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The Republican primary for governor in Arizona was, in part, a referendum on whether voters approve of former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas' aggressive prosecutions of other Maricopa County officials. We now have a verdict: maybe.
People have debated for years whether controversial ballot measures can affect who shows up to vote. In Alaska yesterday, a measure did just that -- and may have ended the career of a U.S. senator.
As TV ads hype the demand for costly brand-name drugs, those who pay
Medicaid's pill bill are fighting back.
Gone are the comforts of an era when an ever-expanding economy coupled
with growing populations could pay the future freight.
As gridlock gets worse and technology improves, the use of toll lanes
and other market-based tools to regulate rush-hour driving is gaining
acceptance.
There are three basic elements to a superior urban experience,
declares Author Joel Kotkin: economic power, personal security and
sacredness.
In government, when times get tight, public officials turn to the sale of assets—the equivalent of selling the family jewels.
About $2,500 worth of checks was bouncing each semester before the high school in Grossmont, California, adopted a no-check policy.
Your head is affected most pleasantly. Thoughts come cleanly. You feel friendly. You cannot hate with kava in you." So wrote sociologist Thomas Harrison about the root-based tea in his 1937 book Savage Civilizations.
California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi approved the merger of Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies Anthem and WellPoint in November, allowing the creation of the nation's largest health insurer.
In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, private ferry company NY Waterway proved a lifesaver for 65,000 commuters as highway and rail access between New Jersey and Manhattan was cut off ["Do You Believe in Ferries?" March 2003]. Now, the once successful ferry service is in financial trouble.
Now that a federal judge has halted government funding for embryonic stem cell research, the field is at a standstill. But one state stands to benefit.
Over the next few weeks and months, Sunlight Foundation and Public Equals Online will develop a guide on how to do state-level organizing and advocacy around transparency and open government.
It’s too early to call it a movement, but state and local officials are beginning to ask hard questions about the multiplicity of government agencies.
Too much government? Maybe. Too many governments? Definitely.
When we decide to build a new highway or train line, we think about
unclogging traffic jams. That is shortsighted.
The feds are promising to help with special education costs. They've
been making that promise for the past 30 years.
Terry Tamminen brings a Southern California mellowness to the un-
mellow job of reorganizing state government.
Mark this in your diary: The great American free ride is fast coming to an end. In the years ahead, the solution to traffic congestion will be toll roads. From San Francisco to Houston, Washington, D.C. to Atlanta, transportation officials have decided that the next great wave of highway construction will come with an explicit price--and sometimes not a cheap one.
Many states and localities collect performance measurement data but don't necessarily make good use if it. In Iowa, a group of cities has used the data to make real changes in policy as the result of a program that actively solicits input from citizens' panels.
Nancy S. Grasmick, Maryland's superintendent of schools, has fond memories of reading comic books as a child. She liked Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, and especially enjoyed Archie.
Like most cities with large homeless populations, Berkeley, California, has a problem with transients abandoning bags or shopping carts of their belongings on the streets. What's unusual about Berkeley is what city officials do with all that stuff: They freeze it.
Chicago is one of the great restaurant cities in America, but some suburban residents prefer to eat out closer to home. In fact, locals have become so enamored with the new dining options at tollway rest areas that the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority is working to ease pedestrian access and construct parking spaces along local access roads.
Rev your engine and floor it! Take it up to 100 mph if you can. Not only will the cops not arrest you, they'll probably be there cheering you on. They may even race with you.
Kansas lawmakers have until April 12 to increase funding for education in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling last month.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush may award a $701 million contract that would turn over the functions of determining eligibility for Medicaid, food stamps and other social service programs to a private company.
In response to a dozen insurance failures following the 1992 Hurricane Andrew disaster, Florida in 2002 created the Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
California's stem-cell gamble could profoundly alter the stakes for
creating jobs and business opportunities in a state.
Decades ago, on a long car ride home from college, a friend of mine and I were talking about whether the liberal arts education we were getting had any practical use. He said he thought his might. He was majoring in medieval history, and in the event of a new Dark Age-- post-nuclear chaos or the aftermath of a huge natural catastrophe--he would know exactly what to do.
