The Speaker of the House is second in the presidential line of succession, after the Vice President and ahead of the President pro tempore of the Senate. The person elected to the Speakership wields a fair amount of power not only in the House of Representatives, but also within their party, but what exactly does a Speaker do? And how does someone end up in that position? 53 men and one woman have held the Speaker’s gavel, and each individual has put their unique mark on Congressional history. We chatted with Matt Wasniewski, Historian of the United States House of Representatives to learn more.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
You've heard of the CIA and NSA... how about the NGA? That's the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency by the way (formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency) which is just one of the more than a dozen intelligence agencies operating in the United States. So how do all these agencies coordinate? Who is in charge? Today, an intelligent lesson guided by Dr. Amy Zegart, author and co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
What is a U.S. territory? What is the status of its citizens with regard to the Constitution and U.S. law? Doug Mack, author of The Not-Quite States of America joins us for a lesson on territories.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
“Obstruction of Justice” has been a term swirling around in the headlines lately, but what does the charge actually mean? And how do you prove it? We’re speaking with Brianne Gorod, Chief Counsel for the Constitutional Accountability Center to learn about the different ways one can be accused of obstructing justice – from witness tampering and retaliation to simple contempt and the many options in-between.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
The separation of church and state is widely considered to be a building block of American democracy, but what did the founders really have in mind when they wrote "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” into the first amendment? And what's the deal with "one nation under God," and the whole swearing on the bible thing? Backstory's Ed Ayers and Brian Balogh lead today's civics lesson.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
When discussing the political power of special interest groups, you can't help but talk about lobbying. But what does a lobbyist actually do? We know they hand over checks (lots of them) but how do they spend the rest of their time? What separates legal lobbying from bribery? And how is the food at all those Washington D.C. fundraising breakfasts anyway? Jimmy Williams, former lobbyist and current host of Decode D.C. spills the beans.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
The United States is described as a republic, a federation, and a constitutional democracy. So, what is it? Are those terms interchangeable? And, while we're at it, what's the difference between totalitarianism, despotism, and dictatorship? Political science professor Seth Masket digs into the 'isms, 'cracies, and 'archies for a brief primer on different forms of government.
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Presidential job approval. It seems we get a weekly report from news organizations on how citizen’s think the President is doing, so we're digging into how it gets calculated and how much that number really matters with Dan Cassino, Associate Professor of Political Science at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
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With more than 500 members of Congress, parties have to coordinate members and keep them on the same page. Enter: party whips. But what do they actually do? Several of you asked us to find out. We asked Larry Evans, the Newton Family Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary to help us out.
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In this episode we untangle two terms that are closely related, but not the same: Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances. The framers envisioned a government structure that would consist of three separate branches, each with their own power, in order to avoid having one person or one branch from having full control of the country. University of Minnesota Law Professor Heidi Kitrosser joins us to explain how the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches are separated and once separated, how they ensure those powers are kept in check.
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We've received a LOT of questions about how the budget process works and honestly, we had a lot of our own! It should come as no surprise that the budget process of the United States government is complex and difficult to explain in less than 15 minutes. We decided to cover some of the terminology that you hear when the budget is discussed to give us all a good foundation. Chances are you'll have more questions when you finish listening this week, but hopefully you'll have a better idea of what's supposed to happen.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
Even if you slept through most of your Government classes in High School, there's a good chance you have a vague recollection of how a bill becomes a law thanks to Schoolhouse Rock! The series designed to teach kids about grammar, science, math, civics, and more, got its start in the mid 70s. In 1976, "I'm Just a Bill", introduced viewers to the inner workings of government legislation. We decided to give this topic a podcast update and asked award winning Social Studies teacher, Dave Alcox, to take us back to class and explain how a bill becomes a law.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
The National Debt and The Deficit: two terms that are often used interchangeably, but take on different meanings when it comes to the government. Louise Sheiner is a Policy Director for The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution and she helped guide us through the differences between the debt and the deficit, and what it means for a country to carry debt.
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We do our best to answer your questions about how American democracy works, but many of you have also told us you like to get the insider's view from people who work, or have worked in government. We asked Sarada Peri, former senior presidential speech writer for Barack Obama, about the art of political speech writing.
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We've received multiple questions about Congressional Caucuses, what are they, how are they formed, and what is their purpose? We asked Colleen Shogun, Deputy Director of Outreach at the Library of Congress to help us understand the 800 Congressional Caucuses, from the Authors Caucus to the Civility Caucus.
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The Supreme Court of the United States hear about 80 cases each year, but how do lower court cases make their way to the highest court in the land, and how do they decide which ones to hear? We asked Behzad Mirhashem, Assistant Professor of Law at University of New Hampshire School of Law to help walk us through the process.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
Kristen in California asked: "How exactly does the cabinet work? How much control do the secretaries have? And are they loyal to the president or the department." We asked Dean Spiliotes, Civics Scholar at Southern New Hampshire University to help guide us through the history and inner workings of a president's cabinet.
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Why are there no term limits on Congress, how long has it been that way, and what would it take to actually change how long someone can serve? In this episode we look into the long history of term limits for government officials from the President to the Vice President to Congress. #civics101pod
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When Congress imposed the first personal income tax on Americans in 1861, nothing happened – because there was no agency to collect it! The following year saw the creation of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, or as you know it today, the Internal Revenue Service. Today, the IRS is a massive federal bureaucracy charged with collecting taxes, doling out credits, and capturing and jailing tax cheats. On this episode, Joe Thorndike, Director of the Tax History Project, walks us through the history and role of the IRS.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
One of our listeners sent in a question asking about “the ethics clause”, which forbids presidents from receiving foreign gifts. As it turns out, there isn’t something in the constitution with exactly that title – but there is something called the “Emoluments Clause”, where the founders laid out some rules aimed at combating corruption. In this episode, we look at the language of the Emoluments Clause, and how the founders might have envisioned it working today.
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This podcast is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
