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Donald F. Kettl

Columnist

Donald F. Kettl, a columnist for Governing, is a professor emeritus and the former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. Until his recent retirement, he was the Sid Richardson Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. He is a senior adviser at the Volcker Alliance and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Kettl, who holds a Ph.D. and master's degree 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), and the co-author of Bridgebuilders: How Government Can Transcend Boundaries to Solve Big Problems (2023).

He can be reached at Dfkettl52@gmail.com or on Twitter at @DonKettl.

Presidents who used to run states sometimes stiff them when it comes to making policy.
Federal aid helped states and localities cope with the biggest costs of the pandemic. But good things don’t last forever, and this one didn’t.
Insurance companies have a safety valve that can spare them some of the costs of disaster relief — but it comes at the expense of their customers.
Some conservatives want Washington to stay out of disaster zones, leaving the job to states and localities, along with private insurance. This won't fly politically or practically.
They'll need a lot more federal help to stay afloat.
Nonprofit groups have helped preserve access to abortion even in states where the procedure's been banned.
The arguments over border sovereignty have never died away in more than two centuries of American life. Now they are coming to the forefront again.
There’s a big audience for it. But people listening to police radio creates serious privacy challenges. They can also hamper law enforcement.
Our federalism expert makes predictions about climate and the culture wars and how states will take the lead in policy in 2024. He also owns up to what he got right — and wrong — over the past year.
Localities have always been creatures of state government. But their freedom to act independently is up against ever more stringent limits.