State Lab Doctrine: Federal Silence, State Experiments

The State Lab Doctrine is the Guard Pact’s elegant solution for contentious issues that paralyze the nation. Instead of imposing one-size-fits-all federal mandates, it leverages the 50 states as “laboratories of democracy.”

The core principle is simple: Federal silence. State experiments. Data wins.

Any issue that fails to align with the 5 High-Level Goals at a national level is removed from federal jurisdiction. This prevents untested, top-down policies and allows local communities to innovate.

States are empowered to run live A/B tests on policies using the Guard Pact’s toolkit:

• Charter Cities: Opt-in zones for radical experimentation.
• Prediction Markets + Citizen Juries: Data-driven evaluation and citizen oversight.
• Hard Circuit-Breakers: Automatic sunset clauses if a policy fails to meet its stated goals.

This framework transforms intractable moral debates into empirical questions. It allows us to discover what works by observing real-world outcomes, rather than arguing about what should work.

State Lab Issues (13 Topics)

Here are the initial 13 issues designated for the State Lab Doctrine. Each one is removed from federal control and handed to states, with a clear mandate to experiment and measure.

#	Topic	State Rule	Circuit-Breaker
19.1	Abortion	Charter City A/B (e.g., 12-week vs birth). Prediction market on maternal mortality.	↑5% maternal deaths or ↓10% teen fertility → auto-sunset.
19.2	Marriage Age/Definition	Cities test 16/18/21. Jury re-approves every 3 yrs.	↑15% teen pregnancy → revert.
19.3	Recreational Marijuana	Prediction market on DUI + overdose deaths.	↑10% combined in 2 yrs → ban.
19.4	Physician-Assisted Suicide	100-citizen jury approval every 3 yrs.	↑5% total suicide rate → moratorium.
19.5	Gambling	Charter zone vs no-bet county.	↑20% bankruptcy rate → revert.
19.6	Prostitution	Legal brothel pilot. Market on trafficking arrests.	↑15% trafficking → ban.
19.7	Death Penalty	Jury re-approves per crime every 5 yrs.	>1% wrongful convictions → moratorium.
19.8	Animal Ag Rules	Vegan zone vs CAFO zone.	↑20% food prices → revert.
19.9	Vaccine Mandates (Non-Pandemic)	Jury approval only if outbreak >1% mortality.	Auto-sunset post-crisis.
19.10	Zoning/Density	YIMBY vs NIMBY cities.	↓15% housing cost → scale winner.
19.11	Electoral Systems	RCV vs jungle primary pilots.	↑10% turnout + ↓ incumbent lock → adopt top 2.
19.12	Trans Sports (K-12/College)	Open vs bio-sex leagues in charter schools.	<10% participation gap → scale.
19.13	Reparations	Local cash pilot. Market on homeownership gap.	<5% gap closure in 5 yrs → sunset.

This is not about avoiding hard conversations. It’s about having better ones—grounded in evidence, accountable to citizens, and designed for discovery.