NCSL Podcasts (NCSL)

Resources

• National Academy of Public Administration

Resources

• Clint Hurdle’s website

Summary: Sometimes, the aisle lawmakers work across isn’t the one that separates the two parties. It’s the divide between rural and urban. That’s what happened in Colorado when urban voters narrowly passed a plan to reintroduce the endangered gray wolf. Lawmakers from both parties representing the rural part of the state—where ranchers and hunting outfitters feared livestock and business losses with wolves on the prowl—teamed up to minimize any economic impact.

Resources

• Mental Health Emergencies, Law Enforcement and Deflection Pathways, NCSL

A class of drugs that are used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity are becoming increasingly popular as a weight-loss drug. However, the high cost of these GLP-1 drugs—the annual list price is around $12,000—has posed a dilemma for states as they decide whether to cover the drugs in their own state health plans, Medicaid and possibly require private insurers to cover the drugs. 

On this episode, we get perspectives from three people involved in the debate: Kristen Niakan, a pharmacy management consultant with the actuarial and consulting firm Milliman; North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell (R); and Colorado Senator Dafna Michaelson Jenet (D).

Niakan explained the background of these drugs, who's using them, the costs involved, and the insurance coverage landscape across the country. Folwell walked through the decision in his state not to cover GLP one drugs for the state's employee health plan, and also discussed a separate decision in his state to extend coverage of the drugs to Medicaid recipients. Michaelson Jenet discussed her efforts to pass legislation that would've required all private insurance companies and the state Medicaid program in Colorado to provide coverage for the treatment of the chronic disease of obesity and the treatment of pre-diabetes, including FDA approved anti-obesity medication. 

Resources

• Diabetes State Mandates and Insulin Copayment Caps, NCSL
• Employers feel the side effects of drugmaker control over Wegovy, Ozempic costs, Politico
• GLP-1 agonists in Medicaid: Utilization, growth, and management, Milliman
• Impact of anti-obesity medication coverage in the Medicaid and commercial markets
• KFF Health Tracking Poll May 2024: The Public’s Use and Views of GLP-1 Drugs, KFF

This is the third of a three-episode series exploring the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in legislatures and how it affected state legislative staff. 

We sat down with Jill Reinmuth, staff director for the Office of Program Research in the Washington House; Eric Nauman, principal fiscal analyst for the Minnesota Senate; and Sabrina Lewellen, assistant Secretary of the Arkansas Senate and the current NCSL staff chair. 

The three legislative staff leaders discussed how procedures changed in the aftermath of the pandemic, what they learned personally about leadership and how their staff performed under the extraordinary challenges of the health emergency. 

Resources

• Lessons Learned: Legislative Staff and the Pandemic, NCSL's OAS podcast
• Dr. Melissa Furman on the Pandemic and the Workplace, NCSL's OAS podcast

Resources

• Portable Benefits for Gig Workers, NCSL LegisBrief

Resources

• Council of State Governments

College enrollment among young people has been in a steady decline, according to research from Pew. Some indicators show young people increasingly turning toward apprenticeships and other work-based learning and credential programs that help them get a good job.

Indiana and Maryland have been leaders in the field and on this podcast, we sat down with two legislators intimately involved in the issue--Rep. Bob Behning (R-Ind.) and Sen. Malcolm Augustine (D-Md.)

Behning said participation in an NCSL study group helped inform legislation he has pursued to ensure more options for youth employment and to destigmatize technical education. Augustine explained the approach Maryland has taken to youth employment and the role of the Maryland Apprenticeship 2030 Commission in shaping future efforts.

Resources

• Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, Maryland Public Schools
• Nondegree Credential State Policy Framework, NCSL
• Office of Work-Based Learning and Apprenticeship, State of Indiana
• Strategies for Youth Employment, NCSL

 

Resources

• Cannabis decriminalization overview, NCSL
• Cannabis Public Policy Consulting
• State cannabis policy enactment database, 2022, NCSL
• State medical cannabis laws, NCSL

Even before the pandemic, there was a growing shortage of registered nurses in the majority of states. From 2020 to 2021, during the height of the pandemic, more than 100,000 registered nurses left the workforce, the largest exodus in at least 40 years. Adding to the problem, in 2019, nursing schools turned away about 80,000 qualified applicants because of too few faculty, clinical sites and preceptors, and the problem persists.  

Our first guest is Dr. Cynthia McCurren, a dean and professor at the School of Nursing of the University of Michigan in Flint. McCurren, who also serves as the board chair of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, discussed the role of nurses in the health care system, a variety of initiatives aimed at increasing the number of qualified faculty, and state and federal efforts to help address the problem. 

Our other guest is Sarah Jaromin from NCSL, who drilled down into a variety of state efforts aimed at increasing the supply of nursing faculty and also where legislators can learn more about different approaches being tried around the country. 

Resources

• Addressing Nursing Shortages: Options for States, (NCSL, 2022) 
• American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN)
• National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice (NACNEP)
• National Conference of State Legislatures - Health (NCSL)
• Nursing Faculty Shortage Fact Sheet, (AACN, 2020) 
• Preparing Nurse Faculty and Addressing the Shortage of Nurse Faculty and Clinical Preceptors, (NACNEP, 2021) 

Resources

• Legislative Staff Management Institute, NCSL
• University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy

National Conference of State Legislators Center for Legislative Strengthening

National Institute for Civil Discourse Next Generation Program

Millennial Action Project

 

 

Host Tim Storey’s guest on this episode is Lou Jacobson, a senior correspondent with PolitiFact and a longtime reporter with extensive experience covering politics and policy at the state and federal level. Jacobson is among the most astute observers of our political process, especially in the states. He proudly notes that he has filed stories from 49 states and 43 state capitols. 

Storey sat down with Jacobson to discuss the 2024 edition of “The Almanac of American Politics,” a 2,000-page plus tome that will answer every question you might have and some you haven’t thought of about the state of our politics.

They also talked about how rapidly the political scene has changed in the last 20 years and his assessment of the key Electoral College states in the 2024 election.

