Alan Greenblatt
Alan Greenblatt has been covering politics and government in Washington and around the country for 20 years. He came to NPR as a digital reporter in 2010, writing about a wide range of topics, including elections, housing economics, natural disasters and same-sex marriage.
He was previously a reporter with Governing, a magazine that covers state and local government issues. Alan wrote about education, budgets, economic development and legislative behavior, among other topics. He is the coauthor, with Kevin Smith, of Governing States and Localities, a college-level textbook that is now in its fourth edition.
As a reporter for Congressional Quarterly, he was the inaugural winner of the National Press Club's Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism, which is given to outstanding reporters under the age of 35. Sadly, he no longer meets that requirement.
Along the way, Alan has contributed articles about politics and culture for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is happy to be working for an outlet where he has been able to write about everything from revolutions in the Middle East to antique jazz recordings.
Alan is a graduate of San Francisco State University and holds a master's degree from the University of Virginia.
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No fewer than three new superPACs are working to elect their preferred candidates for secretary of state positions, even though officials overseeing elections are supposed to be neutral. -
Twenty percent of adults and nearly 40 percent of young people have at least one tattoo, but most keep them covered. Despite increased popularity and acceptance, employers just don't want to see them. -
When state legislators impose mandates on schools, educators get nervous. Sometimes, lawmakers want kids to learn legitimate skills; other times, they try to micromanage lessons down to the historical event.
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Democrats currently control city hall in 90 percent of the nation's largest cities. But not too many years ago, Republicans had a pretty good chance of winning big-city mayoral races. -
The tipped minimum wage has been stuck at $2.13 an hour since 1991. In states where servers make more than the federal minimum wage, restaurants haven't been hurting. -
A long line of actors, singers, reality TV stars and athletes have sought second careers in politics. But fame is no guarantee of success at the ballot box. -
For more than 100 years, voters have been able to pick U.S. senators themselves. Some conservatives think the country would be better off if state legislators made the choice. -
Obama's aggressive use of executive orders is nothing new, either for him or for the presidency in general. But his decision to craft policies on his own is already getting congressional pushback. -
President Obama described the state as "not the most liberal part of the country." In fact, Kentucky gives him lower approval ratings than all but seven other states. Yet the state's Democratic governor has pushed Obama's priorities on health and education more successfully than most other governors. -
Close to 300 of the nation's mayors met in Washington last week. They've found networking with their peers to be a lot more productive than trying to lobby Congress.
