This report analyzes the role of policy issue networks in early state policymaking stages and interstate diffusion of policy innovations. It defines agenda setting as active and serious consideration of a specific issue by state policymakers and investigates how state policymakers are stimulated to consider policy issues across the U.S. The authors further examine the nature of policy issue networks and their interaction with specific state political cultures, providing insights into the rapid interstate diffusion of new policy issues in the 1970s.