Innovative Civic Engagement

Send us a message! Really!

This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, Republicans on the Federal level get ready to kick millions of Americans off the Medicaid rolls for no good reason…maybe. Either way, our 7th favorite member of congress from Colorado seals his political fate by boasting about his role in the cuts. Then, what is that loud whistling sound we hear, now that the Federal Aviation Administration has been gutted, there’s  really no way to tell if it’s a plane falling out of the sky or not, great! Then, as expected, Governor Polis vetoed a key labor bill that we both support, why did he do that? And finally, Donald Trump gets a $400 million jet from a foreign nation, you get five pencils and no more than two dolls for Christmas! 

But first, are state legislatures, city councils, county commissions, school boards, fire boards, water boards, zoning and planning commissions, Congress and all of the other elected policymaking bodies representative enough of the will of the people...or do we need to look at a European-style Citizen Assembly to get to the bottom of what the people really want? Fort Collins Mayor Jeni Arndt and Rahmin Sarabi of the American Public Trust join us to talk about the recent experience in hyperlocal democracy that just happened in Fort Collins.