- When we think of the government, a lot of us probably think federal, but look at this gorgeous illustration I made.

Here's you, and each circle around you is a different government that affects your life.

The bigger the circle, the more total lives affected.

So why do so many of us focus here and not nearly as much here?

We'll get to that.

But I'm willing to bet that many, if not most of the issues you care about, are handled here more so than here.

And that of all of these circles, the highest number of things that impact your daily life are handled by your state.

You are leaving power and influence on the table by not engaging with your state government.

That is until now.

I'm Ben Sheehan and this is "Civics Made Easy."

Let's start at the top.

Before the United States, there were 13 semi-united colonies.

They declared independence and began calling themselves states or commonwealths to highlight that independence.

They went to war with England over this independence.

The states then signed a loose governing agreement amongst themselves, the war ended, and the states signed a new self-governing agreement, one that's still in effect today.

But before the federal government began in 1789, the colonies turned states already had their own governments, and they still do.

Every state has its own constitution.

The Massachusetts one is even older than the U.S.

Constitution, making it technically the oldest written constitution still in use anywhere in the world.

Meanwhile, Alabama is currently on their seventh constitution, which they had to rewrite in 2022 to remove racist language.

A little late, but it happened.

But what can these states and their constitutions really do?

After all, the U.S.

Constitution and the federal laws made under it are the supreme law of the land.

States have to follow those.

But here's the part a lot of us skip over.

If the constitution doesn't grant a power to the federal government and doesn't say that the states can't do it, then that power is reserved for the states or the people.

It's literally the 10th Amendment.

And the guy who wrote that, James Madison, also said that the federal government's constitutional powers are few and defined, while state powers on the other hand are numerous and indefinite.

So what are some of those numerous, indefinite things?

Well, today they include education, marriage, divorce, adoption, abortion, housing, driving, firefighting, policing, childcare, healthcare, gender affirming care, the death penalty, state taxes to pay for a lot of what I just said, regulating businesses within a state, deciding whether to make joining a labor union optional for some jobs, estate and property taxes, rich people stuff, or gambling marijuana and sex work, rich people stuff when they go to Nevada.

And then there are things your state splits with the federal government.

Those include elections.

Congress can make laws for congressional ones, some laws for presidential ones, but everything else falls to your state.

Or guns.

The Second Amendment establishes your right to own a firearm.

Federal law can add some rules, but states can regulate concealed or open carry, waiting periods after purchase.

They can set higher age minimums for purchase than the federal ones, which are 18 for long guns and 21 for handguns.

And speaking of minimums, the wage.

Most states have a basement hourly rate in the $9 to $18 range, while others are stuck at 7.25 an hour, the same as the federal minimum wage, which hasn't been raised since 2009 and is helpful because prices have totally stayed the same.

To sum this up, the federal government handles some stuff, states and the federal government handle other stuff together, and everything else is up to each individual state.

It's confusing, but at least it has a name, federalism.

See, we tend to think of the relationship between the federal government and our state like this, but it's really like this, or to be very precise, like this, since federal law trumps state law when they conflict.

Are you tired of my badly drawn charts?

To be honest, I am too.

But we're in luck because I have a story for you, specifically Tim's Storey.

Tim's story runs the National Conference of State Legislatures.

His group tracks various state laws being made across the U.S.

by the most powerful part of state government.

So you focus on state legislatures.

These are state houses and senates.

For those unfamiliar, a state legislature is basically like a Congress for your state.

Why did you choose to focus on this area of government?

- Well, if I knew the answer to that, Ben, I would share it with you.

I'm not sure I chose to get into this thing.

I probably stumbled into it a bit.

I was in college and took an internship with the North Carolina General Assembly where I grew up, and so discovered this very sort of unusual ecosystem of government in the state legislature and I guess fell in love with it a bit.

So now here I am.

I've been with this organization really 37 years and don't regret one second of it.

- What do you think is the most consequential thing that a state's legislature can do?

Is it let us vote for president because they don't have to, ask the military to suppress an uprising, ratify amendments to the U.S.

Constitution, call a convention to amend the constitution, amend your state's constitution, one of those or something else?

- I'm going to say it's none of the above.

All of those are tremendously important powers, but the most important role of the legislature is the impact they have on everybody's lives, day in, day out.

I would argue perhaps more than any other level of government in our United States federalism system.

They have, you know, pretty substantial taxing authority, which means they can raise money to solve problems of the people inside their states.

That's their most important function, to look at the problems and then set the broad policies and prove the budgets day in, day out where people live.

And it's a level of government that's close to the people.

- Why do people as a whole pay so much less attention to state government?

And do you agree with that statement?

- I would postulate a couple of things.

One, the coverage of state government is so minimal.

It's really a problem, I think, in the United States.

