Author Biography
Virginia Gray is the Robert Watson Winston Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She teaches and does research on state politics, public policy, and interest groups. She has published numerous refereed articles and books on these topics, most recently The Organizational Ecology of Interest Communities: Assessment and Agenda (2015), coedited with David Lowery and Darren Halpin. In 2007, she was recognized with the Career Achievement Award of the State Politics and Policy Organized Section of the American Political Science Association, and in 2013, the Virginia Gray Book Award was created by the State Politics Section in her honor. Russell L. Hanson is professor of political science at Indiana University Bloomington, where he has taught since 1980. He is interested in American federalism and has published articles on political culture, economic development, and social policy in the American states. Among his edited books are Reconsidering the Democratic Public (1993) and Governing Partners: State-Local Relations in the United States (1998). His articles have appeared in the Journal of Politics, American Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Western Political Quarterly, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and Economic Development Quarterly. Thad Kousser is professor of political science and department chair at the University of California, San Diego. He has served as a legislative aide in the California, New Mexico, and U.S. senates. He is the author of Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism, coauthor of The Power of American Governors and The Logic of American Politics, and coeditor of The New Political Geography of California. Kousser has been awarded the UCSD Academic Senate's Distinguished Teaching Award, has served as coeditor of State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and serves as coeditor for state and local politics of Legislative Studies Quarterly.