Resources

• The Almanac of American Politics

The charitable nonprofit sector of the economy is substantial, employing about 10% of the workforce and contributing about 6% of GDP.

To better understand how charitable nonprofits work with legislatures and the states, we sat down with David Thompson, vice president of public policy for the National Council of Nonprofits, the nation’s largest network of nonprofit organizations. 

Thompson explained the role of charitable nonprofits in our communities and how state government and nonprofits work together to address any number of challenges, and specifically the value of community-based organizations when it comes to helping government implement programs.

He also noted a challenge that charitable nonprofits have in common with state government—a shortage of workers—and ways government and the nonprofit sector can advance policies to try to address those shortages. 

Thompson also invited legislators around the country to join the National Nonprofit Legislative Caucus. For more information or to be added to the caucus for future communications, please contact the office of Maryland Senator Cheryl Kagan  or Tiffany Carter at the National Council of Nonprofits.  

RESOURCES

• National Council of Nonprofits
• National Nonprofit Legislative Caucus

As many as 56 million private sector workers in the U.S. lack access to a retirement savings plan through their jobs. The subsequent lack of retirement savings could cost federal and state governments hundreds of billions of dollars by 2040.

Joining the podcast is John Scott, the director of the Retirement Savings Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts. Scott explained the scope of the retirement savings problem, the difference between public and private employers, and the most promising approaches to help more people save for retirement.

Also on the show are two lawmakers involved in sponsoring legislation for state-facilitated savings plans. Senator Dallas Harris, a Democrat from Nevada, and Representative Michael O'Donnell, a Republican from Missouri, talked about the legislation they've introduced, how they've worked with employers in their states and the key challenges they faced in passing their legislation.

 

Resources

• Retirement Policy Project, Pew Charitable Trusts

Federalism is the foundational structure of our nation’s government. The dynamic sharing of power among federal, state and local governments is the key to understanding American governance in the view our guest on this podcast, Don Kettl, professor emeritus and the former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park, and an expert on federalism.

Kettl, who is the author of more than two dozen books and also writes a monthly column for Governing, joined the podcast to discuss the current state of power sharing between the state and federal governments. He explained why he thinks states increasingly are the center of domestic policymaking, talked about the power relationship between legislatures and governors, and how he expects the balance of federalism to shift in the coming decades. 

Millions of Americans experience mental health problems and frequently experience challenges finding treatment, including in the workplace.

That’s the context for national task force— Mental Health Matters: National Task Force on Workforce Mental Health Policy—funded by the U.S. Department of Labor working with NCSL and the Council of State Governments (CSG).

The guests on this podcast are Colorado Lt Gov Dianne Primavera (D) and Tennessee Sen. Becky Massey (R). The two are at-large co-chairs of the task force, which also includes 27 other state lawmakers from both parties.

The two spoke about what they’d learned in the course of the task force’s work, and about the goals, which include developing improved benefit and employment; access to mental health resources in the workplace; addressing underserved communities; and the shortage of mental health care workers.

The task force plans to issue the policy framework this summer that can serve as a resource for policymakers across the country.

Resources

• "Mental Health in the Workplace Toolkit," NCSL

Resources

• Association of State Drinking Water Administrators
• Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Implementation and Key Resources, NCSL

Resources

• Energy Emergencies: The State Legislative Role in Planning and Response, NCSL
• FEMA Funding for Energy Resilience: Highlighting the Role of State Legislatures, NCSL
• NCSL Energy Homepage 
• NCSL Energy Resilience webinars
• Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, DOE
• States Turn to Microgrids to Bolster Energy Resilience, NCSL

The ability to forecast how an infectious disease like COVID-19 will behave is a critical tool for public health officials.

On this podcast, we sat down with Dr. Roni Rosenfeld, a computer scientist and a leader in the field of disease forecasting. Rosenfeld leads the machine learning department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and also works with Carnegie Mellon’s Delphi Research Group, which is one of several organizations that are part of the newly developed Outbreak Analytics and Disease Modeling Network established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Rosenfeld explained that, over more than a decade, researchers working on disease forecasting have taken weather forecasting as their model in creating usable tools to better understand the path of infectious diseases. He explained the type of data disease forecasters use – everything from hospital records to Google searches—to develop their forecasts and how that information can help those in health care. He also discussed why it’s important for legislators and others in state government to understand how to use and interpret disease forecasting.

Resources

• Machine Learning Department, Carnegie Mellon University

Resources

• 100% Human

Melissa Furman is a trainer, coach, and consultant to professionals and businesses who's worked with legislative staff. Furman was a college professor and Dean before founding her firm Career potential. Her expertise includes generational diversity, emotional intelligence and leadership.

She's the guest on the podcast, the second in a series focused on legislative staff, the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it changed the workplace. She addressed the persistent problem of burnout in the workplace, how leadership was critical to success during the pandemic, and some lessons to take away from the emergency. 

Resources

• Career Potential

Young students in New Mexico made history when they convinced lawmakers that the smell of roasting chilis should be the state's official aroma. They researched, wrote letters, testified in hearings and celebrated when the Governor signed the bill at their school. It's the only state with a designated aroma, and it was the first time students were the force behind a new law, with the help of Senator William Soules, a former teacher and administrator in their Las Cruces school district.

Resources

• “The Time Is Now,” NCSL

Resources

• ARPA State Fiscal Recovery Fund Allocations, NCSL database
• Fiscal Policy homepage, NCSL
• How States Are Spending Their Stimulus Funds, NCSL

Childhood vaccinations in the U.S. were steady for the decade before the pandemic, but have shown a decline for the past couple of years. We sat down with Dr. Pam Shaw, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who explained some of the reasons for that decline. She also discussed other disruptions to vaccinations and some of the challenges to getting children vaccinated, particularly those who were uninsured.

Also on the show is Shannon Kolman, who follows vaccine policy for NCSL. She notes the large number of vaccine related bills introduced in the past couple of years, and explains how legislatures have tried to make it easier for children to get vaccinated.

