Donald F. Kettl, a columnist for Governing, is the Sid Richardson Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, he served as the dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, a nonresident senior fellow at the Volcker Alliance and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Kettl, who holds a Ph.D. and master's degrees in political science from Yale University, is the author of several books, most recently The Divided States of America: Why Federalism Doesn't Work (2020) and Can Governments Earn Our Trust? (2017).
THE FUTURE OF What’s Happening Now
Without reinvigorating our tattered intergovernmental partnership, his administration will be doomed as it tries to tackle enormous, urgent and inescapable challenges.
THE FUTURE OF What’s Happening Now
He'll have his hands full from the start with issues that are likely to bring a rethinking of federal-state-local relations.
THE FUTURE OF What’s Happening Now
The crippled response to COVID-19 is just one example of why we need to revive our ability to sort out the roles of the federal government and the states.
THE FUTURE OF What’s Happening Now
A tiny agency did important work on our intergovernmental system for decades. It's unlikely that the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations can be revived, but we still need what it did.
THE FUTURE OF What’s Happening Now
There was a time when state and local governments could work out deals with Washington. But as the pandemic struggle illustrates, the glory days of big intergovernmental initiatives have ebbed away.
5G technology will bring challenges for local government all the way down to the neighborhood level.
Soundbites and slogans might work in Washington, but closer to home voters expect results.
Liberal and conservative states are both stirring things up. Very different things.
In an emergency, government must convince people it knows best for them. That's easier said than done.
The biggest issue is difficult to debate, and it's not "Medicare for all."
Communities destroyed by natural disaster all want to start over. Somebody has to pay for it.
The White House has learned that there’s more than one way to attack a liberal-leaning federal government.
The president's trillion-dollar proposal could have been a signature achievement.
The digital currency market is changing so fast that any misstep could be huge.
There's a better way for governments to focus on effective initiatives.
The problems associated with legalizing marijuana are seen on a much bigger scale in the state.
Obamacare isn’t the reason they’re going up. It’s state policies.
No one wants to pay for natural disasters. But even small-government proponents may have to accept increased federal involvement.
Over a generation, there’s been a sea change in the way cities, states and the feds deal with each other.
A 75-year-old highway project offers clues to solving a critical present-day problem.
If his current proposals succeed, his supporters are in for a rude awakening.
Suddenly it’s the left that’s talking about defying federal law. The reversal raises a host of questions.
Much of what the new administration wants to change was built by Lyndon B. Johnson.
The president-elect and his Republican Congress will surely change health care -- but first, they have to decide how.
As the first governor on the job in almost half a century, either one of them will present new opportunities for the White House.
The cereal’s new look shows how and why one small state could change the rules nationwide.
Money that lobbyists once spent in Washington is being redeployed to fight battles in state capitals.
Presidential contenders have plans for making college more affordable. But it's an issue not easily solved from the Oval Office.
When government lets the market fix policy problems, it often fails.
The governors running for president possess what voters are looking for -- yet all of them are struggling in the polls.
The strategy that's improved the management of fires has, paradoxically, made it harder to know who’s really in charge of putting them out.
In the decade since the storm, the federal government's involvement in disaster relief has risen -- and so have tensions with localities.
A recent incident involving Double Stuf Oreos highlights the debate about how much supervision of children is too much.
The growing role of federal waivers suggest the answer isn't simple.
Bad intergovernmental relations have the United States headed for fiscal disaster.
The militarization of police has come under fire, but it’s just a distraction from the real civil rights issues.
The Wisconsin Congressman's bold anti-poverty plan picks battles with conservatives and liberals, reducing its chances of passage.
Measuring performance is hard to do. But it's even harder to do when you're measuring it from hundreds of miles away -- as is the case for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
By letting citizens live in vulnerable places even after disaster strikes, governments plant the seeds for future disasters.
More than 225 years after the first one, states are considering whether to call a second as a way to rein in the feds. But no one really knows what a convention can and can’t do and how it would work.
The feds set a goal of reducing crime on tribal reservations by 5 percent. Here’s how they brought it down by more than 700 percent.
