Every year, editor Kevin Smith pulls cutting-edge selections from publications such as Governing, State Legislatures, State News, and Campaigns & Elections to grab your students’ interest with highly readable and up-to-date articles that hit close to home. Nearly 40 new articles cover the significant issues facing state and local government with the same context and currency you have come to expect as hallmarks of this reader. The 2011–2012 edition will help bring the latest analysis into your state and local government course.

ISBN: 978-1-60871-834-4

Format: Print Paperback

Retail Price: $35.00

Price to Bookstores: $28.00

Nearly 40 new articles cover the significant issues facing state and local government with the same context and currency you have come to expect as hallmarks of this reader. The 2011–2012 edition will help bring the latest analysis into your state and local government course.           

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Preface

I. Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations
1. Federalism in the Age of Obama
2. Competing and Cooperating across State Borders in Economic Development: A Call for "Coopertition"
3. What Really Matters in Health-Care Reform
4. An End Run on the Electoral College

II. Elections and Political Environment
5. Red Tide
6. Prison-Based Gerrymandering Dilutes Blacks' Voting Power
7. The Future of Redistricting and Rural America
8. Do It Yourself Redistricting

III. Political Parties and Interest Groups
9. Restlessness Unleashed: The Tea Partiers and Lessons of History
10. Tempest in a Tea Party
11. The Great Divide
12. State Political Parties Stand the Risk of Losing Major Party Status in Future Elections

IV. Legislatures
13. Newly in Charge
14. Dealing with Term-Limited Legislators
15. What Legislators Need Now
16. Legislatures Expand Training for New Members

V. Governors and Executives
17. Goodbye Moderate Governors, Hello Partisans
18. Governors Set Agenda for a Lean 2011
19. The Rise of Attorneys General
20. The Nation's Only Health Insurance Commissioner Takes on the Health-Care System

VI. Courts
21. The Impact of High-Visibility Contests for U.S. State Court Judgeships: Partisan Voting in Nonpartisan Elections
22. The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2000-2009: Decade of Change: Executive Summary
23. 2010 Judicial Elections Increase Pressure on Courts, Reform Groups Say

VII. Bureaucracy
24. Public Servants as Enemy #1
25. Election Adds Pressure to Change Public Pensions
26. Local Governments Cutting Jobs and Services
27. Does Government Work Require Government Employees?

VIII. Local Government
28. States Handing Off More Responsibilities to Cities
29. Is Government Consolidation the Answer?
30. Colorado Springs' Do-It-Yourself Government
31. The Big Apple: Urban Incubator

IX. Budgets and Taxes
32. Deep Holes, Few Options
33. Bringing State Tax Systems into the 21st Century
34. Lottery Revenues Not a Sure Bet
35. Efficiency in State Government

X. Policy Challenges
36. Interim Analysis: 2011 State of the State Addresses
37. Right Turn: A New Congress Intent on Fiscal Discipline Means States Can Expect Little Budget Help from Washington
38. Governance Challenges and Options for State and Local Governments
39. A Special Report: Immigration and the States

Kevin B. Smith is professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author or coauthor of Governing States and Localities, 2nd Edition, 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.