Resources

• Lawmakers Turn to Data Systems to Guide Vaccine Decision-Making, NCSL
• MMWR, Vaccination Coverage by Age 24 Months – National Immunization Survey – U.S. 2019-2021, CDC
• MMWR, Vaccination Coverage with Selected Vaccines and Exemption Rates Among Child in Kindergarten, CDC
• State Public Health Legislation Database, NCSL
• States with Religious and Philosophical Exemptions From School Immunization Requirements, NCSL
• Vaccine Policy Series, NCSL

Resources

• Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Implementation, AASHTO
• Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, NCSL
• U.S. DOT Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act information

Resources

• Kevin O’Leary website
• Closing General Session: Of Spaceships and Shark Tanks, NCSL 2022 Legislative Summit

On this episode, Host Tim Storey talks with Cedric King, a retired army master sergeant, speaker, and author, who will be the keynote speaker at NCSL’s Legislative Summit in Indianapolis in August.

King joined the army in 1995, eventually rising to a leadership role in the elite Army Rangers. On his third combat deployment in Afghanistan in 2012, King was leading a patrol in a small village when he stepped on an improvised explosive device and suffered horrific injuries, including the loss of both his legs.

He survived those wounds and just 21 months later, King did what most of us would think impossible: He ran the Boston Marathon on prosthetic blades. He hasn't stopped since. He's competed in marathons, triathlons. He's written books, talked to audiences all over the country, and he's talked about his injuries and why that opened him up to the possibilities that we all have in our lives. 

Resources

• NCSL 2023 Legislative Summit

Resources

• National Democratic Redistricting Committee
• National Republican Redistricting Trust
• OAS Episode 155 Transcription
• Redistricting resources, NCSL

The popularity of remote work soared during the pandemic, but only for those is some jobs, particularly tech focused or computer-based jobs. While exact figures are not available, some estimates are that more than 25% of the workforce still is working remotely or in a hybrid arrangement, where employees spend some time in the office and some working remotely. That’s a decline from the pandemic but still a significant portion of the workforce. 

On this episode, we explore the tax ramifications for states of remote work. We’re joined by Charlie Kearns, a tax attorney, and James Privette, until recently a legislative specialist in NCSL’s Washington, D.C., office.

They discussed how remote work affects personal income taxes and business taxes, and how states are responding to the changing landscape. They also had suggestions for learning more about the issue. 

Resources

• Remote Work Revolution: How Can Remote Work Taxation Affect State Budgets, NCSL Webinar
• State And Local Tax Considerations of Remote Work Arrangements, NCSL

 

• Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour website

Resources

• North American Securities Administrators Association
• Find your state securities regulator
• Regulation Best Interest
• NASAA Whistleblower Model Act
• NASAA Senior Model Act
• NASAA Restitution Assistance Fund Model Act

The Americans With Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990, but who and what it covers has evolved over the decades. Behavioral health issues, long COVID or other conditions that substantially limit one or more major life activities can fall under the ADA. 

Joining the podcast are Eve Hill, one of the nation’s top disability rights lawyers and the policy and legislative counsel for the U.S. Department of Labor’s State Exchange on Employment & Disability or SEED, and Nevada Assemblywoman Tracy Brown-May, who has worked on numerous initiatives to aid those with disabilities. Both joined the podcast to discuss the current state of the ADA.

Hill explained how interpretation of the law has changed since the early ’90s when she started her law career, how it has been further altered by legislation and the substantial role state legislators can take in their states around the issue. Note that’s Hill’s personal observations do not represent those of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Brown-May explained how her background working with people with disabilities has informed her legislative efforts and her experience with fellow lawmakers who come to her for advice on how to address a disability-related issue in legislation.

Resources

• Assemblywoman Tract Brown-May, Nevada Legislature
• Eve Hill, Brown, Goldstein and Levy
• State Exchange on Employment & Disability, U.S. Department of Labor

Cities, states, courts and district attorneys’ offices levy fines and fees on defendants at nearly every stage of the criminal justice system. Fines and fees are often used to finance essential functions of the court and as a deterrent for people from committing future offenses. 

In recent years, critics have argued that fines and fees used to fund the judiciary create a perverse incentive for judges to impose more fees. Another target for critics are jurisdictions that use criminal justice fees as revenue generators. For those with few resources, fines and fees stemming from traffic tickets and criminal convictions can perpetuate a cycle of poverty.

A significant state legislative trend has been to limit the number and amount of fines and fees in the justice system or abolish them altogether. 

Our two guests on this episode both sponsored successful legislation in their states to abolish fees and fines for juveniles. Rep. Sean Lynn, a Democrat from Delaware, and Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, a Republican from Montana, talked about why they got involved in this policy area and the changes they want to see in their states. 

Resources

• NCSL’s Criminal Records and Reentry Toolkit
• Assessing Fines and Fees in the Criminal Justice System
• Policymakers Weigh Pros and Cons of Court Fines and Fees
• Road to Reform: State Approaches to Addressing Debt-Based Driver’s License Suspensions

Redistricting of state and congressional legislative districts happens every decade following the census. But once those maps are drawn and implemented, there are still ongoing court cases and state legislation that affect redistricting. Just in recent weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on two significant redistricting cases. 

For this podcast, the guest is Ben Williams from NCSL, an expert on redistricting who discussed some of the interesting developments around the topic, including efforts in some states to reallocate inmate data. 

He talked about the recent legal developments and also about the efforts in 13 states to reallocate inmate data, for purposes of redistricting, from where people are incarcerated to where they lived before going to prison. Williams explained the pro and con arguments for such legislation. He also talked about what you can expect in the next several years around redistricting before the next census, and what attendees at the NCSL Legislative Summit in Indianapolis in August can expect from NCSL’s Elections and redistricting team.

This is a fast-moving policy area and just since this recording was finished, two more states have approved policies. As of today 15 states have adopted the policy—13 for the 2020 cycle and two more, Illinois and Maine, for the 2030 cycle.

