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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States are now governed pretty much by one party or the other, which nearly as often as not enjoys supermajority status in legislatures, according to a report by the Pew Center on the States. That means individual states will be moving in different direction on everything from abortion to tax policy — and many are likely to resist laws set in Washington. -
President Obama began his second term with an unapologetically liberal inaugural address, calling on Americans to work together to preserve entitlements, address climate change and extend civil rights. Conservative and libertarian observers noted an "aggressive" approach to the speech.
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Unlike with his first swearing-in, Barack Obama does not face two ongoing wars and an economy on the verge of collapse. But thorny issues remain, and there's less hope than there was four years ago that Obama can bend Washington to his will. -
The anti-slavery movie has picked up a dozen Oscar nominations. Its resonance may stem partly from the way in which it shows politicians working out a deal on a tough issue — something many Americans ardently wish for today. -
The lessons of the final deal come down to this: Washington is very nearly broken. Next up? Finishing the work this agreement postponed. -
All large classes elected to Congress want to change Washington. The Tea Party has found that there are all kinds of tripwires built into the American system of checks and balances that prevent newcomers from quickly remaking the political culture into their own image. -
In the last election, the red states got redder and the blue ones bluer. That's true not only in presidential voting, but at the state level, where half the legislative chambers are now dominated by supermajorities of one party or the other. The result is that blue and red states are moving further apart on most major issues, including tax policy, abortion and guns. -
The House Democratic caucus will include a record number of women and minorities next year. But when it comes to top statewide offices, minorities do better running as Republicans. -
It used to be commonplace for leaders of the two parties to find common ground. But Democrats and Republicans stopped working together partly as a result of one of their greatest collaborations. -
Retailers say the day after Thanksgiving is when they start making profits and heading into the black. But the term has a long history predating the shopping bonanza — nearly all of it negative.