As states streamline their sales tax codes, they are moving ahead with
the technology to make it easy for online businesses to collect the
tax.
Governors are bent on reshaping and updating the way their governments
work.
A noble notion to limit state contractors from contributing to
political campaigns put New Jersey crosswise with the feds.
Illinois politicians admire John Filan's ability to balance a budget.
Not all of them admire his way of doing it.
In the future, we'll study different cities for how they managed the great urban turnaround at the end of the 20th century. We'll go to Philadelphia to learn how to revive a downtown and manage homelessness. We'll study Chicago for urban vision and street beautification.
From TennCare's end to Florida's proposed new beginning, state
Medicaid programs are working through difficult times.
Contracting out services can benefit the bottom line, but not always.
The trick is to figure out when it does and doesn't.
When a county is growing like Topsy, its finance officers have to move
even faster--just to keep up.
A new accounting rule could seriously undermine the health insurance
that states and localities provide to their retirees.
Courts are trying to make their proceedings less baffling and more
bearable to jurors.
Had Robert Moses, New York City's legendary planning commissioner, lived to see reality television, he probably would have loved the premise of "Town Haul," a new show on The Learning Channel.
It's free! It's private! Download "Thuvia, Maid of Mars" in the comfort of your own home! That may sound like spam e-mail advertising a porn site on the Web. But in reality, both the product and the pitch are decidedly less racy: "Thuvia," a sci-fi classic by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is just one of the hundreds of digital audio books now available via the Internet from the library system in King County, Washington.
A report issued in January from California's legislative analyst confirms Governing's assessment of the state's tax system: It's volatile [Government Performance Project, February 2002].
Advanced refundings are on the line as the federal government sees
revenue in cutting off some muni bond tax breaks.
There's a growing focus in welfare policy on a long-neglected part of
the problem: fatherhood.
Public libraries aren't the only ones being targeted by budget cuts. State libraries, which serve as resources to legislatures and executives, are also just as vulnerable.
The federal government has sent billions in extra stimulus money to states for the purpose of rehiring educators and school administrators. But states are skittish.
This is a season of lamentation for believers in the American federal system, or at least for those who believe state governments ought to occupy a position of honor and respect within it. States and their advocates complain that they are being bullied and pushed around by every branch of government in Washington: preempted, mandated, zeroed out, lectured to and generally dissed.
States and localities have little experience devising plans for the
privacy, competition and security issues new technologies create.
Fred Kent has spent three decades developing a common-sense approach
to streets, buildings and human sociability.
As states continue to outsource corrections services, they are
struggling to find the right level of private-prison scrutiny.
Social Security may be running out of money, but at least it's a
single coherent program. Medicaid is a monster with countless heads.
Chicago's procurement process has been broken for years. Mary A.
Dempsey has been given a mandate to repair it.
Consolidating local governments is as difficult a political task as it
ever was.
In the closest elections, there are issues impossible to resolve.
Mayor Bill White's efforts to speed traffic on Houston's freeways spawned the "Safe Clear" program, under which any car stalled on a city highway would immediately be towed away, even if it were in an emergency lane and the driver could fix the problem. Cost of the tows: $75. The public response was overwhelmingly negative. After a few weeks, White softened the program, directing that people with flat tires would be towed for free.
Municipalities in Minnesota, constrained by a state law that limits public employee salaries to 95 percent of the governor's pay, have been trying to figure out ways to get around the $114,000 a year cap.
A growing number of states are requiring hospitals to report how many patients come down with infections while in their care. Disclosure is meant to inform consumers, while pressuring hospitals to deliver better care.
Public agencies are training citizens to provide an additional layer
of homeland security.
The more information, the better. At least that is the thinking behind the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's launch of a system requiring that price information for all muni bond trades be available for the market within 15 minutes of a trade.
The Democratic National Committee voted to follow Republicans’ lead and approve a later primary schedule for the 2012 presidential election cycle. But the new plan poses a problem for at least one powerful elections official in New Hampshire.
Economic development officials may be going too far and being too
secretive in their deal making.
