The Wall Street Journal recently ran a profile of the Pelican Institute for Public Policy. The institute is a member of State Policy Network.

According to author David Feith, Louisiana needs to turn things around:

For decades, Louisiana has suffered as its most promising young residents left for better opportunities elsewhere. The result was a state that stagnated while much of the rest of the South prospered. Even before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it trailed its neighbors in income, education gains and employment. While the U.S. poverty rate has been around 13% for the past decade, Louisiana's has approached 20%.

A member of the institute's board of directors says that the time is right for a new think tank:

"Today there's much more pressure coming from bottom up," Mr. Gele adds, which increases the power of "policy wonks, bloggers and the average citizen." The Pelican Institute plans to marshal that power to focus lawmakers on basics: better government transparency, lower corporate taxes and improved schools.