When it comes to voting, taxes, environmental regulations, social services, education, criminal justice, political parties, property rights, gun control, marriage and a whole host of other modern American issues, the state in which a citizen resides makes a difference. The idea that states matter is the fundamental concept explored in this book - by accomplished scholars and authors Gary Moncrief and Peverill Squire - and has been an essential truth embedded within America's governing philosophy since the Colonial Era. Considerably less attention is paid to the gritty but essential political battles fought at the level of America's states than to the endless and infamous turmoil inside the beltway, but the political decisions made by those in state-level offices are of tremendous importance to the lives of people whose states they govern. This book introduces students to the very tangible and constantly evolving implications, limitations, and foundations of America's state political institutions, and accessibly explains the ways that the political powers of the states manifest themselves in the cultures, economies, and lives of everyday Americans, and always will. -- Publisher website.