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Carl Smith

Senior Staff Writer

Carl Smith is a senior staff writer for Governing and covers a broad range of issues affecting states and localities. For the past 30 years, Carl has written about education and the environment for peer-reviewed papers, magazines and online publications, with a special focus on conservation and sustainability. He has guest-edited special issues of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health focused on the Precautionary Principle and the human rights dimensions of environmental degradation. Carl attended the University of Texas and the University of Georgia. He can be reached at carl.smith@governing.com or on Twitter at @governingwriter.

Milwaukee County has one of the nation’s highest death rates from synthetic opioids. It’s deploying millions of opioid settlement dollars to fund programs across a variety of agencies.
New Jersey is the only state to commission an independent review of its COVID-19 actions. The 900-page report details the effects on public health infrastructure and recommends changes to prevent the state from being blindsided again next time.
In a sweeping State of the Union address before Congress, the president spotlighted the economic comeback under his administration and offered his plans for the future.
The pilot release of a first-of-its-kind mapping tool is a step toward understanding carbon storage in Oregon estuaries, supporting long-term goals to preserve them.
Everyone knows this is a charged moment for election administration. A bipartisan committee has refreshed long-established ethical standards to help officials navigate current minefields.
Major tech firms have signed an accord to fight the deceptive use of AI in 2024 elections. It’s a welcome signal, if not a promise to solve the problem.
A group of American cities are working to reverse practices that have held down Black homeownership — and the generational wealth it brings — for nearly a century.
Legislatures across the nation are confronting several social issues including crime, drug use, immigration and poverty. These issues will continue to hold resonance, of course, in the November elections.
Thousands of county officials came to Washington, D.C., to make the case with Congress that funding counties directly is the best way to improve lives across the country’s diverse rural and urban communities.
Even with the lessons from 2020, election administrators find themselves in unknown territory this time around.