Resources

• Inmate Data Reallocation in the 2020 Redistricting Cycle, NCSL
• NCSL 2023 Legislative Summit

Resources

• 2021 Consumer Data Privacy Legislation, NCSL

It's budget season and in the 46 states that start the new fiscal year on July 1, people are hard at work getting their budgets ready. Those state operating budgets amount to more than a trillion dollars a year. 

But what exactly does getting the budget ready entail? To discuss that, we sat down with Krista Lee Carsner, the executive director of the Fiscal Review Committee for the Tennessee General Assembly and the president of the National Association of Legislative Fiscal Offices. 

She explained the importance of accurate revenue forecasts, how the budget hearing process works on both the executive and legislative sides of state government and how individual legislators can get a say in the budget process. 

Our second guest on this podcast was Erica MacKellar, a fiscal policy expert with NCSL. She broke down the fiscal condition of the states, how they're coping in the post pandemic period and how revenue projections are very much on the mind of those crafting state budgets. 

Resources

• FY 2025 State Budget Status, NCSL
• VIDEO: State Budgets and Taxes, NCSL

RESOURCES

• Donna Washington website

Resources

• The Cook Political Report

Overdose deaths from all drugs, including opioids, have risen to more than 110,000 in the 12-month period that ended last September. The vast majority of those deaths near 80% involved fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.

State legislatures have been active in passing legislation to address the crisis and enacting more than 180 bills in 2022 and 2023, most of them focusing on harm reduction strategies such as medication-assisted treatment. However, the number of deaths remain stubbornly high.

On this podcast, we sat down with Michelle Putnam from the Division of Overdose Prevention at the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Charlie Severance-Medaris, who tracks state policy related to drug overdose prevention for NCSL.

Putnam discussed the steps her office is taking to understand the patterns of drug use and overdoses and working with local public health departments to better equip them to deal with the situation. She also talked about the frustration faced by state and local officials, families, law enforcement, and others at the ongoing death toll despite decades of efforts to control illegal drugs.

Severance-Medaris discussed the trends in legislation aimed at addressing the drug overdose problem and whether states may change their approach. 

Resources

• Injury Prevention Database
• State Options to Increase Access to MAT
• SUD Tx Database
• Nonfatal Overdose Dashboards, Drug Overdose, CDC Injury Center
• Overdose Data to Action: Funded Jurisdictions, Drug Overdose, CDC Injury Center
• Stop Overdose, CDC
• SUDORS Dashboard: Fatal Overdose Data, Drug Overdose, CDC Injury Center

NCSL’s yearlong Legislator Police Academy brought together lawmakers from very different backgrounds to work across the aisle and across the country on policy topics related to police accountability. In this episode, we learn how the legislators put aside seemingly insurmountable differences and, with patience and constructive conversation, discovered plenty of common ground.

Resources

• Federal Funds Information for States
• Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Implementation and Key Resources, NCSL

Health care costs in the U.S. over the last 20 years have grown faster than the cost of other goods and services. Commercial health care costs, which include about half the health care market, have grown faster than Medicaid and Medicare spending.

 

Our guest on this episode is Alyssa Vangeli, a senior consultant with Bailit Health, a consulting firm in Massachusetts where she works with states to provide health policy analysis and consulting around the commercial health market. Vangeli explained what's driving the increase in costs, which segments of the health care economy are seeing the greatest cost increases, and the efforts by the federal and state governments to better understand the cost drivers and try to contain them. She also offered examples of what different states are doing and the success of those efforts.

Resources

• 2023 Health Costs Seminar, NCSL
• Bailit Health
• Health Costs, Coverage, and Deliver State Legislation, NCSL
• Health Policy Snapshot: Addressing Commercial Health Care Prices, NCSL
• State Actions to Control Commercial Health Care Costs, NCSL
•  

Resources

• Council of State and Tribal Epidemiologists
• Using Data Exchange to Improve Public Health, NCSL
• State Public Health Legislation Database, NCSL

 

The 911 system was created in the U.S. more than 50 years ago to provide people with a single number to call in an emergency. Changes in technology have created enormous challenges for the system, which now receives more than 80% of its 240 million calls annually from cellphones and about 500,000 texts. 

On this episode, we sat down with Brian Tegtmeyer, the National 911 Program Coordinator. The program is part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA. 

Tegtmeyer discussed some of the challenges facing the system. Like so many sectors of government and private industry, the 911 system is facing workforce shortages, so much so that nearly half of all call centers face staffing shortfalls even as the number of emergency calls rise every year.  

He also discussed the advantages of the Next Generation 911, the progress states have made in adopting to these new standards, funding to help with the transition and how legislators can find out more about the 911 system in their states.

Resources

• 2022 Key Enacted 911 Legislation, NCSL
• National 911 Program
• National Highway Safety and Traffic Administration

Artificial intelligence, most broadly thought of as the use of computer systems to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, is being employed in a wide array of ways, from self-driving cars to health care. But concerns about the potential misuse and unintended consequences of AI is prompting legislatures around the country to study the issue and in many cases, pass legislation.

In 2024, NCSL is tracking more than 400 pieces of legislation related to AI. This year at least 45 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C., introduced AI bills, and 31 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands adopted resolutions or enacted legislation.

Our three guests on this episode offer a look at AI’s legislative impact. Chelsea Canada from NCSL, who tracks state legislation around the country related to AI, is one of our guests and she explained the breadth of the legislation proposed in the states and also noted a trend in some states toward comprehensive AI laws focused on consumer protection.

Our other guests are Sen. Shelley Hughes (R) of Alaska, who worked this year to move a comprehensive bill through the legislature but was unsuccessful. She explained her bill and her hopes for its passage in the next session. 

Our third guest is Colorado Rep. Manny Rutinel (D). He was one of the House sponsors of a successful bill focused on consumer protection and trying to remove discriminatory results from the use of AI. 