I would make a strong case that what happened in your state capital has far greater impact on your life than what happens in Washington, especially in these days of nearly complete gridlock and lack of policy initiative at the federal level.

So why do people not pay attention to it?

I think there's a dearth of good coverage.

So I think it's just not part of people's lives, which is, you know, really a sad commentary because it's a level of government where people can have a pretty major impact.

- What do you think Americans frequently get wrong about state government and state legislative power?

- I think they underestimate the accessibility they have to these policymakers.

Lawmakers are extremely sensitive to taking care of constituents and hearing their concerns.

So I guess if I'd say one thing, it's you're underestimating your ability to have a voice at the state level.

- If there's one thing you can impart on Americans to keep track of when it comes to state government, what would it be?

- Find out who your legislator is.

You know, that's the easiest thing.

I mean, you're not going to be necessarily interested in, you know, what's the healthcare policy for insurance companies, regulating cryptocurrency, regulating AI.

The federal government has, is incapable of regulating AI.

The federal government is incapable of regulating social media.

You know who's doing it?

State government, state legislatures.

- So your legislature is the most powerful part of your state's government, but who else has power?

Again, per the U.S.

Constitution, I know I keep bringing that up, but it is the Supreme Law of the land.

Each state is a republic, just like the federal government.

That means representatives govern on our behalf.

So Illinois can't have a king and Idaho can't be ruled by the military.

And despite we may have heard, this is not the boss of New Jersey.

So what does this Republican structure look like?

State governments differ in terms of the names of the offices and which ones are elected or appointed, but the basic framework's the same.

Legislative, executive, judicial, same three branches as the federal government.

This is going to work better as a graphic.

Your state's legislature makes state laws, like how Congress makes federal laws.

Every state's legislature has a House and a Senate, except for Nebraska, which only has a Senate.

Your governor is basically your state's version of the president.

They sign bills into state law, pardon state crimes, or the commander in chief of your state's national guard and sometimes of a separate state defense force.

They appoint cabinet officials or agency heads to oversee things like education, housing, prisons, the environment, agriculture, labor, health, natural resources.

You get it.

The lieutenant governor is your state's version of the vice president.

Your attorney general enforces state law, represents your state and court, and can even sue corporations or the federal government on behalf of your state's residents.

Your secretary of state usually oversees elections and registers businesses.

Your state treasurer manages public funds, like a banker.

Your state auditor tracks how those funds are used.

And every state has its own court system.

This usually includes trial courts, appellate courts, and a state supreme court.

But unlike the federal government where all judges are appointed, in most states, at least some state judges are elected by us, including to the state supreme court, which brings me to one final key difference between federal and state government.

At the federal level, only Congress can pass laws, but in many states, we the voters can write and pass our own state laws or even amend our state's constitution without politicians' involvement.

These are called ballot measures or referendums, or the super catchy title, initiated state statutes or initiated state constitutional amendments.

Genuinely, if you don't think your state's leaders are doing enough, you can write laws and amendments yourself and have your fellow citizens vote on them.

It takes work, organizing, and money, but it happens all the time.

Ballot measures have been used in some states to raise the minimum wage, restrict abortion, lower taxes, and to partisan gerrymandering, which you can learn about in our gerrymandering episode, and in Florida, to restore voting rights to more than a million people with prior felony convictions, largely thanks to my next guest, Desmond Meade.

Desmond Meade is an activist, a former independent candidate for Florida governor.

He has a law degree, received a MacArthur Fellowship, was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People.

But decades ago, after felony convictions involving drugs and a firearm, he lost his right to vote.

He also struggled with addiction and homelessness.

Desmond rebuilt his life, but still could not vote, and he knew more than a million other Floridians faced the same barrier, so he did something about it.

Desmond, states handle voting rights after a felony conviction very differently.

In some, depending on the crime, people can permanently lose that right.

In others like Maine and Vermont, individuals can vote while incarcerated.

Why is there such a big difference from state to state, and how long had Florida banned felons and former felons from voting?

- That's a broad question.

I think when you look at the history of a felony disenfranchisement in the United States, you can trace it as far back as when the first 13 colonies were formed.

It wasn't as prevalent then.

What you seen the emergence of it was actually when slaves were emancipated.

And so that's why you seen that there was a heavy influx of African American legislators in Congress or in local offices.

And so, of course, they came up with these Black Codes to diminish that new found freedom.

It just so happened that felon disenfranchisement outlasted every last one of the Black Codes and we see it even to this day still prevalent in our country.

- You helped organize a state constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions after they complete their sentencing, including probation and parole.

Your amendment excluded those convicted of murder or felony sexual offense.

Ultimately, voters approved it, but how hard was the first part, getting it on the ballot, and where did you even start?

- Prior to starting this thing, I mean, I want to level set.

Florida was the worst state in the country, right?

Over 1/4 of people in the entire country who could not vote because of a prior felony conviction actually lived in Florida.

