagan Forbes and Lee McGrath advance occupational licensing reform

‘The people do have a voice — it's called the legislature’ Feb 07, 2025

Badger Institute’s Patrick McIlheran discusses citizen-led referenda

‘You’ve got to get it in writing’ Jan 24, 2025

Scott Tillman discusses putting term limits on U.S. Congress

‘Playing with taxpayer money’ Jan 10, 2025

Jon Riches investigates government violations of gift clauses

‘Not just a healthcare issue’ Dec 20, 2024

Layal Bou Harfouch on bringing empathy into drug policy

‘Stories change the culture’ Dec 06, 2024

Bob Ewing on mastering the art of public speaking

'Hold the powerful accountable’ Nov 22, 2024

Dave Bondy breaks down the ever-shifting landscape of political journalism

‘Protect the reliability of the grid’ Nov 08, 2024

Jon Sanders discusses the feasibility of renewable energy in North Carolina

‘When the government selects who wins, everyone loses’ Oct 25, 2024

Michigan Rising Action’s Abby Mitch on holding elected officials accountable

‘We have to fight for the commanding heights of American culture’ Oct 11, 2024

American Culture Project’s John Tillman on winning through upstream engagement

‘There’s a bigger strategy at play’ Sep 27, 2024

Angela Erickson on project management’s role in ending home equity theft

‘I want an economic system that pulls billions out of poverty’ Sep 13, 2024

Josh Bandoch on persuading the left and the right to help America’s poor

‘Everybody’s got to read my book and believe it’ Aug 30, 2024

Bryan Caplan on using graphic novels to change housing policy

‘We’re putting a face and a name on the issue’ Aug 16, 2024

Elizabeth Stelle on winning more school choice in a purple state

‘Certificate of Need laws are a public policy failure’ Aug 02, 2024

Alisdair Whitney on the battles to remove barriers to entry for healthcare providers

‘I was so distraught; I felt like I had to do something’ Jul 19, 2024

Basanta Adhikari on moving the Overton Window in Nepal

‘You have to have a critical mass of people who care about it’ Jul 05, 2024

Mike Reitz on political strategy and public policy

‘If the Soviets hate this Milton Friedman guy then he must be good’ Jun 21, 2024

Matt Mitchell on switching economic systems from socialism to capitalism

‘In the past three years, we’ve made more advancements on school choice than in the preceding three decades’ Jun 07, 2024

Corey DeAngelis on The Parent Revolution

‘If we got to Mach 3, 4, 5…then trillions of dollars could get unlocked’ May 24, 2024

Eli Dourado on the hard problems facing hard technology

‘There’s so much we can learn from polls’ May 10, 2024

Erin Norman on measuring progress and setting strategy through polling

‘There’s a wide-open Overton Window, and a lot of people have ideas’ Apr 26, 2024

Jason Hayes on how federal and state forests are managed

‘If you can make them laugh, they’ll remember things’ Apr 12, 2024

Shoshana Weissmann on policy advocacy on social media

‘The only way you’re going to get involved is by being involved’ Mar 29, 2024

Luke Derheim on volunteering on political campaigns

‘Basically it was a free market wish list’ Mar 15, 2024

Kendall Cotton on major policy wins in Montana

‘It’s a policy shift but also a cultural shift’ Mar 01, 2024

M. Nolan Gray on the battles for less restrictive housing regulation

‘This is the unholy intersection of Hollywood and politics’ Feb 09, 2024

Jacob Whiton and Greg LeRoy on state film subsidies

‘The dealers are protecting themselves, not protecting consumers’ Jan 26, 2024

Dan Crane on the fight for direct sales of vehicles

‘There’s no good outcome here’ Jan 12, 2024

Brian Riedl on what it will take to avoid catastrophic federal debt

‘I just think that’s a success, right?’ Dec 15, 2023

Sarah Curry on letting voters know what debts they’re being asked to approve

‘They can embrace radical policies with no repercussions’ Dec 01, 2023

Paul Gessing on the fight to keep gasoline-powered vehicle sales legal in New Mexico

‘Our civilization, our democracy, our society depend on that’ Nov 17, 2023

Alexandra Hudson on the Soul of Civility

‘That is what makes health care so different from every other sector of the economy’ Nov 03, 2023

Brian Blase on putting the customer back in the health care system

‘The moral argument is what wins’ Oct 20, 2023

Jimmy Walker on raising funds by making a better case for free-market ideas

‘We have to protect the parents who trust their kids with some independence’ Oct 06, 2023

Lenore Skenazy on the Let Grow Project

‘Thirty to forty years ago, this was actually a debatable question. Now that we have the data in hand it’s much less debatable’ Sep 22, 2023

Robert Lawson on the Economic Freedom of the World Index and improvements in economic liberty

