How to Win Friends and Save the Republic

Stephen B. Walker is a law enforcement veteran and lifelong activist in the areas of child protection and crime prevention. He is currently the director of Governmental Affairs for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). Prior to this, he worked within the California Youth Authority for 26 years as a youth correctional officer. He also served as a jet mechanic and plane captain in United States Marine Corp. Stephen currently serves as vice chair for Protect, a national non-profit dedicated to protect children from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, is the President and founding member of Minorities In Law Enforcement 4 Kids (Mile4kids), is a board member of Child Abuse Prevention Center (CAPC) and is a founding member of the Governor’s Cup Foundation. He is also the host of Reason 55, a podcast that brings together diverse and determined people doing incredible work that helps to affect our world for the better. 

(Originally aired 08/07/2023)

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Michael Mascioni is a writer, futurist, and conference producer focusing on digital media, technology, and innovation. His most recent book, entitled Reinventing Government through Political Entrepreneurship and Exponential Innovation, discusses programs and strategies of various non-partisan policy organizations and think tanks. 

(Originally aired 07/21/2023)

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Bill Shireman is a social entrepreneur, environmental policy innovator, and rare San Francisco Republican. He’s also the founder of Future500, a non-profit consultancy that builds trust between companies, advocates, investors, and philanthropists to advance business as a force for good.

(Originally aired 07/14/2023)

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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 bit better. 

(Originally aired 4/6/2022)

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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. 

(Originally aired 3/18/2022)

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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, nonpartisan 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. 

(Originally aired 3/11/2022)

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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 at The People.

(Originally aired 12/17/2021)

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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 could remake our electoral system so that the success of elected officials is tied to the success of the lives of their constituents. Gehl founded the Institute for Political Innovation and recorded a compelling TED Talk about the topic.

(Originally aired 11/19/2021)

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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.

(Originally aired 12/03/2021)

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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. 

(Originally aired 11/12/2021)

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