Ray Nothstine

North Carolina

Senior Writer and Editor at State Policy Network

Senior editor & writer @American_Habits. Family, history, theology, & roots music. Ole Miss & Asbury Seminary alum. Rather tough for a bookworm.

Featured in: Favicon

yahoo.com (+1) Favicon

bostonherald.com Favicon

christianpost.com Favicon

charlotteobserver.com Favicon

washingtonexaminer.com Favicon

newsobserver.com Favicon

lasvegassun.com Favicon

fayobserver.com Favicon

heraldsun.com + 38 more

Articles

Is state pride ascending?

1 week ago | americanhabits.org | Ray Nothstine

A new piece by Tufts University Professor Deborah J. Schildkraut argues that state pride matters more than many might think. Shildkraut uses the rise in proposals to change state flags as a launching pad to buttress her argument. People care deeply about how their state is perceived. Twenty percent of states either recently changed their state flag or explored changes.
Financial independence important component of federalism

2 weeks ago | americanhabits.org | Ray Nothstine

Andy Craig has written a thoughtful opinion piece at MSNBC titled “Democratic states are discovering ‘states rights’ are effective tools to resist Trump.”He raises a lot of interesting points, particularly that in most instances accepting federal money doesn’t allow for coercion of policy. A lot of these entanglements have ended up in the federal courts and are going through them now again.
Our heavy handed regulatory state

2 weeks ago | americanhabits.org | Ray Nothstine

Congress enacted 175 laws in 2024 but federal agencies issued 19 rules for every law passed. The Wall Street Journal reminds us that Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual “Ten Thousand Commandments” is out. Congress has ceded so much authority on lawmaking that unelected bureaucrats look like to be the true rulers. Congress loves to delegate and eschew responsibility and then turn around and point fingers (and fundraise off of it) at the agencies when things fall apart.
Washington can't fix the bureaucratic administrative state - American Habits

3 weeks ago | americanhabits.org | Ray Nothstine

A worthwhile piece from John Grove over at Fusion argues against the populist notion that the bureaucratic administrative state is just an elite creation imposed on the people. The problem is us, too. Reforming the federal bureaucracy requires stepping away from the belief that national political power can solve all our collective ailments.
Publication from Iowans for Tax Relief highlights the importance of federalism

4 weeks ago | americanhabits.org | Ray Nothstine

A new publication from Iowans for Tax Relief (ITR), Federalism: A Cornerstone of American Government, offers a timely reminder of the foundational role that federalism plays in our republic. I’ve been able to get to know John Hendrickson at ITR some given our mutual love of American history and close philosophical alignment.
Saying no to federal overreach in education

1 month ago | americanhabits.org | Ray Nothstine

In his essay “The Great Relearning,” Tom Wolfe pointed out that when the counterculture of the 1960s tossed aside the hard-earned wisdom of Western civilization—such as hygiene and moral norms—they didn’t leap forward into some Utopia. They ended up relearning, the hard way, why those old rules existed in the first place. Today, a similar kind of relearning is underway in American education.
The US Department of Education: End the mistake

1 month ago | americanhabits.org | Neal McCluskey |Ray Nothstine

President Donald Trump has targeted the US Department of Education for elimination with a new executive order, and he is right to do so. The department should never have been created. There has never been a need for it, and constitutionally, education is reserved to the people and states. As it should be: Education is about nothing less than the formation of millions of unique individuals, and control should be as close to each one as possible, not lodged in some distant bureaucracy.
Education bureaucracy could be a real problem beyond Washington

1 month ago | americanhabits.org | Ray Nothstine

For decades, conservatives and limited-government advocates have sought to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, viewing it as the perfect model for federal overreach. President Trump has made the long sought after ambition more reality than political fantasy with his Executive Order, and Congress should assist in fulfilling that mission.
Moving beyond the U.S. Department of Education

1 month ago | americanhabits.org | Ray Nothstine

Below is the text of a lecture I delivered lecture delivered at Thales College in Wake Forest, North Carolina in March at the “Liberty & Literacy Forum,” a conference on educational freedom. I cover a lot of ground when it comes to federal involvement in education and focus on the historical, philosophical, and constitutional arguments against.
Erika Donalds: escaping the education bureaucracy trap

1 month ago | americanhabits.org | Erika Donalds |Ray Nothstine

Erika Donalds is the chair of the America First Policy Institute’s Center for Education Opportunity and a national expert on education policy and school choice. She is a forceful advocate for high-quality school choice options and improved school accountability. Erika is a former member of the Collier County School Board and has served on Florida’s 2017-2018 Constitution Revision Commission and Governor Ron DeSantis’ Advisory Committee on Education and Workforce Development.

Contact details

Emails

[email protected]

Socials & Sites

Try JournoFinder For Free

Search and contact over 1M+ journalist profiles, browse 100M+ articles, and unlock powerful PR tools.

Start Your 7-Day Free Trial →

X (formerly Twitter)

Followers: 2K
Tweets: 33K
DMs Open: No

No Tweets found.