Archive
In oral arguments Wednesday, the Court has been asked to decide if public universities can use race to determine admissions.
Voter ID opponents have won high-profile court battles, but may be losing ground on the longer-term legal fight against the laws.
Seeing a recent increase in suicides by military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Texas lawmakers are looking for ways to address mental health challenges faced by soldiers as they come back to the state.
New York City's transportation agency has gone a long way toward fixing its finances. Now its challenge is to resist the temptation that has crippled Boston's transit system.
The public is a step closer to finding out which nonprofits make payments in lieu of taxes to financially strapped Pittsburgh.
A new round of spending by Penn National Gaming and MGM Resorts International has pushed the ad war in the referendum over expanded gambling into record territory, eclipsing the $34 million raised for the 2006 governor's race.
Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted said the ruling, which lets each of Ohio's 88 counties set their in-person early voting hours for the three days before the presidential election, is an "unprecedented intrusion" into the state's ability to run its own election.
The city of Minneapolis has altered the way it will handle emergency calls after up to six people who called 911 during last month's shooting rampage at Accent Signage Systems didn't reach operators.
While federal oversight might have blocked the same outcome from a major drug manufacturer, regulatory authority isn’t as clear for compounding pharmacies, which fall under a patchwork of state and federal regulations.
The Board of Supervisors bucked Mayor Ed Lee by giving suspended Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi his job back after an allegation that stemmed from a New Year's Eve fight with his wife.
In light of the recent sexual abuse scandals involving students, residents from across South Jersey agreed that some form of education surrounding sexual abuse should be added to school curricula.
Instead of relying on large state-run institutions that house hundreds of people, the Quinn administration wants to allow people with developmental disabilities to live more independently with the help of caretakers.
The new computerized assessments, which states will begin piloting in 2013, mark a radical new approach to testing.
Ohio counties can keep polls open for early voting the three days before Election Day, a federal appeals court ruled, handing Democrats another victory in their battle to undo new restrictions on voting passed by Republican-led state legislatures.
Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. has retired effective immediately amid a scandal involving his relationship with a female officer in the department.
Kelly M. Rindfleisch stands accused of four felony misconduct charges of doing campaign work while at her job in Milwaukee County as deputy chief of staff to Walker in 2010.
The Republican Senate candidate whose comments about “legitimate rape” caused a stir in August has become Democrats’ favorite opponent, even in places where he’s not on the ticket.
With changes in the tax law that began to take effect last week, the state intends to begin treating some online retailers the same way it treats those with stores here: by collecting sales tax.
The Republican Governors Association is set to tap New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to head the organization over the next two years, raising the national profiles of two GOP politicians often mentioned as future presidential candidates.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is renewing his call for such lower-cost undergraduate degrees, in what he hopes will be the state's signature response to the national problem of rising college tuition and student debt.
Gov. Bob McDonnell touts that his administration has restored voting rights to ex-felons faster than any previous one.
Maryland’s Dream Act, if approved by voters on Nov. 6, would lure more illegal immigrants to public colleges and cost more than state analysts have predicted. But over decades the measure’s “net benefits” could far outweigh costs, returning tens of millions to the state for each class that earns advanced degrees, according to a new study.
Voters in a number of other big U.S. cities -- some with already-high debt loads -- will decide on Election Day whether to borrow even more or face prospects for reduced services or higher taxes.
A toxic election cycle in Indiana has ended in the resignation of the state's director of children services.
The police department has created 51 hyper-local accounts to keep residents informed about crime and police response.
Juvenile crime is down nationally, but in North Carolina the downward trend is more than double the national average.
The more than $26 billion in lingering debt has gained little notice, but forced states to scale back unemployment benefits, raise taxes, tap general funds and even turn to the private bond market.
The outcome could spell the end to affirmative action programs across the country that provide some advantage to applicants from underrepresented minorities.
In the worst wildfire season on record, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service ran out of money to pay for firefighters, fire trucks and aircraft that dump retardant on monstrous flames.