‘If that sounds outrageous and corrupt, it’s because it is’ Sep 08, 2023

Pat Garofalo works to prevent lawmakers from signing nondisclosure agreements about business subsidy negotiations

‘Now it’s simply referred to as the Overton Window, as if everyone knows what it is’ Aug 25, 2023

Larry Reed and Joe Lehman on the Overton Window and Joe Overton

‘The power of these policies is to individualize education for children’ Aug 11, 2023

Jon England on supporting the changes in the education marketplace

‘This is my home and I’m going to fight for this thing’ Jul 28, 2023

Matt Paprocki on making a difference in Illinois policy

‘They say it adds up to real money’ Jul 14, 2023

Sheng Li on reinvigorating the separation of powers through lawsuits

‘Sometimes cynical explanations are the correct ones’ Jun 30, 2023

Chris Douglas on stadium subsidies

‘Argument is the great source of political power’ Jun 16, 2023

George Will on changing minds over 50 years of column-writing and how the Overton Window shifted in baseball

‘The federal government has stepped in and broken the market’ Jun 02, 2023

Preston Cooper on his plan to change federal college aid

‘The Great Depression pushed relegalization into the Overton Window’ May 19, 2023

Jason Taylor on the social changes that led to Prohibition and its repeal

‘It’s focused on destroying credibility instead of dealing with facts’ May 05, 2023

Jarrett Skorup on persuasion in the political debate

‘I think that’s a little bit of political cowardice’ Apr 21, 2023

Jon Sanders on putting bounds on the administrative state

‘A conservationist is an environmentalist with a chainsaw’ Apr 07, 2023

Rich Bowman on Practical Environmentalism

‘I didn’t think courts had that ability, and I still don’t’ Mar 24, 2023

Alisha, friend of the Overton Window Podcast, wants to know about the state Supreme Court

‘They delivered on what they said they were going to do’ Mar 10, 2023

John Hendrickson on the big changes made in Iowa

‘I don’t appear to have any effect at all on most Republican office holders but I’m not going to stop trying’ Feb 24, 2023

Tucker Carlson on daily political commentary

‘Decarbonization has really thrown a wrench into the gears’ Feb 10, 2023

Jason Hayes on the Overton Window for electricity regulation

‘It’s the message that hopefully I can carry on behalf of Michigan families’ Jan 27, 2023

Beth DeShone on issue lobbying

‘It’s not like the auto industry ever wanted something from the state government and didn’t get it’ Jan 13, 2023

Dawson Bell on changes to Michigan’s political landscape

‘What we have now is a system that’s run by politicians, and it works poorly’ Dec 16, 2022

Bob Poole on the steps taken toward his goal of a better transportation system

‘That’s the art form and that’s what I love about it’ Dec 02, 2022

Henry Payne on editorial cartoons

‘It just shows the power of small things to make big impacts’ Nov 18, 2022

Todd Myers on his book, Time to Think Small

‘There is a misconception that elections are about convincing people on issues. ... Elections are how we keep score on issues.’ Nov 04, 2022

Adrian Hemond on campaigning and what it means for next year’s policy

‘We’re going to give every kid the option to pursue the best education possible’ Oct 21, 2022

Matt Beienburg on scholarship accounts for all students and the future of education in Arizona

‘How is this policy tough on crime if they’re not charging people with crimes?’ Oct 07, 2022

Jarrett Skorup on the move to put strings on civil asset forfeiture

‘It’s really great to see that states are prioritizing cutting taxes instead of just growing government’ Sep 23, 2022

Jonathan Williams on political benchmarking and the rush to flat income taxes

‘There’s a tax break industrial complex that’s got everybody hornswoggled’ Sep 09, 2022

Greg LeRoy lays out the Overton Window on selective business subsidies

‘In today’s world your email address and your cell phone numbers are digital currency’ Aug 26, 2022

Ryan Green and Austin Berg on persuading people to reject progressive income taxes

‘I know this from the colorful mail I receive from readers’ Aug 12, 2022

Ingrid Jacques on winning people over through columns and editorials

‘There’s a lot of reasons for skepticism.’ Aug 03, 2022

Rich Samp on a Supreme Court case that reined in the administrative state

‘Show the effects that bad policy has on individuals’ Jul 15, 2022

John Kay on the Right to Earn a Living

‘It’s no different than building a network of friends’ Jul 01, 2022

Claire Kittle Dixon on where to find good people to work in free market organizations

‘That’s wrong. It’s morally wrong. It’s economically wrong. It’s just bad policy.’ Jun 17, 2022

Richard Vedder on his career as a policy advocate professor

‘Not yet, but we’re close’ Jun 03, 2022

Jeremy Baker on changing policy through candidate recruitment

'Transparency is for government and privacy is for people' May 20, 2022

Heather Lauer on getting lawmakers to pass donor privacy laws

‘Powers that no one had exercised before’ May 06, 2022

Daniel Dew and Michael Van Beek on gubernatorial authority in emergencies

‘You keep grinding and grinding and grinding — it's almost like a rugby scrum —until there is that opening’ Apr 22, 2022