It can be a nuisance changing every clock in your house twice a year.
But Daylight Savings Time is not a subject of public controversy--
except in Indiana.
In hopes of achieving long-term savings on obesity-related health-care costs, South Carolina is going to spend $2.4 million on bariatric surgeries for state workers.
Lorez Meinhold is leading Colorado's efforts to implement health reform.
In their travels, Bill Bott and Ken Miller have learned a simple truth: all government buildings are basically the same, right down to the motivational poster.
No state is immune from hosting private contractors who come to do a
job, are paid well--and never leave.
For decades, highway engineers focused on designing wider, straighter,
faster roads. Now, moving traffic quickly is no longer the sole goal.
State and local governments are discovering new weapons in the battle
to keep citizens in shape.
Joe Hardy ran for county office to revive his community--even if he
had to pay for it himself.
Some hybrid cars can save government a lot of money. Others don't save
it a dime.
Broadband politics is turning out to be mostly just a game for two.
That's not always good.
Cigarette companies and state regulators have discovered it pays to
stick together.
Big-box stores with fancy decoration are still just big boxes.
The high price of gasoline is causing an increase in public transit
ridership in some places, but the benefits to transit aren't as great
as you might imagine.
A recent report from the Government Accountability Office says states' financial woes will ultimately make it harder for the federal government to deliver services.
If we want more responsive government in an age of disintermediation, we need rules and regulations both tagged and accessible by everyone.
On a sunny afternoon in Pittsburgh several weeks ago, a few dozen civic leaders from declining industrial cities met on the 31st floor of a downtown skyscraper.
Want to buy a city park? Detroit is looking at putting 92 of its parks up for sale. Most of them are tiny "pocket parks" in de-populating neighborhoods.
Want to know how hooked on drugs your town is? There's a remarkable and rather gross new way to find out. Scientists now believe they can measure the prevalence of cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin in a community's raw sewage.
Since last month's bridge disaster in Minneapolis, everyone's heard about America's 75,000 "structurally deficient" bridges. Although the label doesn't mean any of them are about to fall, the staggering stat reminds us how much government at all levels has neglected its infrastructure.
A few years ago, I went to Phoenix in July. The temperature downtown was 106 degrees in the shade. Walking from my hotel to the convention center was a sweaty, lonely experience. Nobody else seemed brave enough, or perhaps dumb enough, to venture into this kiln on foot.
The sale of naming rights for stadiums, arenas and other public buildings is not nearly as controversial as it used to be. Perhaps we've all grown accustomed to the weird ring of venues such as Quicken Loans Arena or Merchantsauto.com Stadium. Or maybe, in an advertising- saturated world, we're now pros at tuning out corporate gobbledygook. Either way, our tolerance for sponsorship is growing
One reason why the affordable housing problem seems so insurmountable is that we usually try to build our way out of it. There's never enough money to finance new homes for all the low-income people who could use them. And if you want to wake up the NIMBYs, just propose building a large subsidized housing complex.
The town of Clayton, Missouri, loves neighboring Richmond Heights for its money. And Richmond Heights loves Clayton for its looks. If these two St. Louis suburbs get hitched, it'll be a Donald Trump-style wedding.
You can hardly blame Mayor Tom Menino for hating the building he
works in. Boston's city hall is an intimidating concrete battleship
from the 1960s. Nobody loves it except for a few architecture snobs,
who value it as an icon of a style fittingly known as "Brutalism."
As part of their efforts to reduce air pollution, San Francisco and its suburbs offer free transit rides when pollution spikes. Ridership on BART and the other transit systems has soared on those days, causing some leaders to wonder if transit ought to be free all the time. But the San Francisco experience also offers some cautions: Misbehavior on the transit systems also soars on free days.
Appointing inspectors general to probe reports of wrongdoing is
politically popular. And some IGs are becoming very powerful.
A potent force in local and national politics, no less than 30 state attorney general offices are being contested this fall.
In The Near Future, Public Housing Authorities Could Have Another New
Source Of Funding For Capital Projects.
Nobody likes to do emissions testing. A few states have decided it's
time to stop. EPA is willing to listen.
