Today's episode explores the new wave of "rights suppressing laws" with New York Times Op-Ed writers and legal scholars Jon Michaels and David Noll. Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/04/opinion/texas-abortion-law.html  

Talk Policy To Me

Episode 501: Talking "Your Neighbor, the Bounty Hunter"

Season 5 of Talk Policy To Me is dropping soon, with new hosts Noah Cole and Amy Benziger. Listen and subscribe!

Season 5 Trailer

In this final episode of TPTM Season 4, we say goodbye to hosts Reem and Colleen and hello to the incoming Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, Dr. David C. Wilson.

Episode 415: Talking with David C. Wilson

Cash transfers discourage work, price ceilings and floors (like the minimum wage) are economically inefficient, and trade makes everyone better off. If you’ve ever taken a basic economics course in high school or even in college, these were probably the major takeaways. But these are myths --dire oversimplifications at best, and outright inaccuracies at worst --that often represent the most basic building blocks of conservative arguments against critical safety net policies. In this episode of Talk Policy To Me, GSPP economist Hilary Hoynes and TPTM reporter Reem Rayef unpacked the most nefarious myths to surface the truth about the impacts of economic policies, and imagine a better way to teach and learn economics.

Episode 414: Talking Lies Your High School Econ Teacher Told You

CONTENT WARNING: This episode involves mention of police violence against people of color.  Since the 1970s, Black police officers have formed informal unions in response to racism within their departments and in the greater community. In this episode, reporter Elena Neale-Sacks talks to an economist, a law professor, and a former president of a Black police union to better understand the purpose these organizations serve, their limits, and the ways in which they differ from police unions with bargaining power, like the Police Benevolent Association and Fraternal Order of Police.

Episode 413: Talking Black Police Unions

As vaccine rates rise and health experts give more public activities the stamp of approval, people have begun shifting from private spaces to public ones. Today, we’re talking about what public spaces are and the policies that govern them. We’ll also talk about the unhoused folks for whom the distinction between public and private space is less clear.  Archival audio from YouTube user Saul Rouda.

Episode 412: Talking Public Spaces

On this episode of TPTM, we’re talking philanthropy yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Since the Gilded Age, philanthropists have positioned themselves as gracious, charitable forces in society who are experts in identifying and solving our social ails. But the institution of philanthropy has had its critics from day one. What are the origins of modern philanthropy in the US, and how did they lead us to where we are today? What role (if any) does philanthropy have in a democratic society? And if there are real problems with philanthropy, how should we address them? Should we focus our efforts on implementing regulations and reforms of modern philanthropic institutions? Is our goal to tear down the institution of philanthropy writ large, and put in place a (potentially erosive) wealth tax? Or should we rely on rich people to voluntarily spend down their wealth? Colleen and Reem will dig in to explore the past, present, and possible futures of modern philanthropy in the US.  Want to learn more? Check out these follow-up resources: Resource Generation’s Class Privilege Quiz, Giving Pledge, and Class Definitions and Income Brackets Resource Generation’s National Partners, Movement for Black Lives and Center for Popular Democracy The Revolution Will Not Be Funded by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence Decolonizing Wealth by Edgar Villanueva Read Laila’s op-ed on the Goldman website Find Sophie Dover on Twitter Philanthropy and Social Movements podcast series by Harvard Kennedy School students

Episode 411: Talking philanthropy—yesterday, today, and tomorrow

With over 100 million users and counting in the US, TikTok is beginning to play a major role in the political education and mobilization of its young user base.   In this episode, which was written and recorded in the aftermath of the November 2020 election, Talk Policy to Me reporter Noah Cole spoke with Aidan Kohn-Murphy and Toni Akande, two of the teens who run the “Gen Z for Change” TikTok page. Aidan and Toni touched on how they used traditional organizing practices to get out the vote through TikTok in the last election cycle, the tradeoffs between producing popular and substantive political content, and where they think the future of online political mobilization is headed. Noah also heard from four additional political TikTok creators during a speed round of questions on politics, policy, and online civic engagement.  More info on: -Gen Z for Change https://genzforchange.us/ https://www.tiktok.com/@genzforchange -Quentin Jiles https://linktr.ee/Qrjiles  https://www.tiktok.com/@quentinjiles -Elise Joshi https://www.tiktok.com/@elisejoshi - Matthew Rein “The Dem Hype House” https://www.tiktok.com/@thedemhypehouse -Colton Hess “Tok the Vote” https://www.tokthevote.com/ https://www.tiktok.com/@tok.the.vote

Episode 410: Tok Policy To Me—Youth Political Mobilization through TikTok

Last summer, as a part of the public reckoning with racialized police violence, chants and mantras like “Whose Streets? Our Streets” and “We Keep Us Safe” and “We Are The Change We’ve Been Waiting For” resounded in the streets and all over social media. What would it mean to take these slogans seriously? To actually imbue people and communities -- rather than political representatives and corporations --  with the power to create and change the world around them? Talk Policy To Me reporter Reem Rayef delved into the practice and philosophy of anarchism, in search of an answer. In this episode, Reem speaks with Bryce Liedtke (friend, anarchist, GSPP alum, and Policy Director of the Scout Institute) about how he reconciles the principles of anarchism with his work in the policy space. Then, we hear from Dana Ward (anarchist, professor emeritus at Pitzer College) about the historical and philosophical origins and transformations of anarchism, in the United States and around the world. Additional Reading The basics of anarchism as defined by Kim Kelly in Teen Vogue Dana Ward’s Anarchy Archives Are You An Anarchist? by David Graeber 