Federal officials have begun drafting safety standards for the nation’s subway and light-rail systems, three years after the deadly Red Line crash exposed vast gaps in oversight of trains that transport millions of people a day.
The Department of Justice is telling U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake that a law approved earlier this year aimed specifically at cutting off all government funds to Planned Parenthood -- even for non-abortion services -- runs afoul of federal laws.
Mayor Nutter reached out to the student and teacher at the heart of a controversy in a Port Richmond school over the student's wearing of a Romney/Ryan T-shirt.
The report cards are part of the new accountability system in Wisconsin that is replacing the decade-old No Child Left Behind system.
Revised figures in Friday’s jobs report show a noticeable jump in education jobs, with employment levels above last year.
State homeland security leaders and the local law enforcement community are disputing a Senate subcommittee’s charges that a network of 77 anti-terrorism centers, set up after 9/11 to share information, has “not produced useful intelligence to support federal counterterrorism efforts.”
The new rules mark a dramatic attempt by the nation's second-largest police department to distance itself from federal immigration policies that Charlie Beck says unfairly treat undocumented immigrants suspected of committing petty offenses.
The high court upheld a King County Superior Court ruling that found the state is not precluded from using the current tax of 0.7 percent on oil products, pesticides and other chemicals for environmental cleanup projects.
Gov. Gary Herbert blasted proposals to expand Medicaid coverage to more than 50,000 uninsured Utahns, saying it creates an unaffordable culture of dependency, a stark contrast with his Democratic challenger, Peter Cooke, who called it a "smart business decision."
The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that a voter-endorsed ballot measure limiting campaign contributions and spending cannot be enforced.
State Sens. Scott Newman and Mike Parry accused Mark Ritchie of crossing the line from criticism to political advocacy in regards to the voter ID amendment on the November ballot.
U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch said federal law does not prohibit the state from removing voters who were never lawfully eligible to register in the first place.
New Jersey residents receiving Medicaid benefits may find it easier to get care at home rather than to move into a nursing home under changes that state officials are planning since getting federal approval to make them.
The Maine GOP attacked Maine state Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz for a “bizarre double life” in which she’s a devotee of the hugely popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft.
The Women, Infants and Children program provides food vouchers to low-income pregnant women, women who have recently given birth, and infants and children younger than 5.
A historic fight over whether Oakland can reform its own police force began in earnest when civil rights attorneys asked a federal judge to take the unprecedented step of appointing a receiver to ensure the changes are made.
Hundreds of cities are trying to follow federal orders to clean up their wastewater systems -- sometimes at a cost of billions of dollars.
Maps shows areas where most people walk to work with new census data.
Data shows metros areas where most people walk to work throughout the U.S.
Plus: The impact of postponed retirement and more management news
The meaningless dialogue we're hearing in this campaign season can leave people in government feeling pretty low. There are some ways to try to get past the blues.
Governing compiled reactions to comments made by President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Wednesday night.
The new organization will help state leaders create policy to protect infrastructure such as data and communication systems, financial records, banking systems, water systems, electrical grids and energy companies.
Texas voters can no longer be automatically removed from voting rolls based on incomplete government records indicating that they might be dead, according to a legal settlement.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement spent Monday and Tuesday reviewing forms filed by the Republican Party of Florida that were deemed suspicious by elections supervisors to determine if there was evidence of illegal activity.
Bowing to mounting pressure to fix the nation's largest jail system, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca agreed Wednesday to sweeping reforms to improve the management and oversight of his agency amid allegations of deputy brutality against inmates.
It would cost each person in Indiana about $5,700 to pay off the state’s debt. The national average is more than $13,000.
An outbreak of a rare and deadly form of meningitis has now sickened 26 people in five states who received steroid injections. Four people have died.
North Carolina’s candidates for governor, Walter Dalton and Pat McCrory, engaged in a sharp-edged televised debate, offering barbed exchanges on taxes, businesses, fracking, race and voter ID.