Resources

• Artificial Intelligence 2024 Legislation
• Artificial Intelligence 2023 Legislation
• Artificial Intelligence 2019-2022
• Volume of AI Bills Rises, Even as Use of Systems Evolves

 

• Contact Host and Producer Kelley Griffin, Sr. Editor at NCSL
• kelley.griffin@ncsl.org

 

This podcast is the first of several to observe the 50th anniversary of NCSL. The organization has been an integral part of the change in state legislations over the last half century. NCSL provides research to the states on myriad public policy topics, offers a unified voice in Washington where it lobbies on behalf of the states, and serves as a convener of scores of meetings every year in person and virtually to help legislators and legislative staff from across the nation share ideas and solutions. On this episode we track the development of legislatures over the last 400 years and talk with a range of guests about the role of legislatures in the jigsaw puzzle of American governance.

Our guests include political scientist Don Kettl; former NCSL staffer Karl Kurtz; Sabrina Lewellen, assistant secretary of the Arkansas Senate and current staff chair at NCSL; Bill Pound, longtime NCSL executive director; historian Pev Squire, former NCSL staffer Brian Weberg; and Natalie Wood, NCSL’s vice president of policy and research.

This podcast kicks off Legislative Staff Week, an annual NCSL effort to focus on legislative staff. This episode is part of three-podcast services focused on legislative staff that will roll out over the next couple of months.

Our guests include Sabrina Lewellen, assistant secretary of the Arkansas Senate and the current NCSL staff chair; Anne Sappenfield, director of the Wisconsin Legislative Council; and Jay Hartz, director of the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. All three joined to talk about the long-term effects of the pandemic and how their institutions coped with the emergency.

They talked about how their institutions were affected, some of the innovations staff devised to cope with the emergency and some of the lasting changes resulting from the pandemic. There was even discussion of how a stack of table, a laptop and a camera helped ensure transparent government.

RESOURCES

• Legislative Staff homepage, NCSL

Paying for college and other post-secondary education continues to be a challenge for many. Already, 44 million Americans owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan balances. At the same time, there's strong evidence that lifetime earnings increase for those who attend and complete college or other post-secondary education. 

The guests for this podcast are Ethan Pollack , a senior director at Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit aimed at expanding economic opportunity, and Andrew Smalley, an education policy expert at NCSL.

Pollack discussed a number of innovative financing strategies involving philanthropic organizations, employers, government and financial institutions that offer the promise of helping students pay for their education at a lower cost. And in some instances that better scale the cost to the potential earnings of the graduate.

Smalley explained the steps states are taking to help facilitate these innovative approaches and also broke down what most students and families pay for post-secondary education. 

Resources

• Jobs for the Future
• “How Can Innovative Finance Transform Our Postsecondary Education and Training Systems?,” Jobs for the Future

Resources

• Health Management Associates
• Medicaid: Unwinding From the Public Health Emergency, NCSL

 

Resources

• Robyn Benincasa website

Resources

• State Policy Options and Pharmacy Benefit Managers, NCSL
• Prescription Drug Trends: Pharmacy Benefit Manager Reform, Affordability Boards and More, NCSL

Resources

• Peverill Squire, University of Missouri

Resources

• Americans for the Arts

Resources

• State Elections Database, NCSL

Host Tim Storey’s guest for this episode is Leonor Ehling, the executive director of the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University. She is also co-director of the Legislative Staff Management Institute (LSMI), which is a flagship program that NCSL produces jointly with Sacramento State and the University of Southern California.

They discussed LSMI and the hundreds of legislative staffers who have had the opportunity to enhance their management and leadership skills. Ehling also discussed her role as director of the Capital Fellows Program, which places 64 fellows each year in all three branches of California government. She reflected on how two decades as a legislative staffer helped her understand the value of recruiting a diverse group of fellows, many of whom still work in the legislature today.

Resources

• Center for California Studies

Resources

• Senator Whitney Westerfield
• The Sentencing Project
• Why Youth Incarceration Fails: An Updated Review of the Evidence, The Sentencing Project

• 2022 State Prescription Drug Policy Trends, NCSL
• Delegate Matthew Rohrbach, West Virginia Legislature website
• Diabetes State Mandates and Insulin Copayment Caps, NCSL
• Legisbrief Decreasing Drug Costs Through Generics and Biosimilars, NCSL
• Prescription Drug Policy Work Group Report, NCSL
• Prescription Drug State Bill Tracking Database, NCSL

While many voters may think of primaries as the warmup act for the general election, many races in this country at the local, state and federal level are decided by primaries. By some estimates, fewer than 40 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are actually competitive between the parties. In most districts, whoever wins the primary in the dominant party wins the general election. 

The 2024 primaries are right around the corner so on this podcast, we sat down with Ben Williams, an elections expert at NCSL, to talk about the different types of primaries and why primaries are so important. Williams explained the different approaches states take to the primary system and some of the election history that brought us to this system we now use. He also discussed NCSL’s recent publication, “The State’s Primary Toolkit,” that includes extensive background information on primaries’ changes in states since 2000 and a great deal more.

Resources

• State Primaries Toolkit

Until recently Alabama's constitution still had racist language from the original document written in 1901, led by an avowed white supremacist. Though the provisions weren't operable today, plenty of people have wanted them gone for years. But it wasn't easy to revise a constitution that is the longest such document in the world, one that has nearly 1,000 amendments. Still, the state legislature reached unanimous agreement, and 75 percent of voters supported the revisions last November after a long and complicated process.

Public health officials and lawmakers in Kentucky had been trying to address the complex issue of maternal mortality for years. Rep. Kimberly Moser had long been a neonatal and intensive care nurse, and knew the struggles around maternal health in the state. Lawmakers had taken steps in past sessions, but last year when the latest numbers came out, Moser decided it was time to bring the best minds together to finally improve the odds for Kentucky mothers and babies. The result of months of research and discussion yielded a range of solutions in a bill dubbed the “Momnibus.”

