#240 When the People Decide: A History of Ballot Initiatives w/ Jenna Spinelle
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2022
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jenna Spinelle joins Ben & Bob for a discussion about her new podcast, When the People Decide, which traces the origins of ballot initiatives in the United States and their impact on American politics in recent years.
Jenna Spinelle is the Communications Specialist for the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, where she also teaches classes in the college of communications. You can follow her on twitter at @JennaSpinelle.
To learn more about the differences between initiatives and popular referenda and which states allow citizens to directly propose laws, visit The National Conference of State Legislatures' guide to the Initiative and Referendum Processes.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:11.0 | So I picked up the sport a few years ago. |
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| 1:04.3 | You're going to dig these shirts. |
| 1:06.7 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the Road to Now. |
| 1:10.7 | Today's episode is a great conversation with Jenna Spinelli about her new podcast when the people decide it's a great podcast and this conversation was amazing. |
| 1:19.4 | And I think most of you guys know that one of the reasons Bob and I love doing this podcast is because we learn so much. |
| 1:25.8 | I mean, most of these episodes we're prepping for hours |
| 1:28.1 | and, you know, it gives us a chance to read new books. And we usually learn things throughout the |
| 1:33.1 | conversation. In this case, though, I think Bob and I both realize that even after listening |
| 1:39.4 | to the podcast, we were confused about some key terms. So to save you that trouble, I just wanted to really |
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