It’s not just Republican-led states that didn’t turn in their homework when the teacher asked for it — a handful of states with Democratic governors didn’t meet HHS’s suggested target for submitting their essential health benefit benchmark plans either.
The members of the Chicago Teachers Union voted 79.1 percent in favor of the contract, which union officials said was the highest approval rating for a contract in the CTU’s history.
Atwater, California, declared a fiscal emergency and told almost a quarter of its city employees they will lose their jobs as it seeks to avoid becoming the state's fourth city to seek bankruptcy protection.
The popularity of virtual public schools has grown rapidly in recent years, but poor student test scores have many states putting the brakes on the movement.
Maryland and Utah have picked state employee health plans as benchmarks for the insurance policies sold on their health exchanges.
Here's a rundown of the key ballot initiatives in the 37 states holding elections this November.
After struggling for years to regulate storefront pot shops, the Los Angeles City Council voted to repeal the carefully crafted ban on medical marijuana dispensaries it approved a few months ago.
Under orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. Justice Department moved forward with the purchase of Illinois' long-dormant Thomson prison, cutting a $165 million check to the cash-strapped state.
The new teachers contract is expected to cost about $74 million a year, and charter operators are pressing to make sure Chicago Public Schools doesn't pay for it by tapping into money intended for publicly funded charters.
A Justice Department request for additional information about the state’s voter ID law means Mississippi voters will not have to show proof of identification when they cast their ballots for president Nov. 6.
Jose Godinez-Samperio, 26, of Tampa is the undocumented child of immigrants and a "dreamer," in the jargon of the DREAM Act.
The nationwide network of offices known as “fusion centers” was launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to address concerns that local, state and federal authorities were not sharing information effectively about potential terrorist threats.
It’s been more than 60 years since Utah has had a worse year for whooping cough.
A legislative committee is seeking ways to keep the state's prepaid tuition program solvent while also allowing state universities to charge more for the most expensive degree programs.
Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who has been feuding with Democratic President Barack Obama over the best way to secure the border, said that there should be "righteous anger" at the "federal failure and political stalemate that has left our border unsecured and our Border Patrol in harm's way."
Some states are considering tying higher ed funding to performance. Ohio has asked the schools themselves to craft a funding model.
Advertisers aren't the only ones that can benefit from mobile devices' location-based services. The technology gives government an opportunity to deliver public services in remarkable new ways.
Could pressure from states force the company to blink?
One expert says the effort that developed the atomic bomb is exactly what's needed to turn some of America's financially distressed cities around.
A judge imposed a very narrow injunction on the controversial law that will allow even those without identification to vote.
While businesses deride California's new restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions as a giant tax, lawmakers have taken steps to carve up the money.
The state has unveiled a new smartphone application, ENDWI, that has a suite of features to promote responsible drinking.
The College Illinois program allows families to buy contracts that lock in today's prices for future tuition and fees at the state's public universities.
Gov. Rick Perry called for freezing tuition rates for incoming freshmen at state universities during their first four years of college.
The project, called Tweets-by-beat, is the most ambitious effort of its kind in the nation, authorities in law enforcement and social media say.
State and national authorities say a fluctuating economy and erratic jobless rates are taking a toll on parents who pay child support, though some simply defy orders to pay up.
The battle to curb labor’s political clout has moved from Wisconsin to California, where wealthy conservatives are championing a ballot measure that would bar unions from donating to candidates.
State officials are bristling at the possibility of being preempted by the federal government in their own efforts to legalize some forms of online gaming, and are particularly concerned about how Harry Reid’s bill could affect their lotteries.
Two New Jersey state senators sponsored a bill that could generate income for the state, but a few problems have caused the bill to be put on hold.
A Louisiana man is released from death row after his murder conviction is overturned. He said he was coerced into giving a false confession.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer says the primary care clinic in the state capital Helena will keep the area's 11,000 state workers and their dependents healthier while saving the state $20 million over five years.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new law that will allow hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses and vetoed another that would have restricted sheriffs from helping federal authorities detain undocumented Californians for potential deportation.
