Archive
In Kansas, they can't stop arguing about education.
First came a big-money fight between the state supreme court and the legislature about how many hundreds ...
Events in recent weeks have led to plenty of squabbles about issues generally relating to federalism and intergovernmental relations. Most prominent, of course, has been ...
The Bush administration is still working on the details of its preparedness plan to deal with an avian influenza pandemic. But one thing already is ...
Hurricane Katrina killed over 1,000 people along the Gulf Coast, but one of the first legislative casualties may hit another shoreline, 1,000 miles to the north.
The ...
The San Francisco Chronicle yesterday ran a 2,000-word interview with Warren Beatty, who has been making a lot of noise during California's special election season.
...
Law enforcement officers and medical first responders in many parts of the country have begun pushing ICE -- a program to encourage citizens to enter ...
Sex offenders have become social lepers. As such, they may soon need their own island colony. There won't be many other places left for them ...
I've just returned from Governing's annual Managing Performance conference. A few things stood out from the last day.
A session on Hurricane Katrina revealed some ...
Governors know a trend when they see one. According to the AP, Maine Gov. John Baldacci has replaced his SUV with a sedan, while New ...
At Governing's Managing Performance conference last week, Delaware Budget Director J.J. Davis touted a policy being tested in her state as the answer to ...
What is it about local government that makes so many former state and federal officials want to end their careers working for a city?
Doug ...
Bloggers everywhere are beating their chests about the Delaware Supreme Court's decision last week that an anonymous blogger's identity can stay a secret.
The case ...
Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit's "hip-hop mayor," said yesterday that he'll stop wearing the diamond earring that has been his trademark for the past four ...
The news out of San Diego keeps getting worse. Media outlets secured the release last week of 60,000 documents related to the city's $1.4 billion (and counting) ...
Next year is shaping up to be a banner year for independent and third-party office seekers. The only thing that is missing is the candidates.
Obesity is not only an increasingly important public health problem. It also presents all manner of difficulty for coroners who have to dispose of larger-than-usual ...
Complaining about artificial turf is easy: It's expensive. It's not as environmenta lly sound as real grass. It's uncomfortable to walk and run on.
But ...
There's a new threat emerging in our major urban centers according to police and prosecutors--and it's a fashion trend. To be more specific, it is ...
Fifteen years ago or so, around the time legislatures were first passing term limits laws, we ran an article in this magazine pondering what life ...
"ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The author of a new state law that allows felony charges against owners of dangerous dogs was hospitalized over the ...
The New York Times ran a story the other day about how Hurricane Katrina, rather than leading to a rebirth of big-government liberalism in areas ...
Just yesterday, we on the 13th floor were talking about how public employees should watch what they write in a blog. It could cost you ...
After some initial grumblings, it now seems there's no question that New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast hit by Hurricane Katrina will ...
Has the Lone Star State's noteworthy generosity after Hurricane Katrina morphed into old-fashioned Texas opportunism?
One can't help but wonder, with the news that San ...
The Salt Lake Tribune obtained the credit card records for Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. The result? Rocky's a good tipper.
The mayor is ...
I still can't decide whether to file this item in my "Pension Fund Power" folder, or the newly created "Haley Barbour & ...
Two questions on ballots this November on opposite sides of the country are turning into a case study of partisan hypocrisy. At the same time, ...
There's an interesting economics experiment going on in Hawaii. A first-in-the-nation state cap on gas prices went into effect last month, and residents have already ...
Florida Governor Jeb Bush is pro-choice. No, he hasn't changed his mind about a woman's right to choose, but he is giving Medicaid recipients in ...
In Lexington, KY, last Fourth of July, a handful of attractive teenage girls drummed up support for mayoral candidate Bill Farmer, Jr. The good-looking high ...
The other day, I put up a post about Iowa's stringent new sex offender residency law. Today, the Des Moines Register takes an interesting and ...
