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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.

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 strategy that's improved the management of fires has, paradoxically, made it harder to know who’s really in charge of putting them out.