Resources

• Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Implementation and Key Resources, NCSL
• National Association of State Energy Officials
• Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, U.S. Department of Energy

Texas Senator Judith Zaffirini has broken state records by a long shot. She has cast more than 72-thousand consecutive votes. She has had a perfect attendance record—except that one time she skipped on purpose to make a point. She has passed 1,388 bills—more than any other legislator in Texas history. All with bipartisan support—no matter who was in the majority. After becoming the first Hispanic woman elected to the Senate in 1986, the Democrat will become Dean of the Senate as the most senior member this session.

Tim Storey, NCSL’s CEO, joined the podcast to discuss the year ahead in legislatures and what we can expect in policy and politics in 2024.  

Storey said most state budgets will start the year in excellent shape, though legislators will continue to cast a cautious eye on economic conditions. He also pointed out that it’s important to keep in mind that 2024 is an election year and that tends to influence what happens in legislatures, including what is often a somewhat less active legislative agenda than you usually see in the first half of a two-year session. 

Storey expects concerns about technology, especially artificial intelligence, to be high on the priority list. Housing challenges and the fentanyl overdose crisis are also likely to get a great deal of attention in most legislatures. At least some legislatures also are likely to look at legislation affecting migrants, especially in light of inaction at the federal level. And, of course, education and health care, two big budget items for states, also will get considerable attention.

Resources

• Special Report: A Look at 2024’s Trending Legislative Topics

Improv comedy may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of public policy, but Tane Danger suggests maybe it should be. Danger is the keynote speaker at this year's professional development seminar for two legislative staff groups—the Research Editorial, Legal and Committee Staff (RELACS) and the Legislative Research Librarians (LRL). The meeting is Sept. 19-22 in Minneapolis and at the state Capitol in St. Paul.

Danger co-founded the Theater of Public Policy in Minnesota, which combines serious public policy discussion with improv comedy. On the podcast, he discussed how the skills you need for improv, such as careful listening, are also skills that can help in a legislative environment. He also laid out how his two-day presentation to the legislative staff groups will involve both a talk and a workshop. 

Resources

• RELACS/LRL Professional Development Seminar
• Tane Danger website
• The Theater of Public Policy

Americans of all ages do not score well on surveys of civic knowledge. One recent survey found a large majority of respondents could not pass a basic civics literacy test and another indicated a third of respondents could not name all three branches of government. And testing of eighth graders in the U.S. and other industrialized countries also reported a decline in civics proficiency.

The vast majority of states, however, do require at least one course in civics and every state has some form of civics education. On this podcast, guest Tammy Wehrle, the legislative education and outreach officer in the Wisconsin State Legislature, talked about what she’s learned about the state of civics education.

Wehrle, who was a classroom educator and holds a doctorate, oversees a variety of programs in the legislature that can involve kids as young as 12. She thinks there is real value in young people seeing the legislature from the inside and understanding the range of roles necessary to run the legislature.

Resources

• Civics Education at NCSL
• Senate Scholar Program, Wisconsin State Legislature
• Staff Snapshots | Tammy Wehrle, NCSL

State legislatures in blue and red states are taking up measures to protect children on social media, especially because Congress has been unable to agree on solutions and the evidence of harm to young users continues to mount. It's a complicated problem and most of the states' laws are being challenged in court by a trade association and other groups who believe they are unconstitutional.

Emergency medical services face significant challenges in rural America. Just one is the time it takes to summon an ambulance. While most people living in urban and suburban areas expect an ambulance to show up within minutes of making a 911 call, the situation is very different for about 4.5 million Americans who live in ambulance deserts, according to a nation study conducted by Maine Rural Health Research Center and the Rural Health Research & Policy Centers. Those folks can expect to wait 25 minutes or more for emergency services to arrive. 

We sat down with two experts on the subject -- Dia Gainor, executive director of National Association of State EMS Officials, and Davis Patterson, director of the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center at University of Washington—to discuss that and other challenges to EMS in rural areas. Other issues they discussed included the severe workforce challenges in staffing rural EMS services, the role of legislatures in addressing rural EMS needs and the promise of community paramedicine in addressing both emergency and nonemergency care in rural areas.

RESOURCES

• Ambulance Deserts: Addressing Geographic Disparities in the Provision of Ambulance Services, Rural Health Research Gateway (May 2023)
• Beyond 911: Expanding the Primary Care Role of First Responders through Community Paramedicine
• Community Paramedicine: Connecting Patients to Care and Reducing Costs
• EMS Legislative Database
• The EMS and Community Paramedic Workforces Respond to COVID-19, WWAMI Rural Health Research Center (June 2023)
• The National Association of State Emergency Medical Services Officials
• State Actions To Address EMS Workforce Shortages
• You might need an ambulance, but your state may not see it as ‘essential,’ Stateline (September 2023)
• WWAMI Rural Health Research Center

Every state has rules governing interactions among legislators, legislative staff and lobbyists, whether those lobbyists represent business interests, nonprofit groups and others. The rules have evolved over the past few decades and are often being updated. 

On this episode, three experts on lobbying and compliance with ethics rules sat down to discuss how ethics rules have evolved and how attitudes about ethics rules have changed. Our guests are Doug Himes, the House ethics counsel in Tennessee; Mark Quiner, director of NCSL’s Center for Ethics in Government; and Elizabeth Bartz, the CEO and president of State and Federal Communications. 

Resources

• Code of Ethics, National Institute for Lobbying & Ethics 
• House Ethics Committee, Tennessee General Assembly
• State and Federal Communications

Safeguarding energy systems from cyberattacks in a growing concern in the U.S. The Colonial pipeline ransomware attack a few years ago and some other high-profile incidents caught the public’s attention. But as the guests on this podcast point out, energy systems are facing an increasing number of attacks. 

On the podcast to discuss the situation are Lynn Constantini, a cybersecurity expert with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and Patrick Miller, CEO and owner of Ampere Industrial Security who brings more than 35 years of experience in the security field to the discussion. 

While the federal government has some regulatory authority over utilities, state legislatures have a key role in this area through their oversight of public utility commissions. Since the start of 2021, states introduced nearly 500 bills and passed 99 measures related to energy security as of August 2022.

