Here's a look at some of the key battles in the states over the past week.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, its corporate backers and extremist Missouri lawmakers may have won the first round in their drive to silence working people with a paycheck deception bill, when the House gave it final approval (86-69) earlier this week.

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that two Missouri paycheck deception bills are not necessary to protect workers and they would limit the free speech and political spending of unions and organized workers, while allowing unlimited corporate spending on political causes. 

Missouri's working families are speaking out about a paycheck deception bill that is moving through the state legislature.  We Are Missouri launched a new Tumblr blog, Working Voices, that showcases personal messages from Missouri working families to their elected representatives, asking them to reject the anti-worker agenda of the state legislature.  In this year's session, Republicans in the legislature have pursued an agenda that includes paycheck deception, attacks on prevailing wage laws, and "right to work" for less proposals that are part of what We Are Missouri describes as a larger national plan to assault the rights of workers.

Listen to teachers and utility, grocery store and factory workers (and more) talk about how paycheck deception will hurt working people. 

Check out We Are Missouri's Working Voices Tumblr for more stories. 

We Are Missouri is asking state residents to call their state representatives and tell them to reject the paycheck deception bill at 1-888-907-9711.

Despite testimony overwhelmingly opposing the bill and universal opposition from the committee's Democrats, the Missouri legislature's House Workforce Development and Workplace Safety Committee passed S.B. 29, a paycheck deception bill, which is now headed to the House floor. Missouri working families went door to door last week to tell their neighbors about the problems with the bill, held numerous public rallies in opposition and flooded the Capitol with thousands of emails, letters and phone calls telling legislators to oppose the bill, which shut state workers out of the political conversation in Missouri.

This weekend, Missouri working families went door to door to tell their friends and neighbors about a series of anti-worker bills Republicans are pushing in the state legislature. Across the state, Missourians described the right-wing push that is advancing paycheck deception, anti-prevailing wage and "right to work" for less bills.

Chalk one up for Arizona’s workers and put another black mark up for state legislators obsessed with attacking workers and their unions for their corporate sponsors. A federal judge yesterday ruled 2011 laws on paycheck deception and restricting workers’ right to picket were unconstitutional.

Corporate-backed and extremist Missouri lawmakers are continuing their attacks on workers with hearings on a paycheck deception bill. In front of a Senate committee this morning, according to AFSCME Council 72, which is tweeting the hearing, witnesses told lawmakers the bill is part of a nationally driven agenda to “silence workers.”

Clark Brown of @seiu against #sb29: this is nationally driven agenda by corporate CEOs. This is about silencing workers. #moleg

— Missouri AFSCME (@MOAFSCME) April 3, 2013

Since 2010, right-wing governors and legislators have attacked workers’ rights across the Midwest. These attacks have come in different forms: from stripping public workers’ collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin to an all-out ban on fair share contracts in Michigan and Indiana.

In Missouri, extremist legislators and their corporate backers are taking a different tactic. They are pushing paycheck deception bills, which limit how union workers can make their voices heard in the political process.

Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board ridiculed the absurd notion from the Missouri state Senate that somehow union members (teachers, nurses, secretaries, pothole fixers and home health care workers) are to blame for the state's economic woes. "Oh, please," the board responds.