"'I think that as progressives we have had tendency really since the founding and certainly since the Civil War to focus on the federal governments as where positive change happens,' said Sam Munger of the Madison, Wisonsin-based State Innovation Exchange, a group that’s trying to dispel this notion. 'If you think about states’ rights, the civil rights movement—the states were reactionary agents of opposing change, and the federal government was the white knight.'"