In the decade since the parties put politics aside to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, education policy has gone from pragmatic consensus to ideological division.
The combination of a limping economy and tight federal budgets has led many state and local governments to ever more imaginative -- and risky -- revenue sources like violence and buzzkill taxes.
In the immediate aftermath of the blasts, several fundamental lessons were relearned.
Furious at Washington gridlock and seeking to get their party back on top, Republican governors -- like President Ronald Reagan before them -- are waging an anti-tax campaign aimed at the income tax.
The United States isn't the only place where local marijuana policies clash with national laws. Even Amsterdam and the Dutch government have struggled with this tension. Read the rest of Governing's first-ever International Issue here.
In the next four years, state and local governments are going to be at the very front of domestic policy -- especially on issues like health care where the feds have gotten most of the headlines.
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.
How states’ decisions to not require vaccinations and general budget cuts to public health have impacted the nation’s ability to prevent, track and treat disease outbreaks.
States can no longer rely on federal bailouts or taxes. For the latest on state revenues, click here.
Much of President Barack Obama's federal effort to bring jobs back home depends on states' ability to educate and train workers.
This latest skirmish shows how localities, not the feds, are driving eco-policy.
Republicans and Democrats call for fewer mandates. Both parties, however, have yet to answer fundamental questions about what government should do and how it should pay for it.
The modern era of federal aid championed by President Nixon and his “new federalism” program draws to a close.
China embraces performance management in an effort to wring out greater productivity and transparency.
As schools opt for healthier lunch options, governments are pitted against the powerful dairy industry.
States are unhappy with Medicaid costs, but they’re not willing to surrender federal incentives to cut them.
Governors who campaigned against stimulus spending face hard choices.
When a TV show deals with the risks of nuclear storage, it can tip an already unstable political balance.
The feds can create a new security agency. But they can't make us secure. That has to happen at the grassroots.
The Bush administration's performance-measurement plans may mean a new challenge to state and local control.
Worried about a repeat of California's rolling blackouts, the feds have pushed the states to create new super-grids.
While Congress and the EPA fight political wars, states are making the crucial environmental decisions.
If you look behind the headlines, the presidential campaign is very much a clash of domestic ideology.
Once political outcasts, Native Americans are now big players in state campaigns.
We've come to depend on states as the source of new policy ideas. They aren't producing many right now.
This year's election could have the same profound impact on American politics as the 1896 presidential contest.
The presidential candidates' speeches provide few clues about their views on federal-state relations.
Governmental power has been decentralizing for 20 years now. Some think that's over. They should think again.
Congress promised to stop imposing mandates on states and localities without paying for them. But the temptation is irresistible.
Reinventing government from the bottom up is excruciatingly hard. But in the long run, it may be the best way.
Thirty years ago, we wanted to control 'new source' air pollution in the worst way. That's about what we did.
Last month's `summit' meeting started on the subject of taxes. But it ended with a much broader challenge.
No one disputes that voting procedures need some serious reform. But whose job is it to fix them?
You'd think presidents who used to be governors would cut the states a break. It never seems to happen.
The key to sensible government reform is refocusing the system around results.
The tobacco and gun lawsuits stand the traditional checks-and-balances system on its ear and marginalize Congress.
Centrism is smart presidential politics. But it's ideological zeal that dominates the state electoral scene these days.
We've learned a lot about cutting caseloads. The next step is to focus on keeping people out of poverty.
States are beseeching the White House for some dollars to tide them over while they get back on their feet. The White House isn't going for it.
The way to evaluate the president's initiative is by what it achieves, not how it's organized.
When it comes to relations between the states and Washington, the Reagan era is still going on.
The next four years may alter the state-federal relationship for decades to come.
State and local governments aren't being let in on the national homeland security strategy. That may be because there isn't one.
This fall's vaccine shortage was an early warning of more serious trouble in the nation's public health systems.
No Child Left Behind represents a major change in state-federal relations. But it may not be a good campaign issue for the president.
Court cases rarely travel up to the Supreme Court, so lower courts are often the last stop for controversial cases.
Health-care politics continues to grab headlines, but what's important lies elsewhere.