Jay Livingstone knew something had to be done about Massachusetts’s abortion law. The state, despite its liberal leanings, still had a ban on its books that predated—although it was superseded by—Roe v. Wade. If today’s Supreme Court overturned that 1973 decision, returning the issue to the states, abortion would become illegal immediately in Massachusetts.

Writing a bill codifying the protections of Roe was easy, but Livingstone, a state representative, wanted to go further. He turned to the State Innovation Exchange (SiX), an organization that assists progressive legislators around the country. It helped him with all the ancillary information required to sell a bill—policy materials, a press strategy, even a video to share on social media. It also connected him with legislators in other states who had crafted similar bills, so he could learn from their successes and failures. “It’s great that there’s an organization looking nationally at pushing progressive policies,” Livingstone said, “and figuring out how to share best practices and successes at the state level, where so much innovation happens.”

In the end, the Massachusetts legislature repealed the 173-year-old abortion ban—the first effort to protect abortion rights in the state in decades. Livingstone has also co-sponsored legislation that would not only enshrine Roe in Massachusetts law but expand youth access and guarantee that women could receive abortions past 24 weeks in pregnancies involving fatal fetal anomalies.

For decades, the left has dreamed of building an organization to rival the American Legislative Exchange Council, the conservative group that has crafted and coordinated Republican legislation in the states since the early 1970s. Every few years, it seems, a new progressive group appears—only to quickly vanish because it was unable to establish a winning strategy or sustain enough donor interest. But SiX, five years after its founding, is showing signs of staying power.

When Donald Trump was elected president, Democrats weren’t just shut out of power in Washington: The party had lost roughly 900 legislative seats during the Obama presidency. In the wake of the 2016 election, a number of groups sprang up to help the party regain power at the state level: Sister District, Forward Majority, and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, among others. The effort has paid off—to a point. Despite Democratic gains in both 2018 and 2019, Republicans still have trifectas—control of the governorship and both legislative chambers—in 21 states, versus 15 for Democrats.