Just as we have run the gamut of names for hurricanes this season, I can't help wondering if any superlatives will be left unused. Right ...
Some Greenwich, CT, residents are petitioning the city to change the name of their street. Why? Well, they live on Hooker Lane.
They're tired of ...
As Hurricane Wilma slams into the Florida coast, emergency officials should be well-prepared to deal with the consequences. After all, Florida has been pummeled by ...
I haven't looked at any financial statements from Arnold Schwarzenegger or Michael Bloomberg lately, so I don't know just how rich either of them is.&...
I'm headed off to San Francisco tomorrow to see how Mayor Gavin Newsom (pictured) is handling his city's notorious homeless problem.
San Francisco, like a ...
Kansas now has the image of being one of the most conservative states in the country--a solid supporter of Republican candidates, center of the hottest ...
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has had his fair share of political blunders in his relatively short political career. And most of the time when he interacts ...
The parody blog purportedly written by Harriet Miers has been a big hit, linked to by bloggers everywhere and the subject of a friendly piece ...
On November 8, citizens in Texas who vote for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage could inadvertently be voting to ban the institution altogether.
Some ...
A couple of weeks back, I wrote that a new law in Des Moines, which may be imitated throughout Iowa, threatened to make it impossible ...
The city of Chicago is one step closer to becoming foie gras-free. A city council committee on Tuesday approved a ban on the food, made ...
I just finished Craig Crawford's new book, Attack the Messenger , in which he claims that officeholders have increasingly turned to criticizing the media to deflect ...
I find myself pondering a lunchtime talk I heard yesterday by Chris Leinberger, the developer and New Urbanist thinker who's currently involved in recreating downtown ...
Officials in Arlington County, Virginia, will take up a hot-button topic next month: whether or not to limit the size of new houses in the ...
Miami-Dade has joined the growing ranks of public library systems offering free wireless Internet access to their patrons. That's newsworthy on a local level, but ...
U.S. Supreme Court nominations are not the only forum for partisan debates a bout the legal system. Immediate reaction to the indictment ...
The Newark City Council voted to pay a local weekly $100,000 to run positive stories about the city. Why is this bad? Let me count the ...
This year, New Jersey is forbidding sex offenders from participating in Halloween. The state parole board is instituting a 7 p.m. curfew for sex offenders ...
Courtney posts a comment to my piece below on the Scooter Libby indictment, wondering what it had to do with state or local government. Fair ...
Colorado's vote today will offer a decent barometer on the public's willingness to raise taxes in an era of small government.
What's on the ballot ...
Josh Goodman's post below sizes up the stakes in today's Colorado TABOR election. But the question I was left with was this: Why is Colorado ...
Evolution has long been under attack in Kansas. The state school board voted in 1999 to ban the teaching of Darwinian theory. That board was soon ...
Buried at the bottom of the Washington Post's first swing at the federal tax reform commission's recommendations, issued today, is the bad news state and ...
On Nov. 1, 2005, officials announced that Anthony Williams' blog had passed away. At less than two months old, the online journal was quite young. It had ...
It's too soon for Maine Governor John Baldacci to heli-drop onto a yacht in Portland's harbor and declare, "Mission Accomplished." But his far-reaching ...
"The day of the regional jet is over," airline consultant Mike Boyd declared in a USA Today article.
That news is both surprising, ...
The Washington Post reports today that the new federal plan for handling pandemic flu "counts heavily on the public's cooperation and good sense." ...
It's not exactly Royal Fever that's hit D.C. this week, but the visit by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall is ...
DC Mayor Anthony Williams' blog, which earlier this week was presumed dead, may be returning from the grave.
A city spokesperson is now saying that ...
GOVERNING.COM COVERAGE & ANALYSIS IS HERE.
ELECTION NIGHT LIVEBLOG IS HERE.
I'll be on the 13th Floor Tuesday night, monitoring state and local election ...
