How to Win Friends and Save the Republic

Aaron Hamlin is the co-founder and executive director of The Center for Election Science, a nonprofit that is probably best known as a champion of an alternative voting method called Approval Voting. Aaron's educational background and career experience have spanned the gamut, but through it all, as he explains in this episode, he has tried to use math and statistics to help make the world a little be better.

We're joined by Nate Allen, founder and Executive Director of Utah Approves, to discuss Approval Voting and his perspective on changing the incentives of our elections.

Issac Saul has written about just about everything as a journalist, but politics is a bit more personal. In 2019 he founded Tangle, an independent, ad-free, non-partisan politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from the left and the right on the news of the day. We sat down with Issac to discuss his career, his feelings about bias in the media, and how he copes with covering difficult issues.

Katie Fahey led Voters Not Politicians' anti-gerrymandering campaign to successfully amend the Michigan state constitution. In this episode, we visit with her about her experience transitioning from being a grassroots advocate to a national leader for democracy reform.

John Gable has worked with national political leaders and helped create a doorway to the internet; now he and his team at AllSides are helping Americans contextualize the news they consume and promote conversation without division.

America's election structure was designed more than 250 years ago and a few tweaks have been made along the way, but it's time for some real innovation. Enter Katherine Gehl, a businesswoman with political chops who realized that we can remake our electoral system so that the success of elected officials is tied to the success of the lives of their constituents. Institute for Political Innovation Katherine's TED Talk

We've all heard that "children are our future," but few organizations have connected that sentiment to democracy building like Generation Citizen. Their CEO Elizabeth Clay Roy shares with us her passion for education, civics, and the power of "action civics" to build a better democracy for tomorrow by starting with students of today.

Every campaign is a learning opportunity, and the 2018 Voters Choice Massachusetts campaign was no exception. Nathan Lockwood and his colleagues took the lessons learned during that race and compiled them into a toolkit that can be used around the country to build the infrastructure needed to win reforms. We visit with Nathan and his colleague Monica Burke to discuss how that's playing out at Rank the Vote US.

From looking at the coalition behind More Choice San Diego, you might assume things came together effortlessly and overnight. Truth is, it took years of hard work and patient negotiation - as all good coalitions do. Chad Peace joins us to share his experience of working with the group and where they're at now.

Benjamin Singer, CEO of Show Me Integrity in Missouri, shares his compelling story finding purpose in democracy reform, not just for himself but quite literally for the lives of his friends, family, and neighbors.

Following the Citizens United v FEC decision in 2010, attorney Jeff Clements began to strategize how to correct the mistakes that had been made. The ruling had opened the door to limitless money flowing unchecked into American politics. A decade later, Jeff and his colleagues at American Promise are well on their way to winning the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and ensuring that every American has an equal vote and an equal voice.

Debilyn Molineaux's name is synonymous with cross-partisan bridge building and the importance of civil dialogue in a democratic society. In this episode with visit with Debilyn about her path from advertising to being a candidate for public office to co-founding some of the most influential bridging organizations in the democracy ecosystem.

John Palmer works in finance; his friend, Bruce Goldberg, works in health care. Although their careers have little to do with politics or political reform, over time they came to realize that American democracy was broken and the only way to save it was by reform the system. We sat down with John and Bruce to better understand why they believe reform is necessary and hear what their experience has taught them about the community.

Francis Johnson, president of Take Back Our Republic, joins the show to share how his exposure to the political machine at an early age shaped his career in politics and, eventually, to a position of trying to reform democracy.

A reformed political operative himself, John Pudner founded Take Back Our Republic to work on reforming American democracy so that politicians are incentivized by good governance rather than foreign money and by fair representation rather than special interests. We visit with John about his roots as a paperboy in a diverse Richmond neighborhood to an education in journalism and a career in politics, including how he stopped helping candidates win and started creating a system worth winning.

Special guests technology gurus Sara Gifford and Victor Allis tell us about their app, ActiVote, which helps people increase their civic engagement by completing meaningful, daily actions.

From his run for class president in 3rd grade to forming a 3rd-party political party in New York state, John Opdycke is no stranger to disrupting the political system. In this episode we hear from John about the value of independent voters and how open primaries—in its many forms—can be a catalyst for improving not just our politics, but our government as a whole. Bio: John Opdycke is the President of Open Primaries and is one of the country's most visible and vocal advocates for primary reform. John grew up outside Chicago in Evanston, Illinois and later attended the University of Michigan. He began his career as a fundraiser and researcher for the Rainbow Lobby, which advocated for ballot access and debate reform in the United States and supported the pro-democracy movement in the Congo (Zaire). In 1992, John joined Dr. Lenora Fulani's independent campaign for president as a regional fundraising director, and in 1994 he also assisted Dr. Fulani in her campaign against Mario Cuomo in the New York Democratic Party gubernatorial primary. That same year, John participated in the founding of the New York State Independence Party, a state affiliate of the National Reform Party. A few years later John became the director of development of Independentvoting.org, where he was incredibly successful. John has appeared on Fox News, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, Cheddar TV, PBS, and NBC and his written commentary on the subject of independent politics and electoral reform has appeared in USA Today, Newsweek, The Hill, The Fulcrum and dozens of local publications.

Amber McReynolds is an elections expert, author, leader, and mother. She is currently the CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute and was recently appointed to US Postal Service Board of Governors, where is the the only female member and the first person with voting and elections expertise to serve on the body. We visited about her experience reforming Denver's election system, the importance of having an equitable and accessible electoral system, and the role women can (and should) play in reforming our democracy.

Who exactly do politicians work for, anyway? To answer that, we're joined by Josh Silver, co-founder and executive director of RepresentUs, and organization that brings together conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between to pass powerful state and local laws that fix our broken elections and stop political bribery. RepUs seeks to dismantle the root causes of inequities in our democracy and end political corruption, extremism and gridlock.

Chad Peace is a nationally recognized leader in election law, voter rights, and a legal strategist for the Independent Voter Project. We discuss his background, the rise of independent voters, and how that is affecting the landscape of the democracy reform movement across the country.

We're joined by Rob Richie, CEO of FairVote, to discuss his organization, where he finds his passion for democracy reform, and how RCV faired in the Democratic primary for the New York City mayor's race.

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