Welcome back to Democracy Is! We hope you are ready for Season 2! In this episode, we discuss language access and why it is so critical in order for all communities to fully participate in our democracy. There are over 200 languages spoken in the state of California alone yet only a handful are covered under federal and state law. Find out why and hear from organizers and policy makers who are working to make our democracy more accessible. 

Featuring interviews with Homayra Yusufi, the Deputy Director of Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA) & Deanna Kitamura from Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus.

It's that time of the year - ELECTION SEASON! We know that you have been bombarded with advertisements, Twitter rants, Facebook posts, and candidate mailers. Election Season can be overwhelming and you may be wondering what CA Common Cause does to make our elections more accessible & transparent. Join us as we explore how multiple players prepare for November 8th!

Featuring interviews with Neal Kelly, the former Registrar of Voters for Orange County & Valerie Morishige, a super volunteer with our CA Common Cause Election Protection program.

Now more than ever, Californians are hearing about recalls and witnessing them happening at all levels of government. We will be exploring Recalls and examining the history, impact, and relevance of this little-known corner of California’s democracy. We will discuss how we can improve the recall process to better serve our political system and our communities. This episode also features interviews with Joshua Spivak, a Senior Fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform, and Sylvia Leong, the current Board Vice President of the Cupertino Union School District.

On this episode of Democracy Is, we take a look at Money in Politics and how it affects our democracy. Understanding how money impacts our politics is essential in the fight for equity! How did we get to this current iteration of our system? How does money impact everyday voters? How much power do wealthy individuals and corporations really have over our elections? We will discuss all of these topics in the latest release from Democracy Is.

We speak with Noah Cole, a policy analyst who is authoring a report on public financing, and Colleen Echohawk, a Seattle mayoral candidate who ran her campaign using public financing systems. With a historic ballot measure appearing this November in Oakland, the time to talk about Money in Politics is now!

This week on Democracy Is, we finish our two-episode arc and are going to take a deep dive into how redistricting went here in California. How does this redistricting cycle compare to others? What are independent redistricting commissions and how did they impact California and its communities? We will answer all these questions and more in today’s show!

This episode also features interviews with Nicolas Heidorn, a fierce advocate for fair & transparent redistricting and responsible for drafting Senate Bill 1108 (Allen, 2016), which for the first time authorized all California general law cities and counties to adopt independent citizens redistricting commissions. We will also speak with Ana Lisa Vargas and Ariana Marmolejo from Communities for a New California on their work in the Central Valley throughout the most recent redistricting cycle.

On this week’s Democracy Is episode, we cover the topic of “Redistricting” as part of a two-episode arc. We take an inside look into how the process came to be, the politics of the Gerrymander, and real impact it has had on our communities. Along with understanding the mechanics of Redistricting, we have a conversation with Kathay Feng on the the fight for Redistricting Reform in California.

A show about from California Common Cause about how democracy impacts our lives and how democracy issues play out in our communities.