GOVERNING STATES AND LOCALITIES ABOUT THE AUTHORS KEVIN B. SMITH is an associate professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of The Ideology of Education and numerous scholarly articles on state politics and policy. He is also a former associate editor of State Politics & Policy Quarterly. Prior to becoming an academic he covered state and local politics as a newspaper reporter. ALAN GREENBLATT has been writing about politics and government in Washington and the states for more than a decade. As a reporter at Congressional Quarterly, he won the National Press Club's Sandy Hume award for political journalism. Since joining the staff of Governing magazine, he has covered issues of concern to state and local governments, including budgets, taxes and higher education. Along the way, he has written about politics and culture for numerous publications, including the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle. JOHN BUNTIN is a staff correspondent for Governing magazine. A graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, he previously wrote about government institutions and policy issues as a casewriter at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.