Nothing is more political or emotional than base closures. But in the
end, how much does it really matter?
The conventional wisdom about suburbs and sprawl can change
dramatically over time.
For years, people saw San Diego as a model for good government. That's
because they weren't looking very closely.
Learn how to make structural changes that will bend the cost curve of government down.
This column is for those public leaders who are looking to make structural changes that will bend the cost curve of government down.
Staff Writer Josh Goodman wrote a profile of Chris Christie for the August issue. But, Christie wouldn't talk to him for the story. Here's how Josh handled it.
This has been a year of partisan polarization and institutional
paralysis in Washington. The inability of Congress to provide
leadership and generate consensus on major issues has been obvious not only to the nation but also to the world--from the rancorous debate
over Terri Schiavo to the squabbling over filibusters and the ethics
investigations that have embroiled the leadership.
The former secretary of Health and Human Services offers a bleak and
blunt assessment of federal policy.
After a quarter-century of crusading against illegal immigration,
Russell Pearce has become a major player on the issue.
One critic argues that state complaints about Washington are just
posturing.
Gun owners are pushing their constitutional liberties a big step
further.
If more school dollars went straight into teaching, maybe education
would improve. Or maybe not.
Reducing drug prices is an understandable goal, but it's hard to
achieve by fiat.
New York City recently marked a milestone that is, at once, a cause
for celebration and concern. It sold the final group of vacant lots it
seized in the 1970s and 1980s from delinquent taxpayers who, in those
days, were fleeing the city.
An independent performance audit can help an agency deliver services
more efficiently and effectively.
With a bureaucracy grown rigid and rule-bound, Iowa is pushing its
agencies to act like entrepreneurs.
Under Florida's newly approved waiver, Medicaid patients will have to
slog through all the fine print that is a health insurance plan.
Virginia's ex-governor has made a career out of accomplishing the
unexpected. He is betting he can do it one more time as mayor of a
proud but messed-up city.
It's federal, state and local governments--not individuals or even
companies--that determine if a transportation idea sinks or swims.
Evacuating residents from the path of a storm is often a frustrating
task for emergency officials.
Some day soon, a food-tasting event at New York's LaGuardia Airport
might help fund the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's
budget.
Most states are sold on the benefits of universal preschool, but
limited funding may compromise its quality and availability.
Immigration used to be considered strictly a federal issue. But it's
heating up in legislatures all over the country.
The competition for federal grants pits the security concerns of small
ports against big ones and leaves all of them short of what they say
they need.
This year's Recognition Awards from the National Association of State
Chief Information Officers focus on turning technology into an
effective management tool. The eight award winners--from four states--
were honored for adaptations that led to substantial cost savings and
revenue growth.
Todd Smith has declared war against the red tape his state imposes on
county government.
After centuries of abuse, gridded streets are finally getting some
respect.
With the high price of gasoline, drivers are pouring so many dollars
into their tanks that Exxon-Mobil reported record profits in October
of $10 billion. And that was for one quarter. Paradoxically, drivers
were pouring relatively fewer dollars into other entities that depend
on gasoline spending: the various state and federal transportation
trust funds.
Somewhere between last year and this year, Arnold Schwarzenegger
forgot how to focus.
Nobody knows more about Buffalo than Byron Brown, its new mayor. One
thing he knows is that revival won't come easily.
Despite six years of determined effort by the Baltimore police, the
city's murder rate has remained high and drug dealing is rampant.
Recently an underground video called "Stop Snitching" circulated
through the city; it threatened those who cooperated with authorities.
Now the police department is using psychological warfare to fight
back.
It's not easy to look good in moments of crisis, but some public
officials have a knack for it.
Raising taxes isn't proving fatal to most politicians who risked doing
it.
In an effort to check the increase in prescription drug prices,
Vermont in March became the first state in the nation to require
pharmaceutical companies to disclose to doctors the average wholesale
price of a given drug.
In an enterprising bit of reporting, the Orlando Sentinel looked at
suburban crime statistics in Orlando, comparing property crimes in
gated and ungated subdivisions.
