Democracy Works

Following the Dobbs  v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision, reproductive rights are heading to ballots in states across the country this fall. Are states the right venue for this and other issues? Our guest this week says yes and makes the case that state courts and constitutions are more democratic than their counterparts at the federal level.In Who Decides? State as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation, U.S. Appellate Court Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton focuses on the constitutional structure of the American states to answer the question of who should decide the key questions of public policy today. We also discuss work by Jake Grumbach in his book Laboratories Against Democracy and the forthcoming Moore v. Harper case in the U.S. Supreme Court, which grapples with what's come to be known as the Independent State Legislature Theory.Sutton is the  Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was previously a partner with the law firm of Jones Day and served as State Solicitor of the State of Ohio. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (Ret.), the Honorable Antonin Scalia, and the Honorable Thomas J. Meskill. His previous book is 51 Imperfect Solutions, published in 2018.Who Decides: States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, we bring you an episode from Future Hindsight. Our own Chris Beem talks with host Mila Atmos about his new book, The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy.In the book and in this conversation, Beem argues that American democracy is at a crisis point and to fix our politics, we have to change our culture first. We can all take part in creating a culture that cultivates democratic virtues. Humility, for example, recognizes that all of us are biased and that we will disagree. In fact, anger is an essential emotion in democracy. Hatred, however, is disastrous. When we hate, we cannot operate as a democracy. The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our DemocracyFuture Hindsight Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

COVID-19 showed just how essential high-speed Internet is to our everyday lives. It determines how many of us work, learn, and access news and entertainment. Yet, millions of Americans do not have reliable access to broadband and millions more can't afford to pay for the service that's available to them.Christopher Ali, the Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications at Penn State, unpacks these issues in his book Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity and joins us this week for a discussion about market failures, how communities across the country are democratizing Internet access and how the federal government is now starting to step in thanks to funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in November 2021.We also discuss some of Ali's more recent work on the relationship between broadband deserts and news deserts, and how the combination impacts democratic citizenship.Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural ConnectivityChristopher Ali on Twitter  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act shines a light on the administrative state. How will the billions of dollars for Medicaid, green energy, and other provisions be spent and turned into policy? With the help of people whose jobs are largely nonpartisan and non-political. Complaints about government bureaucracy are nothing new but has recently moved beyond rhetoric to a concerted attack on policy implementation.Don Moynihan, the McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown, writes about the administrative state in his newsletter, Can We Still Govern? He joins us this week to discuss the promise of the Inflation Reduction Act, the looming peril of Schedule F, and whether a bipartisan, policy-focused coalition can emerge in 2022 and beyond.Can We Still Govern? newsletterDon Moynihan on Twitter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, Candis Watts Smith, and Jenna Spinelle are back after summer break to discuss the January 6 committee hearings, which we previously teased as "democracy's summer blockbusters." Did they live up to the hype? Did they change public opinion — and does that matter?We also discuss the January 6 hearings and the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago in the context of democratic pedagogy, or behavior that helps us learn what it means to be good democratic citizens. Finally, we discuss some of the summer's primary elections and what to expect in the general election this fall.NBC News poll on threats to democracy as the most important issue facing the country Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's no secret that there's a partisan divide in the media, but thus far, solutions to bridge that divide have been few and far between. Our guest this week had an idea that seems to be taking hold and building a readership across the political spectrum.Isaac Saul is the founder and publisher of Tangle, a non-partisan news and politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on one issue each day. He a politics reporter who grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, one of the most politically divided places in the United States. In 2020, he created Tangle in an attempt to get people out of their information bubbles. Subscribe to Tangle Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jake Grumbach's book "Laboratories against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics" is out now from Princeton University Press. We were lucky enough to receive and advance copy and are rebroadcasting our conversation with him from earlier this year.As many liberals were saying "thank God for federalism" in the Trump era, Grumbach saw some different — and disturbing — patterns emerging. He argues that as Congress has become more gridlocked, national partisan and activist groups have shifted their sights to the state level, nationalizing state politics in the process and transforming state governments into the engines of American policymaking in areas from health care to climate change. He also traces how national groups are using state governmental authority to suppress the vote, gerrymander districts, and erode the very foundations of democracy itself.Grumbach is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington. Additional InformationLaboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State PoliticsGrumbach's websiteGrumbach on Twitter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From COVID-19 policies to reproductive rights, conversations about freedom and liberty seem to be front and center in politics and the culture wars. This week, we take a deep dive into the philosophical underpinnings of these concepts and how different interpretations of them impact our ability to sustain a democracy. We also examine how bringing  the idea of freedom into political debates can obscure what's really at stake and make it difficult to come to meaningful resolution.Democracy Works host and McCourtney Institute for Democracy Managing Director Chris Beem talks with John Christman, professor of philosophy, political science, and women's studies at Penn State and director of the Humanities Institute. He is the author of numerous articles and books in social and political philosophy, specializing in topics such as the social conception of the self, theories of justice and oppression, and the idea of freedom. Christman is the editor of the newly-published Positive Freedom: Past, Present, and Future. The book  includes both historical studies of the idea of positive freedom and discussions of its connection to important contemporary issues in social and political philosophy.Additional InformationPositive Freedom: Past, Present, and FuturePenn State Humanities Institute Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We are excited to share the first episode of a new narrative series on ballot initiatives from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy: When the People Decide. 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. This episode tells the story of a campaign in Michigan to end partisan gerrymandering in 2018 and shows how it 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 shares how the ballot initiative excited everyday people about becoming active in politics, including its 10,000 volunteers, and how they were inspired to make political changes in their communities. We also hear from historian Steven Piott about the unlikely origin of the initiative and referendum in the United States at the turn of the 20th century.New episodes will be released throughout the summer. Subscribe to When the People Decide in your podcast app:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOvercastPodcast AddictGoogle Podcasts StitcherOther platformsLearn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Democracy Works is taking its annual summer hiatus starting next week, but that does not mean the wheels of democracy will stop turning while we're away. In fact, this summer could prove to be quite the opposite. In this episode, we discuss what's going on in the Supreme Court and the impact of the rulings that are expected to come out by the end of June. We'll also be watching the January 6 committee hearings, which are scheduled to begin June 9. We consider what the goals of the hearings are and how our fractured media landscape will impact how the committee's work is received by the public. Finally, we share some recommendations for books and series that have nothing to do with politics and tease a new series that we'll be launching this summer while Democracy Works is on break. Additional InformationCandis's recommendation: A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George SaundersChris's recommendation: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa CatherMichael's recommendation: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley RobinsonJenna's recommendation: Station Eleven by Emily St. John MandelRelated EpisodesThe Federalist Society's ideas have consequences for democracyHow national parties are breaking state politicsThe roots of radical partisanship Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.