NCSL Podcasts

On this podcast we get an update on the U.S. Supreme Court from Lisa Soronen, the executive director of the State and Local Legal Center in Washington, D.C. The court started its new term on Oct. 5. We discussed the legacy for state legislatures of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace her and the position of Chief Justice John Roberts on the sh...

Today’s podcast is focused on foster care and specifically on the challenges faced by young people as they transition out of the foster care system. Our guests are Levi Smith Jr., a 23-year-old senior at Georgia State University studying social work. Levi spent 10 years in foster care and discusses the challenges faced by older youth as they transition out of that system. Our second guest is Georg...

Consumer concern about data privacy has been mounting for the last few years in light of numerous data breaches. Many people also are aware of recent major governmental actions to protect privacy. One of the most far-reaching was Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, passed in May 2018. The California Consumer Privacy Act, passed in 2018, went into effect this year and was by far the most c...

Today’s podcast focuses on childhood vaccinations and a troubling drop in the rate of routine immunizations for children in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our first guest is Dr. Melinda Wharton, the director of the Immunization Services Division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Wharton, one of the nation’s preeminent experts on vaccine policy, discusses the reason...

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...

Today’s podcast looks at how K-12 schools can reopen safely amid an ongoing pandemic and what that might look like for the foreseeable future. Our first guest is Dr. Carissa Moffat Miller, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CSCCSO). Dr. Miller’s organization works with state education leaders around the nation and offers a national perspective on how schools are...

The focus of today’s podcast is transportation safety and the type of legislation states have enacted to address concerns in that area. Our guests are two NCSL staffers, Doug Shinkle, who directs the Transportation Program, and Samantha Bloch, an NCSL transportation and traffic safety policy expert. We discussed a range of topics—school bus safety, hand-held devices, alcohol and drug impaired driv...

Today’s podcast focuses on contact tracing, a longtime tool used by public health officials. During this pandemic, contact tracers identify people infected with the coronavirus and then contact others they’ve interacted with recently. Contact tracers then help people get testing and offer support for self-isolating. While every state receives some funding from the federal government to support con...

This podcast focuses on how states can ensure that their public health systems are connecting people with physical and behavioral health services in an integrated system, an issue made even more urgent by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our guests include: Karmen Hanson, a health policy expert from NCSL. New Jersey Assemblyman Herb Conaway (D), a longtime legislator, physician and a county director of heal...

Today’s podcast focuses on the Americans With Disabilities Act, which celebrates its 30th anniversary on July 26. We’re fortunate to have former Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) as our guest. Senator Harkin, who spent 30 years in the U.S. Senate, was the author and chief sponsor of the ADA. Senator Harkin shares the history of the ADA and how he came to play such a pivotal role. We also talked about hi...

Today’s podcast is the 100th episode of “Our American States,” a milestone we marked by bringing back the original host of the podcast, Gene Rose, and recalling some of our favorite moments from the last 3 ½ years. Those included interviews with political consultant Frank Luntz, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Matthew Desmond, who wrote “Evictions,” which won t...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing about states and the coronavirus pandemic. You can find links to podcasts, webinars and other resources at www.ncsl.org/coronavirus Today’s topic could hardly be of greater interest: the hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine. And at the forefront of that effort are the world’s pharmaceutical companies, which are pursuing multiple initiatives to find a vaccin...

This podcast is another in a series NCSL is producing about states and the coronavirus pandemic. You can find links to podcasts, webinars and other resources at www.ncsl.org/coronavirus. Today we’re talking with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Bush recently wrote an op-ed article for the Wall Street Journal about leadership, federalism and the challenges facing states after COVID-19. We asked th...

This podcast is another in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. You can find links to podcasts, webinars and other resources at www.ncsl.org/coronavirus . Our topic for this podcast is a sobering one: suicide. The rate of suicide in the U.S. is one of the highest among wealthy nations. Nearly 50,000 people took their own lives in the U.S. in...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. You can find links to podcasts, webinars and other resources at www.ncsl.org/coronavirus . Today our focus is on the U.S. juvenile justice system. Efforts to reform the system have been going on for the past 20 years, driven by research, court decisions and other factors. We’re goin...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are taking action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. You can find links to podcasts, webinars and other resources at www.ncsl.org/coronavirus . Elections in the age of the pandemic are getting a lot of attention lately, with much of the talk focusing on mail-in balloting for November. But there is a lot more than mail-i...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are taking action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. You can find links to sign up for these webinars and view archived versions along with links to a wide range of other resources at www.ncsl.org/coronavirus . Today we’re talking with Dr. Nirav Shah, a senior scholar at Stanford University’s Clinical Excellence Researc...

This podcast is part of Legislative Staff Week, NCSL’s effort to recognize the crucial work of legislative staff across the nation. It is also one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are taking action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. You can find links to podcasts, webinars and other resources at www.ncsl.org/coronavirus . Today we’re talking with Laree Kiely, president an...

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...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are taking action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The podcasts and a new webinar series look at public health responses, workplace issues, education and childcare, the economy, elections and continuity of government. You can find links to sign up for these webinars and view archived versions along with links to a wid...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are taking action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The podcasts and a new webinar series look at public health responses, workplace issues, education and childcare, the economy, elections and continuity of government. Today’s podcast started with a simple question: How are we feeding the 22 million children who get fr...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are taking action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The podcasts and a new webinar series look at public health responses, workplace issues, education and childcare, the economy, elections and continuity of government. On today’s episode, the focus is on rural health care. Our first guest is Alana Knudson, co-director...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are taking action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The podcasts and a new webinar series look at public health responses, workplace issues, education and childcare, the economy, elections and continuity of government. On today’s episode, we talk with two NCSL experts about how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted schoo...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are taking action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The podcasts and a new webinar series look at public health responses, workplace issues, education and childcare, the economy, elections and continuity of government. On today’s episode, we talk with two legislative veterans about communicating in a crisis. Our first...

This podcast is one in a series NCSL is producing to focus on how states are taking action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The podcasts and a new webinar series look at public health responses, workplace issues, education and childcare, the economy, elections and continuity of government. On today’s episode, we talk with two NCSL experts. Tahra Johnson, a member of NCSL’s Health Program,...