And so we initially connected with people's family members, people who cared about them, who were eligible voters, and we started getting them to sign petitions to say that, "You know what?

Their loved ones deserve a second chance."

And as momentum grown, we were collecting petitions everywhere and eventually we was able to actually get this thing on the ballot.

- How did you collect the signatures and raise the money?

And once it qualified, how hard was it to convince voters to support it?

- Florida was a very difficult state to pass a citizen's initiative, because unlike other states, Florida required that a super majority of voters actually approve that to be passed.

So in the state of Florida at the time, we needed 60% of voters to say yes.

The other part of it was where we were collecting petitions, and Florida required that we had to collect a minimum amount of petitions within a minimum amount of congressional districts, which means that we had to have a very wide distribution of voters throughout the state that had signed petitions, saying that they were willing to put this particular amendment on the ballot.

So that was difficult as hell because Florida is a huge state, so you had to travel long distances to engage with folks.

I drove over 50,000 miles a year on my car, 50,000 miles a year.

And then, of course, we really did not have the type of money that a lot of outfits might have when they're running ballot initiative, but what we did have was a grassroots energy that was unsurpassed.

- And I want to put you on the spot a little bit.

Unless I'm mistaken, your ballot measure is the largest expansion of voting rights by a single law or amendment since the Voting Rights Act?

- That's what the expert said in the past, in over 50 years.

Yeah.

At the time that we were engaged in the ballot initiative, I never thought about how great of a significance it was.

And I think the beautiful thing for me though, with our ballot initiative, that effort was actually led by people who were closest to the pain.

And a lot of times, we say that it's those who are closest to the pain who are often the ones that are closest to the solutions.

And what I can tell you is that from our ballot initiative to efforts in California, Minnesota, Louisiana, North Carolina, New Mexico, right?

I'm extremely proud that we were able to make history in Florida, but I'm even prouder of what we're seeing throughout this country as more and more directly impacted people are playing a more active role in expanding democracy for everyone.

- Recently, data from Johns Hopkins University found that very few of us follow our state's government.

A chucker, I know.

Most Americans don't know if their state has a constitution.

As you hopefully now know, it does.

And roughly 80% of us cannot name our state legislators, the people writing state laws on our behalf for countless issues.

So with that in mind, I'd like to make a plea.

If you are dissatisfied with Washington, which for many years now, according to surveys and general vibes, as most of us at some point, try turning your frustration and energy toward your state, because as you now know, in many states, we citizens can propose state laws or state constitutional amendments ourselves, vote on them, and bypass our state's politicians entirely.

We are three episodes into this season and we've already met two people who have successfully done that, Katie Fahey in Michigan, to ban partisan gerrymandering, and Desmond Meade in Florida, to restore former felon's voting rights.

These are not theoretical powers or hypothetical scenarios.

Ordinary people are using them to make change happen all the time.

So if you care about education, the environment, housing, voting, and tons of other stuff, your state is where the action is.

And if you care about protecting rights, well, state governments matter there too.

So if you want to follow your state's government, start with the news outlets in or covering your state's capital.

They tend to report on the legislature, your governor, and other officials.

National news may tell you what members of Congress thought about on social media, because that gets clicks, but state reporting may show what actually changed for your life since you woke up.

So please make sure you know who your state's leaders are, your representatives of the legislature, your governor, your attorney general, judges, because they matter.

And also, you pay their salaries, so you may as well see if you're getting your money's worth.

Because here's my point.

If we focus too much on the federal level, we risk obsessing over what affects the most people rather than on what actually affects people the most.

I'm Ben Sheehan, and I hope you learned something.

- We're in South Pasadena to see if anyone knows who their state senator is, even when she's standing in front of them.

Shall we play?

- Absolutely.

- Let's go.

Who is your state senator?

- My state senator, I don't know.

- Your state senator is Sasha Renee Perez.

Would you like to meet her?

- Yeah, sure.

- Hi.

- Hi.

I feel so bad.

- It's fine.

- Who is your state senator?

- I don't know.

- Would you like to meet her?

- Yeah.

- This is Sasha Renee Perez, your state senator.

- I will not forget you.

Thank you so much.

- It's nice meeting you.

- Nice to meet you.

Thank you.

- Do you happen to know who your state senator is?

- Bass.

Bass.

- You mean Karen Bass?

- Oh, Karen Bass.

- No, she's the mayor of Los Angeles.

I'm actually your state senator.

- Oh really?

- Yeah.

- Congratulations.

Wow.

- My state senator is Sasha Perez.

- You are correct, and she's right here.

- [Interviewee] Oh my gosh.

- Hi.

- Hey.

- Hi.

- Great to meet you.

- Yeah.

- You did it.

You get the pickles.

You earned them.

- Awesome.

- Thank you very much.

- I actually do believe they are the best pickles on the planet.