The embarrassing merry-go-round of judges in the Tom DeLay case illustrates the growing problem of partisanship in the judiciary. First, one judge was removed from ...
If you want to enjoy some delicious, American-grown horsemeat, you'd better do it fast. The federal government is likely putting an end to the practice ...
Feeling jittery about Election Day? Either you're a candidate running for office or an election official hoping the voting machines will do their job correctly.
...
In recent Governing profiles about big-city school superintendents, I noted that both Philadelphia's Paul Vallas and Boston's Tom Payzant have made a big push to ...
Iowa's Attorney General, Tom Miller, called me the other day to complain about a story I wrote in Governing's October issue. The piece, about the ...
Yummy off-year election results! Eat them up tonight. Mmmm!
The feast begins at 6 pm ET.
6:04 P.M.: Conspicuously absent from my previous post was any mention of Texas' gay marriage ban. That's because the ban will fail only if pigs ...
6:51 P.M.: With Virginia's polls closing in a few minutes, I'll be looking with interest at the results from Loudoun County. Loudoun is growing remarkably ...
CBS has a helpful map with information on key races around the country, including what time the polls close (thanks go to Political Wire for ...
7:10 P.M.: Polls have closed in Virginia, but there are no exit polls today, so we'll have to wait for the results. Not Larry Sabato ...
7:25: As the Hotline's blog points out, we are hearing conflicting reports about turnout in Virginia. I just heard two reporters on T.V., one stationed ...
7:33 P.M.: Polls have now closed in Ohio. Besides the statewide referendums, there are also interesting mayoral races in Cleveland and Cincinnati. In Cleveland, incumbent ...
8:26 P.M.: Looking at the aggregate Virginia results, Democratic Tim Kaine appears to be outperforming fellow Democrats Leslie Byrne and Creigh Deeds, candidates for lt. ...
8:53 P.M.: Tim Kaine appears to be matching Mark Warner's numbers from 2001 in many places. That's good news for him because Warner won by 5%.
...
8:07 P.M. Only a small percentage of Ohio's precincts have reported so far, so it's too soon to jump to any conclusions. Still, it is ...
9:13 P.M.: The Associated Press has called the Virginia governor's race for Democrat Tim Kaine.
The St. Petersburg Times reports that incumbent Republican Rick Baker has 68.5% of the vote with 88 of 115 precincts reporting. I'm not sure whether this one has ...
9:28 P.M.: As expected, the gay marriage ban in Texas has passed easily. Currently, it is winning with 74% of the vote. Based on the standard ...
9:20 P.M.: Bill White, the Democratic mayor of Houston is taking upwards of 90% of the vote has been officially called as the winner.
9:50 P.M.: The much-ballyhooed four reform referendums in Ohio appear to be in serious danger of defeat. It isn't a big surprise that Issue 4, the ...
9:32 P.M.: With 41% of precincts in, New Jersey Democrat Jon Corzine has a 54%-43% lead over Republican Doug Forrester.
9:55 P.M.: According to the Associated Press, Democrat Jon Corzine has been elected governor of New Jersey.
10:04 P.M.: Issue 4 fails according to the AP. It will be interesting to dissect afterwards why, when Ohio residents have such low opinions of Republican ...
10:14 P.M.: Not Larry Sabato is calling the Virginia lieutenant governor race for Republican Bill Bolling. I haven't heard an official call, but the tone ...
10:22 P.M.: Although most precincts haven't reported yet, Atlanta's Democratic Mayor Shirley Franklin is taking 92% of the vote, so I'm personally declaring her the winner ...
10:29 P.M.: As expected, the AP reports Democrat Bob O'Connor has won the mayoral race in Pittsburgh.
10:40 P.M.: For the second time this year, Dallas voters have rejected a proposal to strengthen the city's mayorship. Today's referendum would have made more ...
10:51 P.M.: Two more mayoral updates: St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly has been defeated by fellow Democrat Chris Coleman. This is a win that Democrats ...
