NCSL Podcasts

2022 State Prescription Drug Policy Trends, NCSL Delegate Matthew Rohrbach, West Virginia Legislature website Diabetes State Mandates and Insulin Copayment Caps , NCSL Legisbrief Decreasing Drug Costs Through Generics and Biosimilars , NCSL Prescription Drug Policy Work Group Report, NCSL Prescription Drug State Bill Tracking Database , NCSL

Resources ARPA State Fiscal Recovery Fund Allocations, NCSL database Fiscal Policy homepage, NCSL How States Are Spending Their Stimulus Funds, NCSL

Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour website

RESOURCES 2022 State Legislative Calendar NCSL Experts Predict the Top Issues and Policy Trends for 2022 NCSL Town Hall on the 2022 Legislative Sessions

Our American States The U.S. population is aging. In a little more than a decade, people 65 and older will outnumber children. Those older adults face economic, social and other challenges including the need for an array of long-term services. Policymakers in a number of states are considering comprehensive approaches to support older adults. A few states have created what are termed master plans...

Legislatures: The Inside Storey The guest for this episode of the podcast is Peter Groff, the former Senate president in Colorado, who also served in the Obama administration as head of the Faith Based Initiative Center for the U.S. Department of Education. He now works with the Education Trust in Washington, D.C., as a policy and political consultant. Groff, who served first in the Colorado House...

Our American States Newborn screening in the U.S. is the practice of testing every child in the country for a number of disorders, many of which can be addressed if caught early. States are in charge of newborn screening and receive advice from federal agencies. On this podcast, Peter Kyriacopoulos, the director for public policy at the Association of Public Health Laboratories, discusses how the...

Legislatures: The Inside Storey Mike Haridopolos, former Senate president in Florida, talks with Tim about how he went from teaching college history to taking the reins as the president of the Senate in one of our largest states. Haridopolos, who spent 12 years in the Florida Legislature and led the Senate from 2010-12 now runs his own consulting firm, writes books and works frequently with politi...

Our American States State agencies charged with ensuring that custodial parents collect child support face a daunting challenge. Census Bureau data indicates fewer than half of custodial parents receive their full support payments. Traditionally states have relied on civil contempt statutes to compel the noncustodial parent to pay up. But that process—which can result in onerous civil procedures a...

Our American States A Starting Point is a civic engagement platform with some unusual star power behind it. The website, which features a bipartisan cast of elected officials discussing policy, was co-founded by actors Chris Evans and Mark Kassen with another friend, medical tech entrepreneur Joe Kiani. Kassen is the guest on the podcast, and he discusses why they started the site, the pros and co...

Our American States On this podcast, we look ahead to the new term of the U.S. Supreme Court and look back at some decisions from the past term. Our guide is Lisa Soronen, the executive director of the State and Local Legal Center. Soronen keeps a sharp eye on the U.S Supreme Court and monitors the court for decisions that affect state and local governments. The center also files amicus briefs in...

Our American States The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 sparked a cascade of state legislation affecting policing policy. There were more than 3,000 bills that were considered in legislatures, and more than 400 were signed into law. The legislation came from both sides of the aisle. For this podcast, we spoke with Rep. Leslie Herod, a Democract from Colorado, and Sen. Whitney West...

Legislatures: The Inside Storey Leadership is a perennial topic of interest for those in the legislative world and few are better at digging into the topic that Nancy Koehn. Koehn is a historian at the Harvard Business School where she holds the James E. Robinson chair of Business Administration. She is a prolific writer, the author of dozens of journal articles and several books. Her most recent...

Our American States NCSL’s Legislative Summit is back Nov. 3-5 in Tampa, Fla. On this podcast, we talk with three of NCSL’s experts about some of the sessions coming up at the Summit. Natalie Wood, director of NCSL’s Center for Legislative Strengthening, discusses a session on legislative oversight during an emergency, lessons learned by legislatures during the pandemic and why tension between the...

Our American States Redistricting is finally upon us. The once-a-decade process uses data from the census to draw congressional and state legislative districts in the states. Legislatures are in charge of redistricting, though commissions also play a role in some states. Delayed data from the U.S. Census Bureau has left states behind in the process compared to earlier cycles. On this podcast, Wend...

Legislatures: The Inside Storey Welcome to the inaugural episode of “Legislatures: The Inside Storey,” a new podcast from the National Conference of State Legislatures. On this first episode, Tim Storey, the executive director of NCSL, sits down with John Medina, a molecular biologist best known for his book “Brain Rules,” which explains how what we know about the brain can affect how we teach our...

Overview NCSL’s Our American States podcast presents a special six-part series, “ Building Democracy: The Story of Legislatures .” This new mini-series covers the history, characters and stories of state legislatures in America, from the beginnings in Jamestown, to the present day and into the future. Each episode in the series will contain interviews with experts from inside and outside the legis...

Our American States The cost of higher education, the amount of student loan debt, the percentage of students who receive degrees and other related issues have been debated in legislatures and on the campaign trail. Proposals for a new federal state-partnership on higher education and for free community college are among the issues being debated. On this podcast we hear from Kevin Carey and Jason...

The crushing strain of caring for patients the last year and half of pandemic has taken a toll on health care workers. Legislatures play an important role in this area by creating laws for licensure and regulation. On the podcast to discuss the workforce and how to help health care workers cope with the current challenges is Dr. Luis Padilla, the associate administrator for health workforce at the...

One of the most promising areas of cancer treatment involves identifying the cancer a person has and using therapies targeted at just that cancer. This field of precision medicine or targeted medicine is not well understood by most lawmakers or the general public. On the podcast to discuss this emerging field is Dr. Carl Morrison, a molecular biologist and pathologist who is the senior vice presid...

This is the second of a two-part series on the Quad Caucus, a coalition of the four national caucuses of color representing Asian-Pacific American, Black, Native American and Hispanic legislators. Combined, the four groups represent more than 1,400 state lawmakers. On the earlier podcast, we spoke with Washington Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos (D) and Kansas Representative Barbara Ballard (D)...

Civility in politics seems to be a subject of almost constant discussion. Our guest today has written and spoken extensively on the topic. Teresa M. Bejan is an associate professor of political theory and fellow of Oriel College at the University of Oxford. She is the author of “Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration,” published in 2017. Bejan will be the keynote speaker at NCSL’...

Traffic safety is an issue of critical concern to state leaders, especially after a year that saw a sharp increase in traffic deaths. On this podcast to address the issue is Steven Cliff, the acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA. Cliff spent several years in a variety of roles at the California Air Resources Board and previously worked as a research p...

The guest on this podcast is Paul Manna, a professor of government and public policy at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Manna has written extensively about federal and state education policy. A key focus of Manna’s research concerns the role of principals in K-12 education and ways to identify and groom candidates to become principals. Manna talks about the critical role principals play, how a...

States faced myriad challenges trying to acquire everything from personal protective equipment to hospital sinks during the pandemic. The guests on this podcast—George Schutter, chief procurement officer for the District of Columbia, and Lindle Hatton, the CEO of the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO)—know those challenges all too well. Our two guests discuss when the emer...