Constantini and Miller discussed the rise in threats and attacks, the type of attacks that are most common and the difference between attacks on information technology, or IT, and operational technology, or OT. They also discussed the steps states already have taken to counter cyberattacks.

Resources

• 2021-2022 Energy Security State Legislative Review: Cybersecurity and Physical Security, NCSL
• Ampere Industrial Security
• Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response, U.S. Department of Energy
• National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
• North American Electric Reliability Corporation, Cybersecurity Standards

Resources

• NCSL

Darcy Luoma, a coach and consultant, will speak at the Legislative Staff Breakfast at NCSL’s Legislative Summit in Indianapolis in August. Before founding her consulting business, Luoma had extensive experience working on Capitol Hill, working on two presidential campaigns and as a senior adviser to a governor.  She has also worked with state legislators and staff.

Luoma discussed her Thoughtfully Fit approach and how it can help legislative staff and the rest of us cope with stress. She also shared that her Summit presentation will focus on how to develop flexibility that allows you to work well with people who are different from you. 

She also talked about resilience in the face of trauma and tragedy in her own life that helped her hone these coping skills.

Resources

• Darcy Luoma Coaching and Consulting
• NCSL 2023 Legislative Summit

Housing historically has been a local issue that was handled by cities and counties. The rising crisis of housing cost and availability, however, has brought more attention from state governments. States have enacted more than 700 laws in 2022 and 2023 related to housing.

The focus of this podcast is the nexus of housing and transportation, and particularly transit-oriented development. We sat down with Cameron Rifkin, a policy expert at NCSL who tracks housing legislation, and Doug Shinkle, who heads NCSL’s transportation program, to discuss housing, transportation and the efforts by state legislators to take on challenges in both those areas. 

They discussed the types of legislation passed, how some states have passed legislation directly addressing transit-oriented development and why parking requirements for housing developments are sparking conflict.

Resources

• Characteristics of Middle Housing, Missing Middle Housing
• Economic Mobility Enacted Legislation Database, NCSL
• Expanding Affordable Housing Opportunities: Zoning and Land Use Case Studies, Bipartisan Policy Center
• Housing and Homelessness Legislation Database, NCSL
• “Housing and Homelessness Toolkit,” NCSL
• “Increasing the Housing Supply by Reducing Costs and Barriers,” NCSL
• “Middle Housing: Filling a Gap in Available Housing Options,” NCSL
• A Series of Policy Briefs on Zoning, Land Use, and a Solution to the Nation’s Housing Shortage, American Enterprise Institute
• Transit-Oriented Development, Federal Transit Administration

 

 

 

RESOURCES

• Jobs for the Future
• Labor and Employment homepage, NCSL
• Sen. Becky Massey, Tennessee Senate website

Reid Wilson is the founder and editor of Pluribus News, a 10-month-old news platform that focuses on the states and the policy trends that start there. On this episode, host Tim Storey sat down with Wilson to talk about how states are tackling some of their toughest issues: broadband, infrastructure projects, housing policy and artificial intelligence.

Wilson started out his career as an assistant to Chuck Todd on the National Journal’s Hotline and also worked for years at the Washington Post and The Hill before striking out on his own last year. He is an astute observer of state policy and politics as well as how the media covers those topics. In addition to state policy, Storey and Wilson also discussed the ongoing changes in the media coverage of legislatures.

Resources

• Pluribus News

Taylor Swift is making a big splash on stages this year, and also in state legislatures. That's because ticket sales devolved into online chaos, highlighting the problem of bots buying up tickets faster than humanly possible and putting them up for resale at exorbitant prices. The snafu became the catalyst for 24 states and Puerto Rico to consider 70 bills addressing ticket sales and fees. In this episode we look at how Texas came up with a bipartisan solution.

RESOURCES

• Prescription Drug State Bill Tracking Database | 2015-Present
• Rep. Iman Jodeh, Colorado General Assembly

On this episode, host Tim Storey dives into the world of artificial intelligence with Alex Wirth, the co-founder and CEO of Quorum, a Washington, D.C.-based public affairs tech platform that organizations use to manage engagement, launch advocacy campaigns and keep track of legislation and policy trends in Washington, all 50 states, thousands of cities and even in Brussels.

Storey talked with Wirth about how the platform evolved and how his tech team has increasing used artificial intelligence tools to perform sophisticated analysis. Wirth broke down how he thought AI would affect state government, legislatures and individual legislators. He also offered some advice on managing the use of AI in legislatures, and explained why legislative offices may soon need AI tools to handle all the AI-generated communications they will be receiving. 

Resources

• Quorum

Resources

• Biden-Harris Administration Announces $5.6 Million in Internet for All Grants to Two Minority-Serving Colleges and Universities in California, National Telecommunications and Information Administration
• Digital Inclusion Trailblazers, NDIA
• High-Speed Internet for All
• Join the NDIA Community
• The New Broadband Maps Are Finally Here, Federal Communications Commission, FCC
• State Digital Equity Plan Toolkit, NDIA
• See more about NDIA
• Updates on the Affordable Connectivity Program, NDIA
• Video and slides from NDIA Digital Equity Act and BEAD Webinar

The Good Friday Agreement that ended most of the violence in Northern Ireland was signed on April 10, 1998. It is widely regarded as a monumental peace deal after 30 years of violence. Bertie Ahern, who served as Taoiseach or prime minister of the Republic of Ireland from 1997 to 2008, was a key player in the negotiations. On this podcast, Ahern talks with NCSL’s Tim Storey on how the deal was struck and what politicians today can learn from the challenges he and his colleagues faced. A core principle he stressed is that both sides need to feel they’ve won to have a successful negotiation, and both sides must agree the status quo is unacceptable. Ahern is joined by Senator Mark Daly, the Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann or chair of the Senate of Ireland. He discussed the critical role of Irish-American relations to his country and new initiative to reach out to state legislators in the U.S.

This is Legislative Staff Week 2023 at NCSL, and we sat down with two staffers to talk about why people come to work in the legislature and why they stay. 

