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Part One:
We speak with Alan Greenblatt, reporter with Governing Magazine, about his article shining a light on the purely partisan way in which interest groups are now expanding the use of recall elections. After a governor or legislator has been duly elected and sworn into office, supporters of the defeated candidate essentially get a “re-do” of the election, by petitioning for a special “recall” election. In such off-year elections, often the voter turn-out is much lower and tends to include mostly the most passionate critics.
What effect will this have on our country’s fragile democracy? Do recall elections exacerbate the problem of dark money in politics?
Part Two:
We talk with Dave Levitan, a journalist focusing on science and politics, about his article in The New Republic entitled “Should People Be Allowed to Get Rich on Global Warming?” This ethical question is made more difficult by the subleties involved in defining our terms. To what extent is someone just acting reasonably — by changing their behavior to accommodate the expected effects of global warming (so they can earn a living on which their families can subsist) — and to what extent are they actually exploiting climate change so they can extract as much profit as possible from the rest of us who must live through droughts, floods, and pollution?
