Internet Explorer 11 is not supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.
Smith_Carl_Headshot-400RGB

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.

Mark Twain famous aphorism, “History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” reminds us that while exact circumstances may be unique, patterns do in fact repeat. That is true meteorologically this year as the U.S. navigates through another summer of extreme weather.
Budgeting sets the course for what government will and will not do. An initiative from the Government Finance Officers Association is designed to help long-term planning and foster public trust in a “new normal” of uncertainty.
The national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is two years old. Americans know it’s there, but not many know what it does.
Regardless of the continuing partisan debates about climate change, Republican-led states are benefiting economically from clean energy investments.
There are penal provisions in every state’s election codes. Most officers don’t know that they exist.
The court’s recent ruling prompted concern in some quarters that police could become the primary face of homeless response. But some chiefs worry they’re caught in the middle of societal problems they aren’t equipped to handle.
AI-trained cameras are putting eyes — hundreds of them — on land across the state. They're spotting fires before the 911 calls come in.
A dozen states have joined a compact to give physician assistants a universal license. It's not a complete solution for the shortage of primary-care doctors, but it should help.
Michigan is betting its future on a sought-after natural resource — people — guided by one person in particular. Hilary Doe, the first state chief growth officer anywhere, discusses what’s next.
The vast majority of calls are about distress, not violent crime. Dispatching social workers and other professionals rather than law enforcement can improve outcomes in many cases.