ANCOR’s Notes from Politico’s State Solutions Event

On February 23, Politico hosted its 8^th Annual State Solutions Conference, in which it interviews governors live on various issues with which they are engaged. Politico is usually able to interview multiple governors because they come to Washington DC in advance of the National Governors Association (NGA) Winter Meeting. This year, Politico interviewed the following Governors, in the order in which they are listed: Rick Snyder (R-MI), Doug Burgum (R-ND), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Gary Herbert (R-UT), Dannel Malloy (D-CT) and Bill Walker (R-AK). It also interviewed Scott Pattison, the Executive Director of the NGA.

While most of the interviews focused on gun control, the opioid crisis, infrastructure, and some topics specific to the governors’ interest such as agriculture, two Governor’s comments held relevance for IDD issues:

• Governor Snyder brought attention to Michigan’s leadership around driverless cars. He spent some time discussing how driverless cars represent important advances in mobility. He stated that the federal government has been doing a “reasonably good job” on adapting highway security requirements for driverless car technology.
  • ANCOR has been following advancements in driverless cars because of their potential for people with disabilities, and in fact is part of the Coalition for Future Mobility, which is comprised of automobile groups interested in advancing self-driving technology and stakeholders in these issues. ANCOR was pleased to see that this technology remains of interest at the state and federal level.
• Governor Hickenlooper discussed the blueprint for improving health care in the United States, which he signed onto with 4 other governors. ANCOR discusses this blueprint in another article in this issue, accessible here. His discussion covered the blueprint as a place to demonstrate a wide range of areas of agreement between both parties on such topics as how companies utilize scale and innovation, or moving beyond the private sector.

Video of the day-long event will be accessible here. While at first the site might only contain short highlight clips, Politico usually posts the videos of full interviews within a few days.