Rural Assembly’s Rural Women’s Summit with Whitney Coe & Edyael Del Carmen Casaperalta

08/09/19 • 36 min

Michelle chats with two very important advocates in the rural space: Whitney Kimball Coe, coordinator of the National Rural Assembly, a rural movement comprised of activities and partnerships geared toward building better policy and more opportunity across the country; (the Rural Assembly is part of Rural Strategies, which also includes Daily Yonder, a definite go-to read for anyone interested in rural matters); and Edyael Del Carmen Casaperalta, Fellow at the American Indian Law Program at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder, where she researches and writes about federal Indian law, international human rights, indigenous peoples’ rights, and telecommunications and technology. Coe has established a focus on building civic courage in communities and is directly tied to a practice of participation in her hometown of Athens, TN. Del Carmen Casaperalta is a budding attorney dedicated to serving indigenous peoples and poor communities in telecommunications and technology law matters. The National Rural Assembly is holding its first Rural Women’s Summit Oct. 28-29 in Greenville SC. The Summit will begin with a panel comprising women journalists and will include sessions covering running for public office, curating your own story, gender, identity, and power. Rural Matters will be recording a podcast live from the Summit, #ruralwomenlead. For more information, visit ruralassembly.org. This episode was sponsored by Bryan Telemedicine, https://www.bryanhealth.com/services/telemedicine/; Phynd, www.phynd.com; REC Foundation, roboticseducation.org; For the Win Robotics, frw-robotic.com; and the Rural Assembly, ruralassembly.org.

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The Rural-Urban Divide with Jonathan Rodden

Michelle chats with Jonathan Rodden, professor of political science and senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Rodden is also the founder and director of the Spatial Social Science Lab and author of a new book, Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide. Geography matters in the United States, Rodden says, because we’re divided into electoral districts, which can be a good thing but has a downside in being a major determinant in who wins an election. The rural vote will be critical in the 2020 election, but economics will not be the only determinant as social issues, such as abortion, gun rights, race, and immigration, will also play a part, according to both Michelle and Jonathan. The Democratic presidential primary battle revolves basically around urban voters, but after winning the primary, there is more incentive for the nominee to focus on rural voters, he notes. Even if an independent commission decided district boundaries, he says, it wouldn’t necessarily prevent the continuation of the urban-rural divide. Gerrymandering does add to the problem, Rodden asserts. The bottom line: Yes, geography does matter when it comes to public policy. This episode was sponsored by Bryan Telemedicine, https://www.bryanhealth.com/services/telemedicine/; REC Foundation, roboticseducation.org; For the Win Robotics, frw-robotic.com; and the Rural Assembly, ruralassembly.org.