Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

We are in the middle of Referendum Week. We're doing a bunch of special

episodes in the run-up to the midterm election this November. We are going to be

talking about some of our favorite midterm stories, some favorite polling stories,

and this week is referendum week.

Today we are looking at a referendum from 2018, not that long ago, in North Dakota.

A group of women who came to be known as the badass Grandma's got together to

help draft anti-corruption legislation in that state, an amendment to North Dakota's state constitution that, among other things, established a State

Ethics Commission guidelines for how lobbyists can interact with legislators, prohibiting

lobbyists from giving gifts to legislators, providing a little more transparency about how

dark money is used to influence elections. It was a major victory in that state for anti-corruption

efforts and a sign of how referendums can really start to change the way our

democracy functions, which is something we talked about on the last episode as well.

And back with us is the guest who was on that last episode.

Joshua Graham Lynn, CEO of the nonpartisan grassroots group,

represent us.

They helped the Grandma's in North Dakota draft

and spread the word about the referendum.

Represent Us is also the main partner on this pro-democracy podcast coalition project that I'm

helping organize and a bunch of great shows are involved in.

So yes, this is another chance to talk about the power of

...