Episode 409: Talking Anarchism and Direct Action

Black History Month 2021 has been an eventful occasion at the Goldman School of Public Policy. One student organization, Black Students in Public Policy (BiPP) has been responsible for putting together a weekly speaker series on health and wellness, economic policy, politics, and social impact in the Black community.  In this episode of Talk Policy To Me, we hear from 7 students in BiPP who share their path to public policy and the ways that they are celebrating Black History Month. For more information on the Black History Month Speaker Series, visit goldman.school/blackhistorymonth

Episode 408: Talking Black History Month 2021

The highly contentious Georgia Senate elections are right around the corner. The results will determine which party holds a Senate majority for the next two years. In this episode, we take a step back and examine the Senate as an institution in the current political context of hyperpolarization. Is it still functional as a mechanism of effective government? Maybe. Or, maybe not. To help make sense of it all, we spoke with UC Santa Cruz politics professor and co-author of The Invention of the United States Senate, Dan Wirls, and senior contributor at The Appeal, Jay Willis, who has written extensively on the Senate filibuster. Both Dan and Jay discuss the most worrisome aspects of the Senate—equal representation of states and the filibuster as a mechanism for gridlock—as well as potential paths forward.

Episode 407: Talking the U.S. Senate—Is It Still Relevant?

During the holiday season, food is often central to the celebration. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people are experiencing hunger for the first time, and food insecurity has become a daily reality for many. Today, we’re talking about what some say is a practical solution to rising hunger—urban agriculture and the policies that shape and support it. If you live in the Bay Area and are experiencing hunger this holiday season, check out these resources that may be able to offer help: (San Jose) West Valley Community Services (https://www.wvcommunityservices.org/) (Berkeley) Berkeley Food Pantry (https://www.berkeleyfoodpantry.org/) (Peninsula) San Francisco-Marin Food Bank (https://www.sfmfoodbank.org/) (Oakland/Alameda) Alameda County Food Bank (https://www.accfb.org/) (Richmond) Richmond Emergency Food Pantry (http://www.refp.org/) If you live outside the Bay, you can visit https://www.feedingamerica.org to find your nearest food bank.

Episode 406: Talking Urban Agriculture & Food Policy

When shelter-in-place orders were mandated in cities across the US, city employees sprang into action to facilitate the transition. Day-to-day government happenings were instantly and radically transformed, but one thing that cities still needed to do? Community engagement. In the face of orders for folks to stay home and social distance, cities faced a reality where they needed to quickly and efficiently transition to new or unfamiliar modes of digital engagement. So… how’d they do it? In this episode, we hear from Meghann Lucy, a sociology PhD student who studied the transition to digital engagement in Boston this past summer, and Heather Imboden, an engagement practitioner and the founding principal of Communities in Collaboration in Oakland. Both Meghann and Heather discuss what cities are learning about how to meaningfully engage residents virtually, and how this moment is shaping the future of city-led engagement processes more broadly.

Episode 405: Talking The Future of Community Engagement

Nothing in the US Constitution mandates or guarantees a two-party political system. Yet Americans are accustomed to understanding the political landscape as a binary of Democrats and Republicans; third parties are rarely taken seriously, particularly on the national scale. Members and candidates of political third parties, like the Green Party, argue that this is bad for democracy. With an increasing share of the electorate -- particularly young people -- growing disenchanted with the existing parties, third parties represent an opportunity to re-engage independent voters in civic life by better representing their worldviews and preferences. That’s why the typical Green Party platform reads like that of a very progressive Democrat, calling for deep investment in transformative climate policy, an end to all wars, and major social safety net expansion, plus electrical reforms that make third party candidates more visible and viable choices in the voting booth.    In this episode, which was written and recorded before the November 3 election, Talk Policy To Me reporter Reem Rayef spoke with Jake Tonkel, a biomedical engineer who ran for San Jose City Council as a member of the Green Party. Jake shared his perspective on the positionality of local and national Green Party candidates in the political sphere, the damaging narrative around spoiler candidates, and the Green Party’s theory of change. Jake also charted a course for elevating the profile of the Green Party, and other non-major parties, through targeted electoral and ballot access reforms.  Related Resources  Video from Vox on the benefits of multi-party systems Article by Briahna Joy Gray on “Vote Blue No Matter Who” politics, and their costs to democracy  Document from the National Association of Secretaries of State detailing ballot access rules for every state CSPAN interview with Green Party Presidential Candidate Howie Hawkins Jake Tonkel’s campaign site  

Episode 404: Talking Ballot Access & The Green Party

On November 3rd, California voters will decide on Proposition 22. The Proposition aims to allow app-based drivers to maintain their status as Independent Contractors by carving out a special exception to Assembly Bill 5. We talk to Goldman Alumna Rebecca Stack-Martinez and the Chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center Ken Jacobs about the implications of Prop 22 on labor and the influence of money on the most expensive ballot initiative in California’s History. Gig Workers Rising Report- “The Uber/Lyft Ballot Initiative Guarantees only $5.64 an Hour,” Ken Jacobs and Michael Reich, UC Berkeley Labor Center 

Episode 403: Talking Prop 22, App-Based Drivers, and Labor

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