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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.

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.
State budgets are on track for modest growth even as federal fiscal recovery funds wane, pension underfunding persists and AI promises (or threatens) to change everything.
What you need to get up to speed in terms of how state lawmakers are addressing education, energy, health, housing and even international affairs.
Tech entrepreneurs make the case that government and big tech will both benefit by sharing a focus on the public good.
Almost half of working Americans are underpaid. Wage standards for companies that receive government funding could help change this.
Swatting — falsely reporting a serious emergency to provoke aggressive police response — is on the rise. Fighting this dangerous and distracting trend remains challenging, both legally and technologically.
Changes in state laws are making it easier for drug users and responders to test drugs for additives that can prove fatal.
Better pay for legislators is on the table in several states. It’s a sticky subject, even when their work is compensated below the minimum wage.