Civics 101

Off-year elections -- as in, not a presidential or a midterm -- have fairly dismal voter turnout. Yet they matter a great deal. Most of our lives are lived at the local, not the national, level. So why do so many skip their state and local elections?

We spoke with Luis Lozada, the CEO of Democracy Works, to understand why people don't show and why they should.

Democracy Works is a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to helping America vo...

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has published a Mandate for Leadership since 1981, making policy recommendations to the federal government. The latest edition is part of something much bigger: Project 2025. The newest Mandate is part of a four-pillar project designed to fundamentally change the federal government from the inside. Though President Trump and his team spent his third presidential campaign claiming ...

This episode is a crossover with our sister NHPR podcast, Outside/In.

What do pastries have to do with environmental justice? Cat butts with the climate crisis? And what US president ate a half-chewed piece of salmon leftover from a bear on reality TV?

Grab a pencil (and maybe a pint?) and get ready for the inaugural Outside/In trivia episode we’re calling “Natural Selection.” We’ve got a game called “Guess That Animal!” We’re testin...

In this episode, we give a brief explanation of what's behind the current government shutdown. The, we explain all the ins and outs of government shutdowns. Have they always been part of our legislative process? How do they happen? And what happens when they happen? Our guest is Charles Tiefer, professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

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Today we’re bringing you an episode of What Could Go Right from our friends at The Progress Network.

Each Wednesday on What Could Go Right, hosts Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas converse with diverse experts to have sharp, honest conversations about what’s going on in the world, even during difficult times. In this episode, Nick spoke with Emma and Zachary about the state of civics education in the US, as well as how we can st...

Did you know cartoonists were on Nixon's enemies list? Or that LBJ prevented a cartoonist from getting a medal when he made a cartoon against the Vietnam War? Today we talk about the history of editorial cartoons and political satire, from "Join or Die" to the Obama fist bump, from Thomas Nast to Jimmy Kimmel. Our guide is New Yorker cartoonist Tom Toro, author of And to Think We Started as a Book Club.

To see the illustrations we d...

Click here to listen to part one of our airing of the grievances if you haven't yet! Today we tackle charges 13-27 against the King, as well as comparisons that have been made between George III and Donald Trump. 

Our guide is once again Craig Gallagher from Colby-Sawyer College, who breaks down what exactly got the colonists so darn mad. 

Make sure to listen to our episode on the modern-day effects of the declaration on the Native A...

The American public has long been on the lookout for unsteadiness in the leader of the free world. It's important to us (or, historically, has been) that the president seems, well, well. If not robust. Of course, the president is a human, and as such is not immune to malady. 

So why do we care so much about the president's health? Are they under obligation, legal or otherwise, to keep us in the loop? What happens when they don't?

Our...

"He" has done bad things. Twenty seven of them. And these things were so bad that the colonists used them to demonstrate that they had no choice but to become an independent nation. King George III was, in their eyes, a despot. So what did he do?

Today we talk about grievances 1-12 in the Declaration of Independence. We will cover the rest, as well as modern-day parallels, in a few weeks. Our guest is Craig Gallagher, professor at C...

Congress appropriates funds, the executive branch ensures those funds are spent and spent wisely. That is how it works. It is not, however, how it is working right now. The Trump Administration has, in recent months, repeatedly and often successfully frozen the funds that Congress assigned to certain departments and agencies. Jobs have been lost, research shelved, life-saving care ended, budgets and plans thrown into disarray.

So wh...

It's another edition of Civics 101 Trivia! This time, it's also the swan song for one of our own.

Senior Producer Christina Phillips, our mastermind of minutiae and all things related to taxes, joins us to convene a final round of her trademark trivia.

Here is the link to the FOIA documents about the government's involvement in Hollywood productions. 

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In 2015, the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land. However, for the first time in over five years, Kim Davis (an opponent of same-sex marriage) petitioned for a writ of certiorari to overturn Obergefell. Is there a possibility the court will revisit its finding? How does this decision compare to other recently overturned decisions like Roe v Wade? And is even talking about this a problem in itself??

Talking us th...

This is the decision that said the fundamental right to marry is protected under the 14th Amendment. How did it come about? What was the status of marriage before June of 2015? And why is the government so involved in the marriage business anyways?

This episode features the voices of Melissa Wasser from the Project on Government Oversight and Jim Obergefell, the named party in Obergefell v Hodges.

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Our Constitution provides for its own changes -- the framers knew that, while they worked hard, the law of the land was neither perfect nor should it be entirely immutable. So they included Article V, which allows either Congress OR the states to amend the Constitution if enough people agree. We've never had a constitutional convention of the states before, but that doesn't mean we won't. There's currently a movement trying to make...

On Monday, August 11th, Trump announced a takeover of Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan police. He also deployed National Guard troops and federal agents to the streets, all in the name of cracking down on crime. We called on political scientist and historian Dan Cassino to help us understand what happened, why it's legal and what could happen next.

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It’s a weird time to be an environmental scientist. The proposed cuts to federal science funding in the United States are profound, and if they come to pass, it’s not clear what American science will look like on the other side. But for many researchers, science is much more than a career: it’s a community, lifestyle, and sometimes even a family business. 

This episode was produced by our fellow NHPR podcast Outside/In. You can chec...

When Mr. Smith Goes to Washington came out in 1939, it infuriated politicians, the press, and fascist nations. At the same time, it delighted audiences and informed them on the legislative process decades before Schoolhouse Rock. 

Today we talk about the film, as well as corruption, earnestness, our families, lost causes, and hope.

Listen to our episode of Hannah's visit to the Lincoln Memorial here.

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"The shadow docket," refers to orders from the Supreme Court that are (often) unsigned, inscrutable, and handed down in the middle of the night. Professor Stephen Vladeck takes us through this increasingly common phenomenon.

Note: This episode was originally produced in 2022. 

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Is there a way President Trump (or any president) can serve a third (or fourth) term in office? Maybe there is. 

Most people assume the 22nd Amendment limits a president to two terms, period. What happens when the president, or legal scholars, challenge that assumption?  Joining us to talk about that is Bruce Peabody of Fairleigh Dickinson University. 

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