Our guests are Anne Sappenfield, director of the Wisconsin Legislative Council and NCSL staff chair, and Heshani Wijemanne, assistant secretary of the California Senate. Sappenfield began working in the legislature in the mid-‘90s while Wijemanne has been a legislative staffer since 2016. 

Sappenfield and Wijemanne are both lawyers and they talked about why public service in the legislature was an attractive option after law school. They discussed the appeal of being involved in the legislative process, how things have changed in legislatures over the years and the challenge of explaining what they do to family and friends. 

They also talked about the challenges they faced during the pandemic and the critical role staff play in preserving the institution of the legislature.

Resources

• Legislative Staff Week 2023, NCSL
• Office of the Secretary of the Senate, California
• Wisconsin Legislative Council

Enrollment in higher education has been on the decline for a decade, and research indicates a growing skepticism about the value of higher education. In response, many state legislatures have enacted laws aimed at creating greater accountability in higher education.

To explore the issue, we sat down with Brian Bridges, the secretary of higher education in New Jersey, to discuss legislation passed in that state. A 2021 bill established new requirements for academic programs including sufficient academic quality, evidence of labor market demand, lack of duplication, and requirements for additional state resources. Another bill in 2022 created performance quality standards for career-oriented programs and required the higher education secretary to develop minimum standards for state programs. 

Also on the program is Andrew Smalley, a higher education policy expert at NCSL, who discussed the trend in state legislation and what the statistics tell us about the value of higher education.

Resources

• Postsecondary Bill Tracking Database, NCSL
• “Nondegree Credential Framework,” NCSL

Resources

• State Exchange on Employment and Disability, U.S. Department of Labor

Resources

• Prescription Drugs Update: State Efforts to Boost Access and Lower Costs, NCSL
• Prescription Drug State Bill Tracking Database, NCSL

Resources

• Erica Keswin website
• Legislative Staff Week with Erica Keswin

After a tsunami of campaign spending on the 2022 governor’s race in Oregon – a record-breaking $70 million – a broad coalition and lawmakers worked together to pass the state’s first campaign finance reform this spring. Legislators scrambled during a short 5-week session to keep everyone at the table. Otherwise, it was shaping up to be a costly and confusing fight over campaign finance reform at the ballot box this fall with two competing measures. This episode of Across the Aisle examines how it came together.

This is one of the series of shows this year and next reflecting on the 50th anniversary of NCSL. For this episode, our focus is the legislative institution and how today’s legislatures evolved over the last 400 years.

Guests include historian Pev Squire, who sketches out how legislatures developed both from the colonial assemblies and from the territorial legislatures. We also spoke with three people who have spent considerable time in legislatures and given a great deal of thought to the institution itself— Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers, Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie and Raul Burciaga, who recently retired as director of the New Mexico Legislative Council Service. They reflected on where the institution is now and the challenges it will face in the next 50 years. 

Resources

• NCSL Marks 50 Years of Service to State Legislatures, NCSL

ATA Episode 7 SUMMARY The Colorado River is a key source of water in Arizona, and it’s dwindling in the face of a mega-drought now in its second decade. Arizona lawmakers are working across the aisle to find new water supplies for the arid state, where some farming areas get only three inches of rain a year.

RESOURCES

• 2022 State Legislative Calendar
• NCSL Experts Predict the Top Issues and Policy Trends for 2022
• NCSL Town Hall on the 2022 Legislative Sessions

Data centers, the increasing use of AI and reindustrialization in some parts of the country are driving a big increase in energy demand that concerns officials at all levels of government. State legislators in particular, are concerned about the ability of their state utilities to meet that growing demand and the effect on the price residential and business customers pay for energy.

We sat down with two experts on data centers to find out what’s coming in the next several years. Our guests are David Porter, vice president of electrification and sustainable energy strategy at the Electric Power Research Institute or EPRI, and Mukul Anand, global director at Johnson Controls dealing with data center cooling and energy management.

Porter explained the range of energy demand scenarios and the very significant demand that will be put on both the generation and transmission of power in the next several years. Anand discussed the work he does to help data centers explore alternative energy sources and find innovative ways to dissipate the extraordinary amount of heat generated by the racks of servers in the centers. He also expects a tremendous increase in power demand and suggests more planning may be needed to be ready. 

Resources

• Powering Intelligence: Analyzing Artificial Intelligence and Data Center Energy Consumption, EPRI

On this episode, Tim Storey sat down with Bruce Mehlman, founder of Mehlman Consulting, a D.C-based bipartisan lobbying firm whose clients include Walmart, AARP, Boeing and the Mayo Clinic. Mehlman’s perspective is also shaped by his experience as an assistant secretary of Commerce in the George W. Bush administration and time in private industry.

Mehlman has a savvy, insider’s take on how Washington works and sees the day’s events with a historical perspective that is often missing from our political analysis. 

Mehlman and Storey talked about the forces shaping our political world, the turn to populism in recent years in numerous countries the challenge that poses to our institutions. They also talked about Mehlman’s slide decks, that over the years have become well-known among policy types for their clear, data-driven, often humorous analysis of political, economic and social trends. 

Resources

• Bruce Mehlman’s PowerPoint Decks
• Mehlman Consulting

Resources

• Chris Sprowls wraps first season of ‘Read, White & Blue’ podcast, Florida Politics 

RESOURCES

 

• David Toscano’s website
• “Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives,” University of Virginia Press

Resources

• The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter

Resources

• Bipartisan Policy Center
• Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University
• Getting Serious About Housing Supply Series, Bipartisan Policy Center
• How much are government regulations costing multifamily developers? Hint: A lot, Bipartisan Policy Center
• National Association of Home Builders
• NMHC-NAHB Cost of Regulations Report (2022), National Multifamily Housing Council
• “Opening Doors to Housing Security,” NCSL 2022 Legislative Summit 
• Which Metro Areas Are Seeing Rising Rents and Home Prices? All of Them, Bipartisan Policy Center

Resources

• Ranked Choice Voting, NCSL