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is on pace to achieve his campaign-trail pledge to restore the right to vote to more felons than any governor in Virginia history. Virginia is one of four states where the power to restore voting rights rests solely with the governor.
A law requires convicted public officials to reimburse the treasury if they had lawyered up at public expense.
Only nine people in the state have been arrested on terrorism-related charges since the laws went into effect in 2002. All but one of the defendants had their charges dismissed or were convicted on lesser charges.
Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation that makes California the first state to ban a controversial form of psychotherapy that's aimed at making gay teenagers straight.
See which metro areas have the highest share of public transportation commuters, according to new census estimates.
Plus: Advice for the public sector from the private sector and more management news
A Commonwealth Court judge said that he was considering allowing most of the state's controversial voter identification law to remain intact for the November election and was contemplating only a very narrow injunction.
The court will decide whether a Jewish inmate has a right to be provided a kosher diet. Lawyers say the change would cost TDCJ between $1,000 and $3,000 per year, or an extra 0.02 percent of the agency's annual budget.
Calls for Milwaukee police Chief Edward Flynn to resign intensified as close to 400 people gathered for what turned out to be part film screening, part memorial service and part call to action in the wake of the death of Derek Williams.
State independent voters have surged 185% in past two decades; only 4 independents are on fall ballot.
The state Supreme Court declined - for now - to take up lower court orders blocking Wisconsin's voter ID law, the latest sign the law likely will not be in place for the Nov. 6 presidential election.
Brian Banks' campaign website says they can "bank on Banks" -- an eight-time felon convicted of writing bad checks and credit card fraud between 1998 and 2004.
The governor has been on the warpath since Democrats did not allow a tax cut along with his $31.7 billion budget — something he has been pushing since January.
The Connecticut Supreme Court gave Republicans the top line on the ballot this fall, negating a would-be benefit of Democrat Dannel P. Malloy's victory as governor in 2010.
The city of Detroit plans to remove a citizenship question from ballot applications before the November election - another direct challenge to the Republican secretary of state's authority to require the check-off box.
A proposal to legalize medical marijuana can appear on the November ballot, the Arkansas Supreme Court said.
Interactive map shows use of public transit for metropolitan areas throughout the country
Government work usually goes to the lowest bidder. That's not always the smartest way to spend taxpayers' money.
As baby boomers age and more older Americans choose to live at home, governments face new challenges trying to plan for and respond to disasters.
The two states are exploring options to test kindergarteners as 25 other states already do.
As states weigh whether to allow parents to take over struggling schools, reformers are still waiting for a successful trigger.
This month marks Governing’s 25th anniversary, so we asked leaders for their predictions on how government will have changed 25 years from now.
A cyberattack could leave whole regions with no Internet, phone service or electricity. State cybersecurity officers must plan for the unthinkable.
State and local governments have sued banks, claiming that they cheated them out of enormous investment returns at a time when their budgets were already badly damaged from the recession.
States are searching for affordable ways to allow seniors in need of long-term care to remain in their homes. View our special series on aging in America at null
A state-level movement has evolved to give terminally ill patients more say in what medicine and medical procedures they want during their final days. View our special series on aging in America at null
Many state candidates are asked less about their stance on issues affecting the state and more about federal matters they can do little about.
The more than 30 states that are scrambling to set up health insurance exchanges as mandated by the federal health-care law have several options for meeting a Nov. 16 deadline.
In Virginia, where parents owe more than $2 billion, a program helps solve the underlying issues that keep them from paying up.
As cities seek new ways to save money, more and more are requiring their employees to bid against the private sector for work in a process known as “managed competition.”
Social impact bonds are a relatively new financial instrument that promises to earn returns for investors while giving state and local governments the upfront capital they need to pursue money-saving programs.
