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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.

What’s it like to be a front-line government official in the COVID era? The mayor of Hattiesburg, Miss., talks candidly about "awful moments,” as he navigates a pandemic, an economic meltdown and racial tensions.
Voting by mail may have started during the Civil War, but the template for the 2020 general election is being created in real time. Legislators are working to bring clarity to vital details.
COVID-19 cases are on the rise, and citizens can't shelter in place if they're evicted. Legislators in some states are proposing moratoriums on evictions for as long as a year after the end of the health emergency.
Federal money and innovative housing-first programs have provided much needed support for the nation’s half-million homeless. But with the pandemic continuing, helping this vulnerable population will remain a challenge.
Gov. Chris Sununu has signed a bill making the Granite State the first in the U.S. to allow flying cars onto its public roads. Pilots will be allowed to drive from airports to their final terrestrial destination.
Sonja Diaz, a lawyer and scholar, talks about immigrants, who are disproportionately represented among essential workers but have received little in the way of COVID-19 aid. The pandemic has left them in limbo.
COVID-19 has already hit state and local government hard, and it’s still spreading at a time when it had been predicted to recede. Legislators are trying to keep up with the consequences with a range of new bills.
Peniel Joseph, one of the nation’s leading civil rights scholars, has studied and written about the history of race and democracy. He has some ideas on how cities and urban areas can begin to dismantle racism.
It's a health risk at any time and one that disproportionately affects Black individuals and families. During a pandemic, it's an unacceptable burden. Legislators are looking at ways to better cope with the problem.
Less than 10 percent of police responses involve a violent crime. Rethinking policing involves more than how police behave on the job. Often, they may not be the right people to answer calls of distress.