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The On the Hill: Breaking Down DC podcast is a collection of sharing more about what’s happening in DC without the bias, ways for you to get involved with the US government, and interviews with friends, colleagues who can help pull back the proverbial curtain of Washington, DC. Katherine Getty, host of the OTH podcast, is a 10-year Washingtonian who lives and breathes politics.
Katherine Getty 0:01
Captain, Hi and welcome to the on the Hill podcast with me, your host, Katherine Getty, each Thursday, I'll peel back the curtain of what happens in Washington, from breaking down current events without the bias, to interviews with fellow political nerds and even and maybe most importantly, ways for you to get involved with our US government. Welcome back to another episode of The on the Hill podcast. With me, your host, Katherine Getty, so do a little recap from last week. If you haven't listened to Episode 28 of the on the Hill podcast, I've been doing this series as we launched season two, getting you ready for Election Day, November 5, but you can always vote before, which you will learn about in last week's episode. So in last week's episode, I talk about how to research candidates, how to find ballot sample ballots, how to get ready to go vote, and the importance of research and taking the time to research and not just believing fast facts, like I like to call them, so there's little things that you see on the bottom of screens of on TVs or on the bottom or when you get a newsletter, you just either cry on like the headline, I encourage you to read a little bit deeper and better and dig into it. And it takes time, but it's worth it, because it provides you an opportunity to feel really strong in the facts that you share back and when you have to disagree with someone, but not being disagreeable, it gives you that strength. So tune into last week's episode. It's fantastic. But building on that, that episode, I wanted to dig into ballot initiatives. I say digging a lot because you had to do a lot of preparation to go vote. And I say that because oftentimes there's the desire to do things fast. And unfortunately, with voting, it is such a sacred right in this country that we should take it with that treated the same way. And so it takes us time to research and ballot initiatives, I lovingly say, are the things at the end of the ballot that are so weirdly written that it's very hard sometimes in the ballot box say, Well, what is this even voting for? Like, what am I even voting for? And I'll be honest, there have been times in the past where I did not do the research, I went into the ballot box and I didn't vote on the initiative because I didn't understand the implications of it, and I didn't feel comfortable voting one way or the other. So today I'm going to do a couple things. One going to define what ballot initiatives are, so you have an understanding of that, and to give you a couple tools to help research those ballot initiatives so you feel really comfortable when you're voting for them. So let's get started. A ballot initiative is a citizen initiated ballot measure, and the process allows citizens, typically groups of citizens, to propose statutes or constitutional amendments, depending on the state, and these groups have to collect signatures to place the proposals on the ballot for voter set aside. Now I will say some states allow the legislature to approve the proposals that get on the ballot or not, and you can each state is a little bit different. And I encourage you to figure out which type of state yours is, and doing a broad kind of view these citizen initiated ballot measures can be like I said state statute, constitutional amendment or voter referendum. A voter referendum, unlike a statute or constitutional amendment, is asking voters whether they want to uphold or repeal an enacted law. So there are 26 states that allow for citizen initiated ballot measures. 18, allow constitutional amendments. 21, state statutes. Two, Maryland and New Mexico allow for a voter referendum, but not initiated statutes or initiated amendments. So statute is bringing about new laws. Constitutional amendment is changing current laws, and then the voter referendum is like, if a law you want to uphold it or take it down, so it kind of puts into those three buckets. I think that's a lot more helpful. I want to make sure that this is as clear as possible, and hopefully what I've seen from sample ballots. So reminder, Episode 28 talks about sample ballots. On those sample ballots, it typically says, from what I have seen from the few states, it'll say, if it's a constitutional amendment or a statute change, you might have to dig into it a little bit further, but your state board of elections should have clarity on what type it is and what what your state law allows. So now that we have an understanding for what ballot initiatives are, I'm going to give you a couple resources that I found that were really helpful in this. One is ballotpedia.org, I keep going back to that. I found them to be pretty from what I can tell, they call balls and strikes and. You know, this podcast is really just trying to provide you the resources to let your voice be heard. May, however, that may be ballotpedia.org, if you type in your state or locality, it will pull up and it has like, very easy to describe or very easy to read and understand descriptions of the constitutional amendment or statute change the ballot initiative. I also say googling your state and ballot initiatives will bring up this year's ballot initiatives. I did it for a few states. I did for Florida. I did it for Virginia, because that's where I live, and it was pretty easy to find on the state board of elections or the National Association of secretaries of state, you can type in your state, and it will pull up the site link for your state or locality, and from that state you can go down to like cities, because some cities will have different ballot initiatives as well, like small taxes or different things like that. So I encourage you to kind of use those two resources to dig in a little bit further. Like I said, this is going to take you time. I'm not going to sugarcoat this. I think in total, you could probably devote an hour to doing this research and feel really prepared. And I know an hour feels like a lot taken into chunks. We have a little over a month until the November elections, and things like this will not only impact your vote, but also prepare you for the the upcoming holidays, because we all know we are in a country right now where politics is like, we can't stop talking about it. So I've done episodes in the past about how can we disagree and not be disagreeable? I'll probably revive that for Thanksgiving and Christmas, particularly Thanksgiving, because it will be so close to after the election. But doing this research helps you be prepared to have those conversations. Because I think oftentimes, and I know I've done it, when I don't have all of the facts, I start to get into what are kind of like personal stories or personal jobs that I can make and not I don't go over the line. But I think it's human nature to kind of like, push back. So push back with facts this holiday season. No, I kid, but I'm not. I'm not kidding. It's my hope that these last two episodes kind of get you thinking about doing some research. I just thank you so much for taking the time. I hope these episodes are short, sweet to the point give you some tools. I thank you so much for tuning in each week. This is a little passion project of mine that I hope gives you a little semblance of less crazy in this politics helps you feel ready to engage. I would love for you to do one thing for me this week, though, if you are listening to this podcast, send the link to one person, you know, that's all I'm asking, and encourage them to listen to it. It would mean the world to this podcast. Every time you like, subscribe, share. It helps the podcast grow. And if you like this content, which if you're listening to it, I hope you do. It helps others find it and don't we all need a little bit of sanity this time of year. So thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of The on the Hill podcast with me, your host, Katherine Getty, if you want to learn more about the podcast or the episodes, check out on the hill DC podcast on Instagram or my own personal Instagram at Katherine Getty, I share all things podcast. I share things about my life. You want to get to know me a little bit more as always, see you next week. Thanks so much. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai