When the People Decide

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 the holes in our campaign finance laws allowed a foreign government to funnel enormous sums of money into a ballot measure election — completely legally. Host Simone Leeper speaks with Richard Bennett, a Republican state senator from Maine; Kyle Bailey, Campaign Manager for Protect Maine Elections and a former state representative; and AaRon McKean, legal counsel for state and local reform at Campaign Legal Center.

Resources

Protect Maine Elections

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 outweigh the benefit? In this podcast episode Julie Rose hear the case for more openness from a citizen who used public records law to hold a state university accountable. A political historian explains how the founding fathers justified drafting the Constitution in secret and how that shaped the form of democracy the US has today.

Rose also speaks with elected legislators from three different states grappling with the best way to balance the financial and logistical challenges of making government records open to the public. The lawmakers also differ in how much of their own email and text communication should be open to the public. A political scientist who’s studied transparency in democracy describes how openness can empower special interest groups and make political gridlock worse. Finally, the episode discusses systemic solutions that could make government transparency work better for all Americans.

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 initiatives, the “democracy reform movement” is stepping up across the country to save them. If legislators are successful in making it harder for people to use ballot initiatives, will politics still be within reach of the everyday citizen? Follow along as these campaigns play out in Idaho and Missouri.

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

Resources

Show Me Integrity

The Fairness Project

David Daley's books Unrigged and Ratf*cked

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 created big changes and prompted observers to call their work part of an “invisible third party of reform.”

Ballot initiatives that are largely popular with everyday citizens, like Medicaid expansion and voting rights restoration, but that are seen by politicians as too progressive for bipartisan support, are finally reaching voters at the ballot box. In this episode, we examine how the current era of political reformers ushers in alternatives to stalled legislation by going beyond party lines and bringing the issues straight to voters, and asking the question, what do ballot initiatives say about the kind of political system we want in the U.S.?

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

Resources

Florida Rights Restoration Coalition

Reclaim Idaho

Let My People Vote: The Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens by Desmond Meade

The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915 by Jon Grinspan

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 that comes from letting the community deliberate in a public way. Hear from Petaluma's city manager and one of the residents who was part of the fairgrounds panel.