When the People Decide

We're excited to bring you an episode fro Top of Mind with Julie Rose , a podcast from BYU Radio about becoming better citizens and kinder neighbors. Government transparency is a basic tenet of American democracy. But the U.S. Constitution was drafted in total secrecy and the founders believed they couldn’t have done the job otherwise. When is openness best in a democracy, and when does the cost o...

If you enjoyed our episode on civic media, you'll want to check out this episode the podcast Local News Matters, which explores issues in local news and democracy. The show highlights the innovative work of local newsrooms and the crucial questions they face about their role in American democracy. This episode features an interview with Steve Waldman, the founder of Rebuild  Local News, a nonprofi...

The final episode of the season takes a step back from individual democracy reforms to look at what it will take to create a healthy civic culture where power is shared across the community — rather than concentrated in the hands of a few stakeholders. Eric Liu believes this can happen and is working tirelessly to spread his idea of civic faith across the U.S.

Some 2,500 newspapers have closed in the U.S since 2005, leaving entire communities without a source for local news, as well as with limited means to keep their government officials accountable. What if there was a way to fill the news desert, with an entirely new approach to informing the public? Host Jenna Spinelle discusses the relevance of civic information with Mike Rispoli of Free Press, and...

When public officials embark on efforts to incorporate more civic input in city decisions, they are often hamstrung by inefficient means that favor the loudest voices in a room. But more people want a say in their local government; they just need the right opportunity.  For Petaluma, California, it was something called the "democracy lottery." In this episode, we explore what that is and the power...

Librarians have spoken for years about “library faith,” the belief that public libraries are central to democracy because they contribute to an informed citizenry. Today, the idea is gaining even more traction, and even conservative crackdowns on what’s permitted in libraries reinforce the idea that they’re more than just “book warehouses” but centers for community engagement and representativenes...

The United Nations calls participatory budgeting a best practice for a democratic government and the New York Times calls it “revolutionary civics in action." Participatory budgeting, or PB for short, deepens democracy, builds stronger communities, and creates a more equitable distribution of public resources. Around 7,000 cities worldwide do it, including some communities in the U.S. It involves...

When Linda Harris began working at city hall in her hometown of Decatur, Georgia, she noticed that the relationship between local government leaders and their constituents was often tense, or nonexistent. City workers were used to residents interacting with them when they had a complaint, for example. She came up with an idea: a straightforward class open to anyone in Decatur to learn about how th...

In the second season of this podcast all about how people engage with U.S. democracy, Jenna Spinelle zeroes in on hyperlocal efforts to increase participation in local government. She talks to the activists, city leaders, and academics doing everything from democracy lotteries to civic courses at city hall and the library–all aiming to empower residents to have a real, tangible say in what goes on...

In this bonus episode, we hear from Roger Asterino, a former Cincinnati city employee whose story was at the heart of the anti-LGBTQ ballot initiative in the 1990s. Roger shares the story of coming to terms with his sexuality in rural Ohio, the harassment he and others received from a coworker at the City of Cincinnati, how the Issue 3 ballot measure impacted his life and work, and his decision to...

Why does American Democracy look the way it does today and how can we make it more responsive to the people it was formed to serve? Democracy Decoded ,  a podcast by Campaign Legal Center , examines our government and discusses innovative ideas that could lead to a stronger, more transparent, accountable and inclusive democracy.  This episode focuses on on a recent election n Maine, where one of t...

The first season of When the People Decide has officially ended, but we have a few bonus episodes for you that we’ll be sharing over the next few weeks. This first is a conversation with Kelly Hall, Executive Director of The Fairness Project . We mentioned The Fairness Project briefly in episode 7. It is one of the organizations working to fight back against the war on the initiative. The Fairness...

Throughout the series, we’ve seen what can happen when major decisions are put to the will of the people. Initiatives are far from perfect, but will we miss them if they go away? This episode will explore whether ballot initiatives can withstand the challenges they’re up against, and some groups are looking to initiatives as a way to strengthen American democracy. Our guests this week are two bold...

Many state leaders are fighting to restrict access to this tool of democracy—or get rid of ballot initiatives altogether. While challenges to voting rights in states across the country captured the news cycle throughout much of the last two years, those same forces also seek to make it more difficult to engage in direct democracy.  With 12 states battling restrictive bills to limit citizen-led ini...

The polarization that exists in U.S. politics has some voters questioning the integrity of our two-party system—whose interests are the politicians really representing? Ballot initiative organizers claim that they are building new coalitions that transcend party lines, and unite voters on their values, not their partisan affiliations. In doing so, they echo progressive reformers of the past, who c...

For decades in Nebraska, people would gather in the parking lot of state prisons to tailgate executions of prisoners on death row. A new crop of state legislators decided to put a stop to the death penalty, but the state’s residents—and its governor—had other plans, and used a ballot initiative to achieve them.  We often think of public policy as having the best interests of society, but given the...

 In the early 1900s, birth records of children given up for adoption were sealed and confidential, an effort to shield mothers and children from the societal shame of being born out of wedlock. Fast forward to the advent of the Internet, and adopted adults used the power of the web to form online networks connecting the community, and as helpful as these support groups were, adoptees still lacked...

Christian conservatives in Ohio used the ballot initiative in the 1990s to restrict protections for LGBTQ folks in the workplace. The community fought back—how else? With their own initiative. In 1992, when anti-gay legislation was sweeping the U.S., Citizens for Community Values, one of the most active Christian right organizations in Cincinnati, seized on the opportunity to propose their own dis...

From property taxes in the 1970s to immigration in the 1990s and the gig economy more recently, ballot initiative trends often begin in California.  The state's Three Strikes law was no exception. Enacted in California in 1994, with similar initiatives implemented in 22 other states that same year, Three Strikes was seen as necessary to ensure public safety and prevent violent crime. Since its inc...

A campaign in Michigan to end partisan gerrymandering in 2018 is part of a legacy of ballot initiatives dating back to the 1800s. After becoming disillusioned with the results of the 2016 election, Katie Fahey took to Facebook to gauge the interest of grassroots mobilization amongst her colleagues, friends and family.  Now the executive director of a nonpartisan voter reform organization, Fahey sh...

In this reported series, Jenna Spinelle tells the stories of activists, legislators, academics, and average citizens who changed their cities, states, and the country by taking important issues directly to votes — like Medicaid expansion in Idaho, sentencing reform in California, and LGBTQ workplace protections in Ohio.   From The McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, When the People D...