The Clinton Foundation unveiled a new initiative Monday to help state and local governments develop and enact nonpartisan policy solutions to improve health outcomes, especially for women and children, economic security and democracy. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The foundation's first new initiative in more than a decade, the Clinton Policy Institute (CPI), has already begun convening political leaders from both parties, research experts, and Americans affected by the issues being studied to create new approaches to long-existing problems.
"Rising costs, economic uncertainty, rapid technological change, and growing pressures on our public institutions are making it harder for families to get ahead," former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement to The Associated Press. "We created CPI because we believe there are still practical, evidence-based solutions that can improve people's lives."
CPI is building on its work with New York state in banning cellphones from schools in the past academic year. Though the institute did not technically exist last year when it teamed with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's administration on creating distraction-free schools in the state, the Clinton Foundation saw promise in its approach and decided to expand it before publicly announcing CPI's creation. It's a strategy that the foundation, also led by former President Bill Clinton and public health expert Chelsea Clinton, used when it launched the Clinton Health Access Initiative in 2004.
Zayn Siddique, former principal deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council, will serve as CPI's chief executive officer. Jennifer Klein, who was director of the White House Gender Policy Council under former President Joe Biden, will be CPI's chair.
In New York, CPI helped create the Teen Tech Council so that students could help make the phone-ban program more effective. The result, according to Hochul's office, was that educators found a marked improvement in classroom behavior and engagement.
"CPI is bringing together policymakers, researchers, business leaders, and community organizations to identify what works, build stronger policy networks, and help turn those ideas into policy," Hillary Clinton said. "We're taking a particular focus on states and local communities, where so much innovation is happening."
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said a CPI conference on improving the lives of children earlier this month was "the best roundtable I've been involved with since becoming governor." Kelly, who will leave office in January due to term limits after serving two consecutive terms, said she was inspired by CPI's nonpartisan approach to solving problems affecting children.
"I am a Democrat governor in what is considered a very red state," Kelly told The Associated Press in an interview. "It became very clear to me that if I wanted to accomplish anything in my political life, I was going to need to do it in a bipartisan way."
Kelly believes that, despite political polarization, CPI can succeed in finding nonpartisan solutions – especially to issues involving children and healthcare – and giving state leaders the research and other support to implement them.
"Every once in a while, you get people from both sides of the aisle who come together and crafted, maybe not sexy legislation, but something that really needed to be done," Kelly said. "And they get it through."
Dr. Jerome Adams, former U.S. Surgeon General in President Donald Trump's first administration, agrees that nonpartisan solutions are possible to find. But he noted the challenges of the nonpartisan approach.