The Electorette Podcast

Democracy Is Not Passive: Chris Melody Fields Figueredo on Ballot Power in 2026

When we think about elections, we think about candidates. But some of the most consequential fights in 2026 won’t be about who’s on the ballot — they’ll be about what’s on it.

Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, Executive Director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, joins me to break down the 24 democracy-related ballot measures already approved for November — and the wave of defensive measures, voter suppression tactics, and anti-trans initiatives emerging across the country.

We discuss Missouri lawmakers overturning voter-approved minimum wage and paid leave, how supermajority thresholds weaken majority rule, and why ballot initiatives remain one of the most powerful tools for multiracial democracy — even in red states.

Democracy cannot be passive. And this year, it’s on the ballot.

From this Episode:

Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC)

BALLOT MEASURE HUB

LUCHA AZ —Living United for Change in Arizona is an organization led by changemakers fighting for social, racial, and economic transformation.

Missouri Jobs With Justice: A place for people who want to stop the wealthy few from mistreating and dividing us - and who want to start getting the dignity we deserve.

 Voices of Florida: Voices of Florida is a Florida-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit formerly known as Women's Voices of Southwest Florida Fund dedicated to defending reproductive freedoms and human rights, and empowering our communities through education, outreach and direct action.
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The Librarians: Censorship Comes for DemocracyInside the fight over books, schools, and power: A conversation with Kim Snyder, director of The Librarians

Award-winning filmmaker Kim Snyder joins The Electorette to discuss her latest documentary, The Librarians, which examines the nationwide rise in book bans and the political targeting of librarians.

The film follows librarians across the country as they navigate harassment, threats, and mounting political pressure—all while defending access to information in their communities. In this conversation, Snyder breaks down how these censorship efforts are organized, who benefits from them, and why they pose a serious threat to democratic institutions.

The Librarians premieres on February 9th on PBS.
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In this episode of The Electorette, host Jen Taylor-Skinner speaks with Suzanne Jimenez, Chief of Staff at SEIU-UHW, about the looming healthcare crisis facing California — and the ballot measure designed to stop it.

Their conversation begins with the fallout from the federal budget reconciliation bill (HR 1), which delivered historic tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while triggering over $100 billion in healthcare cuts to California over the next several years. Jimenez explains how those cuts are already showing up across the state: rising insurance premiums, hospital layoffs, threats to Medi-Cal, nursing homes, community clinics, and serious risks to maternal care and children’s health.

From there, Jimenez lays out California’s proposed solution: a one-time emergency 5% tax on billionaires, affecting just over 200 individuals. The measure would generate more than $100 billion to stabilize the healthcare system, protect Medi-Cal, support K–14 education, and fund emergency food assistance. She breaks down how the tax works, why claims of billionaire flight are largely a distraction, and how healthcare workers themselves are leading this effort after elected leaders failed to offer a viable alternative.

The episode also explores why ballot initiatives have become one of the most effective tools for protecting public goods, how this proposal could serve as a model for other states facing similar cuts, and what Californians stand to lose if the measure does not pass.

This is a clear, urgent conversation about who pays when government priorities shift — and how voters can intervene when the safety net is at risk.

🔗 Learn more about the California Billionaire Tax Act:https://www.cabillionairetax.org/

🔗 See how healthcare workers are supporting the measure:https://www.seiu-uhw.org/ca-billionaire-tax-act/
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The American middle class didn’t disappear by accident—it was dismantled by design.

In this episode of The Electorette, host Jen Taylor-Skinner is joined by Professor A. Mechele Dickerson, author of Middle-Class New Deal: Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream, for a clear-eyed conversation about how deliberate public policy once built a strong middle class—and how decades of political neglect slowly unraveled it.

Dickerson explains why the middle class exists at all, how housing policy, labor protections, education, and debt once worked together to create upward mobility, and what changed beginning in the 1980s. We also discuss why conversations about the middle class so often erase race—and how ignoring systemic inequality ultimately weakens the entire economy.

There’s a personal thread woven throughout this conversation as well: both Dickerson and Taylor-Skinner grew up in Memphis and even attended the same middle school, a shared history that mirrors many of the book’s core themes around affordable housing, public education, and economic opportunity.

This is a grounded, urgent conversation about what Americans have lost—and the open question of whether a new middle-class deal is still possible if the collective political will can be summoned.
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After users discovered they could use Grok, the AI tool embedded in X, to generate nonconsensual nude images of women and girls, the backlash was swift. And the story raised a deeper question: are these harms a failure of artificial intelligence itself, or a reflection of the people, power structures, and incentives behind it?

In this episode, Jen Taylor-Skinner is joined by Tazin Khan, CEO of Cyber Collective, for an important conversation about feminist AI, technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and the limits of blaming “innovation” for harms that are deeply human. From deepfakes and data exploitation to capitalism, surveillance, and platform responsibility, this discussion challenges the idea that technology is neutral—and asks who is protected, who is exposed, and why accountability so often stops at the code.

This is a conversation about AI, yes—but even more so about power, responsibility, and the systems we continue to build without reckoning with their consequences.
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