Russ Latino on the legislative battle for tax cuts in Mississippi

'These past two years in general really show you that when parents band together they can really push for change' Apr 08, 2022

Corey DeAngelis on the rush the fund students and tweeting for school choice

‘At the start, it had nothing to do with policy, it was about us understanding the issue’ Mar 25, 2022

Randy Hicks on taking a bottom-up strategy to state policy reform

‘They are trying to juggle all these different values and different demands.’ Mar 11, 2022

Jason Hayes on how states manage their parks and forests

‘People will vote for the party that does not raise their taxes.’ Feb 25, 2022

Grover Norquist on the Politics of Tax Reductions

'Remember When We Thought Cellphones Were Going to Cause Brain Cancer?' Feb 11, 2022

Michelle Minton on the nicotine policy debate

“Get Out There, Motivate Others, And Do What You Believe In” Jan 28, 2022

Tori Aultman on campus engagement during COVID

“Don’t Stop. Keep Talking to People. Keep Promoting the Idea.” Jan 14, 2022

Byron Schlomach on the power of research in public policy

“Public Resources Should be Put to Public Use” Dec 17, 2021

Matthew D. Mitchell and Jonathan Riches on outlawing favoritism

“I Think Right Now We’re in a Really Good Place to Change Higher Education.” Dec 03, 2021

Jenna Ashley Robinson on how to keep tuition down and improve higher education

“It Worked Like in the Textbooks — and Nothing Ever Does.” Nov 19, 2021

How to amend the Michigan Constitution, with Leon Drolet

“You Just See Policy Failure all Over the Place” Nov 05, 2021

Alisha wants to know about American shipping regulations

“That is not scary. In fact, that is empowering.” Oct 22, 2021

Leonard Gilroy on reforming pension systems across the country

“You Quickly Realize That This is an Injustice and it has to be Fixed.” Oct 08, 2021

Jennifer Butler on federal rule making on a union dues skim operation

“Wouldn’t we all be Happier if we Didn’t Have to Listen to and Talk about Blaine Amendments? But They Exist.” Sep 24, 2021

Ben DeGrow on how the COVID-19 pandemic might change education policy

“Their Vision of Unionization in the 21st Century Comes From the 1930s.” Sep 10, 2021

Steve Delie and Vinnie Vernuccio on the future of unionism

“It Was Almost Like They Were Looking at our Number or Something” Aug 20, 2021

Vance Ginn of his plan to limit Texas spending

“Lansing is Like High School” Aug 13, 2021

Alexa Kramer on member-directed lobbying

“Basically, We Created a Powder Keg” Jul 30, 2021

Jonathan Wood on how to better manage federal forests to prevent large wildfires

“Let’s pass the compact! Let’s make these things illegal!” Jul 16, 2021

Dan Johnson of Progressive Political Affairs on an Interstate Compact to Eliminate Business Subsidies

“We fought really hard. We worked really hard. We lost a lot.” Jul 02, 2021

Bob McNamara from the Institute for Justice on the Power of Persistence

“Federal, State and Local Lawmakers: You Need to get Ahead of This. The Lawsuits are Coming.” Jun 18, 2021

How drones are changing the Overton Window for low-altitude airspace

“It was an idea whose time had come in West Virginia” Jun 04, 2021

Garrett Ballengee of the Cardinal Institute on the Nation’s Largest School Choice Program

“Uber Really Exploded the Window” May 21, 2021

A Conversation About How To Use the Overton Window

“So We Sued Over This” May 07, 2021

The ACLU’s Kim Buddin on How Litigation Changes Policy

“It is remarkable how many blatant falsehoods are propagated about qualified immunity.” Apr 23, 2021

Jay Schweikert on Qualified Immunity

“It is one of the most important public health tools known to man.” Apr 09, 2021

Alisha wants to know about mosquito control

“It Was a Little Bittersweet” Mar 26, 2021

Elizabeth Stelle on Reforming Pennsylvania’s Alcohol Monopoly in the Face of Union Opposition

“Sometimes You Need to Drink Goat Milk To Keep the Trade in it Legal” Mar 12, 2021

Brett Kittredge on how good communications work kept Mississippi lawmakers from outlawing goat milk

“It’s a Very Small Club” Feb 26, 2021

David Stevenson on policy change in the arcane world of regulation

“I am still trying to make sense out of Washington.” Feb 12, 2021

Jason Mercier on why the state of Washington doesn't have an income tax.

“I didn’t know how controversial this one was going to be.” Jan 29, 2021

How one legislator built enough trust with her colleagues to win a nation-leading reform

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