When the People Decide, a podcast from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, explores the promise — and sometimes peril — that ballot initiatives have brought to American democracy by telling the stories of people who have organized initiative campaigns across the country.
America’s founders were famously skeptical of direct democracy, citing fears of mob rule if people had too much power. Since then, however, the initiative and referendum process has emerged as one way that citizens in some states can vote directly on policy and join forces to bring issues they care about directly to their fellow voters.
When the People Decide is hosted and reported by Jenna Spinelle and produced by LWC Studios for the McCourtney Institute.
All content for When the People Decide is the property of Penn State McCourtney Institute for Democracy and is served directly from their servers
with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
When the People Decide, a podcast from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, explores the promise — and sometimes peril — that ballot initiatives have brought to American democracy by telling the stories of people who have organized initiative campaigns across the country.
America’s founders were famously skeptical of direct democracy, citing fears of mob rule if people had too much power. Since then, however, the initiative and referendum process has emerged as one way that citizens in some states can vote directly on policy and join forces to bring issues they care about directly to their fellow voters.
When the People Decide is hosted and reported by Jenna Spinelle and produced by LWC Studios for the McCourtney Institute.
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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.
Jenna Spinelle talks with Kelly Hall of The Fairness Project, one of the groups at the forefront of using ballot initiatives to create policy change at the state and local level.
The final episode of the season explores 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.
State legislatures across the country have taken notice of how ballot initiatives are creating political change. And now they're trying to make it more difficult for citizens to create and pass a ballot measure.
By design, ballot initiatives require coalitions that cross party lines to secure the votes needed to win. Some campaign organizers view this rule as an opportunity to create new political coalitions and break through polarization.
An online community of adoptees fight for their birth records in 1990s Oregon - framing the issue around civil rights instead of parent/child relationships.
We travel to what some have described as “the most Southern city in the North” to explore a city-level ballot initiative that focuses on the rights of LGBTQ people.
In the words of one expert, California has “gone crazy for propositions.” In this episode, Jenna Spinelle tells the story of one of the state’s most notorious ballot measures, the Three Strikes proposition, and efforts to reform and repeal it through the initiative process.
Learn about the basics of the ballot initiative, the history of how it caught on in the United States, and the pros and cons that she will explore throughout the series.
When the People Decide, a podcast from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, explores the promise — and sometimes peril — that ballot initiatives have brought to American democracy by telling the stories of people who have organized initiative campaigns across the country.
America’s founders were famously skeptical of direct democracy, citing fears of mob rule if people had too much power. Since then, however, the initiative and referendum process has emerged as one way that citizens in some states can vote directly on policy and join forces to bring issues they care about directly to their fellow voters.
When the People Decide is hosted and reported by Jenna Spinelle and produced by LWC Studios for the McCourtney Institute.
