As a new year and a new state legislative session gets underway, we sat down with Tim Storey, the CEO of NCSL, to discuss the coming legislative session and where he expects legislators to focus their efforts when it comes to budgets, education, Medicaid and more.

On this episode, our two guests discussed how they used a mentor-mentee relationship to prepare for a job transition. Bernadette “Bernie” McNulty is the retired chief assistant secretary in the California Senate Heshani Wijemanne is the current chief assistant secretary in the Senate.

On this episode we sat down with Curt Stedron, director of NCSL’s Legislative Training Institute, to discuss a presentation he made at this year’s Legislative Summit in Boston on how game theory can help legislative leaders better understand the notion of leading in an infinite game.

Two experts in the field of distributed energy resources and virtual power plants join the podcast to discuss how utility operators can use things such as smart thermostats, batteries in homes and small business, electric vehicles and other resources to help manage peak energy demand.

On this episode, we talk with Carly Roszkowski, vice president of financial resilience programming at AARP, who discussed why the over-50 crowd is such a critical piece of today’s workforce.

On this episode, the focus is on private equity investment in health care facilities, which has grown substantially in the past decade. We’re joined by an expert in health care policy from Harvard and two legislators to discuss how these investments are affecting the health care industry.

On this episode, the focus is energy security and energy challenges in Indian Country. Daniel Cardenas Jr., head of the National Tribal Energy Association, and Trent Marlett from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma discussed how tribal members see their energy security

There are more than 38 million people in the U.S. under 65 who have completed some college courses but did not receive a degree or certificate. On this episode, we get the perspective from two people about how to bring those learners back into the system.

Political scientist and author Pev Squire joined the podcast to discuss his latest book, a deep dive into about 1,500 ballot measures related to the operations of the legislature that were put to voters over more than 300 years. Squire shared some of the insights he gleaned from his research.

Sarah Jewett of Fervo Energy and Alex McWard from NCSL join the podcast to discuss the potential of geothermal energy, an energy source that is attracting the attention of state lawmakers who are looking for additional ways to tap into clean energy.

On this episode, two legislative staffers offer some advice to people new to working at the legislature. Kate Wolf from Nebraska and Morgan Hall from Georgia talked about surprises early in their careers, what attracted them to legislative service and what they wish they'd known before they started their jobs.

On this episode we sat down with Zach Rausch, the chief researcher at the Tech and Society Lab at NYU, and the lead researcher for “The Anxious Generation,” by Jonathan Haidt, which was published last year. We discussed how the combination of the smartphone and social media apps are affecting young people.

This is our third podcast from NCSL’s Legislative Summit in Boston where the organization is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Joining today's show with some some international perspective are Mark Daly, the chair of the Irish Senate, and Ruth Bajada, the deputy chief of mission for the European Union delegation to the U.S. On Monday and Tuesday I spoke with current and incoming presidents and staff chairs for NCSL. You can check those out wherever you get your podcasts. Here’s today’s discussion, starting with Senator Daly.

We're coming to you again today from NCSL’s Legislative Summit in Boston where the organization is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Today's guests are Illinois Rep. Marcus Evans Jr., the incoming president of NCSL, and Lonnie Edgar, deputy director for Mississippi’s Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review and the incoming NCSL staff chair. They will both assume their new positions on Wednesday at the NCSL Business Meeting.

For today's episode, we're podcasting from NCSL’s Legislative Summit in Boston where the organization is celebrating its 50th anniversary. We're positing podcasts Aug. 4, 5 and 6 with some voices from the Summit. Today our guests are Utah Sen. Wayne Harper, the president of NCSL,  and John Snyder, the Transportation Committee staff administrator for the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission and the NCSL staff chair. Tomorrow, joining us will be Illinois Rep. Marcus Evans Jr., the incoming president of NCSL, and Lonnie Edgar, deputy director for Mississippi’s Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review and the incoming NCSL staff chair. And on Wednesday, we'll sit down with two international visitors to get their perspective on the Summit and why working with state lawmakers is important for their nations.

This fourth and final episode in a series celebrating and exploring the 50th anniversary of NCSL focuses on legislators. Lawmakers, experts on legislatures and NCSL CEO Tim Storey offer their perspective on the role of state legislator.

Nearly 60 million people in the U.S. fall into the broad category of independent workers and millions of others are both working and providing caregiving. On this episode, three guests with deep experience in this area discuss how the benefits system might be changed to better support these workers.

Our focus on this episode is wildlife crossings, underpasses or bridges built just for animals. Millions of animals are killed by vehicles annually on U.S. roads, and animal-vehicle collisions result in about 200 human deaths and 26,000 injuries each year. Two legislators and expert from Pew join the podcast to discuss.

On this episode, we focus on the challenges utilities in rural parts of the country face in trying to ensure the physical and cybersecurity of their facilities. Our guests are John Ransom, director of regulatory affairs for grid security for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and Adrienne Lotto, senior vice president for grid security at the American Public Power Association.

On this episode, we spoke with three people involved in efforts to reform the process used to determine a defendant's mental competency. In the U.S. legal system, an accused person must be able to understand the charges against them and assist their lawyer in preparing a defense. In practice, such defendants often spend long periods in confinement because of a shortage of behavioral health services.