If states can get out of the way, advances in telehealth could lead to savings by reducing unnecessary hospitalizations and catching chronic problems early.
States are gaining access to Medicare data for the first time and using it to target high-risk populations in an effort to lower health costs. View our series on aging in America at null
Consolidating governments is hard to do, but the idea keeps coming up.
Less than a decade after the state enacted its first real performance measurement plan, it -- like a number of other similar programs in the states -- has fallen on hard times.
The ‘Best of the Web’ winners showcase must-have features for effective public-sector sites.
As the economy continues to take big bites out of arts and city planning budgets, this bottom-up approach is changing the look of some cities. Are governments ready to embrace these grassroots ideas?
Milwaukee has overhauled how it responds to serious crimes -- but not without criticism. Are the risks of challenging policing's status quo worth the rewards?
Things we take for granted today -- public police, roads and libraries -- were only achieved through long, hard political battles that lasted decades and sometimes centuries.
One man’s test of the electric vehicle charging infrastructure along the West Coast highlights the hurdles ahead for states and localities in meeting the Obama administration’s new fuel efficiency rules.
New legislative district maps are expected to help Democrats pick up seats; Arizona is voting on a ballot initiative to install a top-two primary system intended to help elect more moderates; and even if conservatives remain in charge, another ballot initiative could force the legislature to spend more on education than it otherwise would.
The city started GunStat to reduce gun violence by targeting violent and repeat offenders in some neighborhoods where bullets fly too often.
In January, Gov. Chris Christie signed a law allowing nonprofits to apply to start up to a dozen new public charter schools in struggling districts like Camden, Newark and Trenton.
Assemblyman John Burzichelli quietly proposed a bill that would grant doctors the right to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to patients who have less than six months to live.
A state judge ruled that Tennessee’s voter identification law does not violate the state’s constitution, likely keeping thousands of Tennesseans without proper photo ID from the ballot in November.
More than five dozen House members are pressing leaders of a tax panel to preserve a deduction for state and local sales taxes.
The move will make Georgia the only state without an archives open to the public on a regular basis. But this closing is simply the most severe symptom of a greater crisis facing permanent government collections in nearly every state, professional archivists say.
The University of California will pay out $630,000 to 21 UC Davis students who were doused with pepper spray by campus police during a videotaped protest in November that the Occupy movement used as the iconic example of excessive police force.
A drug-sniffing dog now is the only certified member of the police force in the small eastern New Mexico town of Vaughn.
State and local governments facing pension liabilities that already total in the trillions of dollars will be forced to seek bailouts from the U.S. government, Republican Party Congressional staffers said in a study, as they warned that such bailouts could have dire consequences.
Not much -- for now. But lawmakers, especially those from agriculture-producing states, have warned Congress about the troubles that could ensue.
The court reversed a January lower federal court ruling that threatened to upend an incumbent-friendly redistricting map.
Responding to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court opinion that raised questions about the ID card process, the requirement that a voter first attempt to get a traditional Department of Transportation ID card has been eliminated.
Gov. Jerry Brown rode to Google headquarters in a self-driving vehicle before signing legislation that will establish safety and performance regulations to test and operate autonomous vehicles on state roads and highways.
Emergency-warning systems are an important element of public safety, typically alerting people in Colorado to the threat of tornadoes, dangerous thunderstorms and flash floods
A new report argues the mission of the country's 101 major public research universities is imperiled by budget cuts amounting to one-fifth of their state funding over the past decade.
Branded as a part of Christie’s new "Middle-Class Reform Agenda," a measure introduced would create a 10 percent property tax credit capped at $1,000, to be phased in over four years.
In a rare move, UPMC this year guaranteed South Fayette a steady flow of money on a parcel it is buying from the township for an $18.5 million branch of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, even though the land could become tax-exempt.
The city’s Board of Elections voted to increase the font size on its ballots for the general election in November, after squinting New Yorkers complained they could barely read the names of the candidates in the primaries this month.