11:00 P.M.: Polls are just closing in both Washington state and California. There are tons of interesting referendums in both places.
11:13 P.M.: The four referendums designed to reform Ohio election law have all officially been defeated. An article from the AP suggests that voter confusion ...
11:19 P.M.: Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has easily won a fourth term.
11:30 P.M.: New Jersey voters have passed a ballot measure to create a lieutenant governorship. Prior to the vote, I believe New Jersey was the ...
11:46 P.M.: Four more results: Incumbent Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell has just conceded to City Council Chairman Frank Jackson in a tight race. Minneapolis Mayor ...
11:59 P.M.: Although I haven't seen any official call, barring a very dramatic turn of events Maine voters will keep a law banning discrimination on ...
12:12 A.M.: According to the Los Angeles Times, two of the ballot measures pushed by Arnold appear to be failing. The two are Refs. 76 and 77, ...
12:23 A.M.: Results on California's referendums are here. Referendum 75, which would require written consent for the dues of public employee union members to be used ...
12:32 A.M.: New York's ballot measure to change the state budgeting process has failed. Anytime both Gov. Pataki and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer are against ...
12:42 A.M.: The Seattle Times has lots of interesting results on their site. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels appears headed to reelection in early returns, but ...
12:50 A.M.: Republican Jerry Sanders leads Democrat Donna Frye in early returns in San Diego.
In Detroit, the Free Press explains why they haven't called ...
1:08 A.M.: I haven't tried to figure out what California counties have reported so far, but the Hotline blog says that the liberal, populous counties ...
1:29 A.M.: Republican Jerry Sanders appears to be pulling ahead. If he does win, his unenviable task is to fix the fiscal mess in San ...
1:47 A.M.: King County Executive Ron Sims got a bit of a scare, but he appears to be winning.
By the way, the Hotline blog ...
2:00 A.M.: It looks as though it might still be a while before we know the result in Detroit, but, as far as I can ...
2:22 A.M.: Washington state has passed one of the nation's toughest smoking bans.
2:35 A.M.: We're still waiting on the last results from California, but I'm headed to bed. Prop. 75 is especially close and you can get all ...
The Detroit Free Press calls Parks' passing "the unquantifiable X-factor" in Kwame Kilpatrick's comeback.
Full coverage is here.
Initiatives & referenda roundup is here.
Mayors & local race roundup is here.
Here's the LA Times' take on why all four of Arnold's ballot measures failed: He wasn't asking voters so much to "join Arnold" ...
Concerns over the rate of growth and development could be a key factor in next year's elections in Maryland. A Baltimore Sun study found ...
The Washington Post's take on the VA governors' race: Gov. Warner's got coattails.
Also: Kaine finds religion in a way that works for Democrats.
This hasn't been a good month for anti-tax crusaders. Voters in several elections sent a clear signal that they are willing to dig deeper to ...
African-Americans fared well on Election Day in races for high-level local offices.
Four cities elected their first black mayor:
Buffalo, N.Y. - Democrat ...
Texas has become the 18th state to amend its constitution to ban same-sex marriage. As our hard-working election night blogger Josh Goodman points out, the ...
I'm heading down to Louisville today for a conference on regionalism. There should be a lot to talk about.
Residents of Topeka and Shawnee County, ...
Via Hotline's Last Call! (subs. required):
And the most enthusiastic winner of Election 2005 goes to this man.
I remember being shocked--shocked--when Jack Kemp expounded on his housing initiatives, decades ago now, by talking about "incentivizing" and "de-incentivizing" (or ...
Is this the city hall of the future? That's what Governing asked back in 2000, when San Jose was planning its new civic center. Well, the ...
The governors of Kentucky and Illinois must be playing from the same political handbook. Both Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher (a Republican) and Illinois Gov. Rod ...
Could high-tech congestion tolls work in Manhattan as they have in London? The NYC media is buzzing about this, apparently in the expectation that Mike ...
