Politics with Paul

It's episode 50! There are some Americans who simply don't care about politics, or at least not nearly to the extent they should. In some respects, these citizens have a responsibility to care about politics, and to inform themselves about what is going on. At the same time, however, there are understandable reasons why some citizens throw up their hands and tune out politics. To effectively tackl...

What goes into advocating for bills in state legislatures? How do you reach out to different interests of both lawmakers and activists to build a bipartisan coalition? What are the toughest parts of the legislative process to deal with as an advocate? Here to talk about that and more on today's episode are two members of the Florida Student Policy Forum, Graham Bernstein and Jacob Kaplan. They dis...

Is split-ticket voting is US elections dead? How do we measure split-ticket voting? What impacts our analysis of it? What does split-ticketing look like from historical data and how did it shape up in the 2024 election? Is there any cause for concern? And: Will split-ticketing make a comeback? Today we explore not only data behind split-ticketing but the more descriptive aspects of how we study it...

Polling consistently indicates that large majorities of people believe a third major party is needed because the Democratic and Republican Parties do not adequately represent the American people. Despite this, third parties rarely win any elections, even at the local and state levels. Why do we not see 3rd parties be more regularly competitive in US elections despite immense dissatisfaction with t...

Is it better to have an efficient government or a deliberative government? Can a government be both swift-acting and thoughtful in responding to the needs of citizens? Constituents often lament government as inefficient, taking too long to respond to crises before or when they arise. They also often decry government action as not taking into account their wants and opinions. Today's episode explor...

Most people can see that American politics is rife with polarization. It's led to countless examples of enmity, strife, harsh rhetoric, broken relationships…and violence. But what many people don't realize is that polarization takes on multiple forms, and thus manifests and foments in different ways. And one of the most unfortunate truths is that there is one particular type of polarization that a...

The national debt has ballooned to $36 trillion. Just about everybody agrees that it's a major issue...but yet we have significant trouble tackling it. We agree that the deficit and debt are not sustainable forever, but we often have much different ideas on how they need to be lowered. It's a complicated issue to sufficiently address because of a variety of financial, structural, and political fac...

Recall elections are a unique democratic process allowing citizens to remove elected officials before the end of their term. The mechanism has existed since before the independence of the US, but didn't become popularized until the beginning of the 20th century. Many state and local-level officials have been subjected to recall campaigns, but some political observers have increasingly called into...

Everybody has knowledge gaps when it comes to politics, no matter how much we know. There is just too much information to pay attention to, and not all of it is good. Unfortunately, that leaves the door open for political actors to try to exploit our biases or lack of understanding. Fortunately, however, there are ways to protect yourself against these attempts to manipulate our behavior and thoug...

We all have gaps in our political knowledge regardless of how well-versed we are in politics. Unfortunately, that opens the door for those with a strongly vested interest in political outcomes to exploit knowledge gaps. How exactly do these exploits happen? What determines an “exploiter”? How are our biases preyed upon? How do artificial intelligence, the fragmentation of mass media into silos, an...

We often lament our Congress as a “do-nothing” body, but are they truly unproductive? What about state legislatures? “Productivity” in legislatures is often thought of as simply how many bills they get passed or whether they address certain issues. However, “productivity” is not a clearly defined term, and there are some complications that arise when trying to define it. Today’s episode of Politic...

New Mexico is the latest state to shift away from a closed primary in its elections, the primary election type where only members of a party can vote in that respective party's primary. Now, voters not affiliated with a party can vote in either the Democratic or Republican Primaries for the first time in the state's history. Playing a major role in that shift is today's guest Sila Avcil, the execu...

Why do we make the vote choices that we do? How we fill out our ballots is inevitably shaped by a series of forces that we consciously (and subconsciously) think about. These influences are internal and external, group-based and individual-based, long-term and short-term. The interactions between these things are often represented as the Funnel of Causality, where they all filter into what our vot...

Last week on PwP, we dove into home rule, which is a local government's capacity to administer its affairs without state government involvement. We took a look at what parameters home rule encompasses, its historical development, its antithesis known as Dillon's Rule, and the debate over home rule vs. Dillon's Rule. This week looks at recent developments regarding home rule and some of the biggest...

The interactions between the federal and state governments get the bulk of the attention and study, but the interactions between state and local governments are just as important. At the heart of the discussion is the concept of "home rule," which refers to how much autonomy local governments have to administer their affairs independent of their state government's involvement. How independent shou...

The John F. Kennedy assassination has remained one of the most enduring, fascinating flashpoints in American history more than 60 years since it happened. Countless books, podcasts, TV shows, and more have spawned in the decades since. Yet there is still plenty of mystery and mystique surround the events…giving rise to some prominent conspiracy theories. The recent release of more files related to...

There's a lot that has changed about US voting policy over nearly 240 years: The expansion of voting rights, more times and methods that we can vote by, accessibility of voting, and so on. But now we look towards the future. What will be different about voting in US elections in the near and not-so-near future? Today, we tackle the following topics as to where we will likely see at least a little...

What do independent voters really think? My special guest today is Lura Forcum, president of the Independent Center, and she gives her insights into this question from research she's done and discussions she's had with other independents. Lura gives her take on what are common traits of independents, how cohesive a group they are, how they can address the polarization gap in America, and more. Big...

Reforms to voting in US elections include monumental changes in access to voting. Much of this includes the expansion of voting rights (suffrage), removing restrictions to voting based on property ownership, race, gender, and age. Yet there are other major modifications to voting access that include the times we can vote and the candidate nomination process. Today's episode covers all these topics...

There's a lot that we take for granted about how voting works in US elections these days, but there has been a lot of trial and error over time in administering them. Significant changes in how voting works have occurred over the 235+ years since the US Constitution was ratified. This series takes a look at many of the changes in US voting policy. Today's episode covers how the voting process has...

How we pay our elected officials can be a touchy subject ,  especially when those officials themselves propose pay raises ,  but it's more important to discuss than most citizens realize. It's a difficult job and there are a lot of factors at play. How we compensate officials plays a big role in their efficiency, representativeness of voters, capability of performing their role, ability to hire st...

Gerrymandering, the deliberate redrawing of legislative district lines to unfairly benefit a party or politician, is a serious problem that negatively impacts Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike. It is often described as "politicians choosing voters" instead of the way it should be, "voters choosing politicians." On today's episode, our guest Mary Noone, a seasoned campaign strategist a...

Political efficacy - how well citizens understand politics (internal efficacy) and impact politics (external efficacy) - is a crucial aspect of American politics. Efficacy is needed to ensure government responsiveness and accountability, a well-informed electorate, electoral competitiveness, and helpful public discourse. Unfortunately, however, there are many threats to political efficacy, and eff...

The separation of powers is a fundamental component to the American system of government. In general, the executive branch executes laws, the legislative branch writes laws, and the judicial branch interprets laws. But while the absolute basics are straightforward, there are many nuances to the debate as to what responsibilities and powers are within each branch's sphere, how each branch can and s...

Voters identifying as "independent" are a fast-growing bloc of voters, yet there are a lot of misunderstandings about the label. "What is an independent?" seems like a straightforward question. Yet if you ask 5 different independents what it means to be independent, you could very well get 5 different definitions. Today's episode delves into how "independent" is defined, how many independents are...