It sounded a little touchy feely, but more than a decade ago, when Oregon wanted to edge closer to universal health care coverage, the state ...
Post-Hurricane Katrina, post-9/11, post-Northridge earthquake, post-Rita/Wilma/Andrew, post-fill-in-disaster-of-your-choice-here, I can't help but roll my eyes at this story from Sacramento.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently ...
Is telecommuting becoming more popular than transit? A new report by the Reason Foundation looks at this and other questions around working from home. One ...
Two years ago Democratic voters gave a Republican official what Governing termed "a stinging rebuke" on a reform-minded ballot measure he pushed. If ...
Who are the most powerful unelected state and local officials in the country? When Governing writer John Buntin and I got talking about this some ...
Believe it or not, only one mayor of America's 25 most populous cities is a woman (Laura Miller of Dallas, pictured here). Though the extent to ...
There are lots of respectable ways for governors to sell out once they leave office. Lobbying, for example, is lucrative and perfectly legal. But Jesse ...
Here's a twist on FEMA Bashfest 2005: the mayor of Pembroke Pines, Fla., proposes creating a "mini-FEMA" for his city.
The Sun-Sentinel reports that ...
My mom can be pretty tough on politicians. She's been dumping a lot on President Bush lately, just as she dumped on President Clinton before ...
Ethics reforms passed by Philadelphia voters last week will cost $1 million to implement, the Philly Inquirer reports today. Want to regulate no-bid contracts more tightly? ...
Somehow we on the 13th Floor let Time Magazine's 5-best/3-worst governors piece slip by us this week. It's not that we didn't notice it. ...
South Carolina's Mark Sanford (pictured here) may have been the most controversial pick for Time magazine's list of three worst governors. Now the fallout from ...
Clearly, some cities have a bad case of Bilbao and/or Millennium Park envy. Having built up big convention centers and filled revitalized downtowns with ...
The town of Clark, TX, was wiped off the map earlier this week. Don't worry--the town didn't get washed away in a flood or flattened ...
Blogs have only been around for a couple of years, so the medium is still evolving. Yet I'm ready to declare one unassailable truth: all ...
Hope you're sitting down--here's news that will shock you.
The prospective baseball stadium to be built here in Washington to accommodate the Nationals will cost ...
The lack of competitive elections in legislative and congressional races is a matter of much concern to political observers. Yesterday, I spoke with Dan Walters, ...
We've given a few blogging mayors and governors a hard time on the 13th Floor for infrequent posting, ghost-posting and not loosening their, ahem, bow ...
Hedge funds are the really hot thing on Wall Street, which may be as good a sign as any that they are something for investors ...
The Wall Street Journal has a frightening front-page piece (paid subsc.) today on (yet another!) looming financial crisis facing state and local governments. This one ...
This week, the Mississippi Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal plans to begin distributing free copies of "A Pattern Book for Gulf Coast ...
It was published on Thanksgiving day, so you may have missed this Los Angeles Times story about how Republicans in Congress and the Bush White ...
I ran into Tom Cronin, the political scientist, the other day, and he raised a really interesting question that I couldn't answer. The question was ...
From most of the commentary on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. New London, which affirmed the use of eminent domain ...
Anyone who's ever advocated throwing juvenile offenders in prison to teach them a lesson ought to meet some of the youths who are in detention ...
Among the items in the gift catalogs I was browsing through last evening are "talking president" dolls--12" action figures of George W. ...
A page in Governing's annual State & Local Sourcebook is always devoted to 50-state data on toxic chemical releases. The numbers come from the U....
Survey USA has new approval ratings for all 50 governors. The polls bear out an odd trend that has become increasingly clear over the past few ...
The lights are low. You smile across the table at your date. This is going well, you think. You take a sip of your drink ...
Going along with my post below, I have often wondered why, with so many governors thriving in states where their party is supposedly in the ...
