Professor Robert B. Reich was voted by the graduating students of UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy to be their faculty speaker. Always a beloved teacher, this occasion was especially meaningful because it marked Professor Reich's retirement from teaching.  Robert Reich was introduced by Master of Public Policy student speaker Abraham Eli Bedoy. 

Tennessee Representative Justin Jones addressed the graduates at the Goldman School of Public Policy's commencement on May 14, 2023. Representative Jones came into the national spotlight when he was expelled from the Tennessee legislature for taking to the assembly floor to protest gun violence and the refusal of the legislature to take up this issue.    

This year, researchers found that the last 22 years were the driest consecutive years in the North American southwest in over a millennium. The pace and scale of climate change is forcing states and counties to adapt rapidly. In California, one of the industries at the forefront of the adaptation predicament is agriculture. In today’s episode, reporter Elena Neale-Sacks speaks with resilience researcher Amélie Gaudin, Sacramento Valley farmer Scott Park, and water policy research fellow Caity...

The annual number of anti-LGBTQ bills filed has skyrocketed over the past several years, from 41 in 2018 to 240 and counting in the first three months of this year. Half of these bills are targeting transgender people specifically. At the same time, surveys of the general public show over 70% say they support same-sex marriage and laws preventing discrimination across the LGBTQ community. And Gen Z are proudly and loudly identifying with both gender and sexual fluidity. How do we square these...

Show Notes In 2016, California voters legalized recreational cannabis through Prop 64. Now, five years after legalization, city’s are grappling with the difficulty of prioritizing social equity in the cannabis licensing process for Black, brown, and formerly incarcerated small business owners who were negatively impacted by the war on drugs. In this episode, Talk Policy to Me Reporter Noah Cole talks with Amber Senter, a cannabis advocate and Executive Director of Supernova Women and Chaney...

The Republican Party and the Democratic Party take different approaches to talking about race and racism. While politicians in the Republican Party have used coded language or “dog whistles” to stoke racial division, politicians in the Democratic Party either avoid talking about race in favor of talking about class issues or talk about race as a matter of white over nonwhite conflict. Each of these approaches have had difficulty resonating with a broad multiracial coalition of voters needed...

This is the second episode in a two-part series about changing how we vote in the United States. In today’s episode, Talk Policy To Me reporter Elena Neale-Sacks talks with voting systems researchers Sara Wolk and Clay Shentrup about what they think the order of operations should be to get to a place where everyone can vote their conscience and votes accurately translate into who ends up in power. GSPP researcher and policy analyst Charlotte Hill will be back with her thoughts too. To learn...

In recent months and years, legislation meant to make it more difficult to vote, especially for Black and brown people, has proliferated in some state legislatures. But problems with the way we vote in the United States go deeper than these laws. In Part 1 of this two-part episode, Talk Policy To Me reporter Elena Neale-Sacks talks to GSPP researcher Charlotte Hill about what it would look like to fundamentally change how we vote in this country. Look out for Part 2 next week. To learn more...

As of 2021, there were 30 million online dating users in the US and 321 million users worldwide. Despite this massive number of users, there's very little policy that regulates how users behave on these platforms. Studies show that a majority of women have experienced sexual harassment online and that rarely is any action taken by law enforcement in situations where technology is being used to commit acts of gender-based violence. Talk Policy to Me host Amy Benziger joins Ziyang Fan, the...

In February 2020, the Oakland City Council passed Oakland's Fair Chance Housing ordinance. The legislation was the first in California — joining cities nationwide like Seattle and Portland — to ensure that people returning home from the criminal justice system can legally live with family members and access, on their own, nearly all other forms of previously off-limits rental housing. In this episode, Talk Policy to Me host Amy Benziger talks to housing activists Margaretta Lin and Lee...

With 59% of the US population fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the increased availability of booster shots, and the rise of a new variant, having a highly vaccinated public is incredibly important to the fight against COVID in the months ahead. In this episode, Talk Policy to Me reporter Noah Cole talks to psychologist and behavioral scientist Philipp Schmid and public health expert and data scientist Crystal Son about the do's and don'ts of effective vaccine communication. ...

The A’s proposal for a new waterfront baseball stadium at Oakland’s Howard Terminal is a multi-use development site that would include shops, parks, and housing. As the City of Oakland and Alameda County negotiate with the A’s over how these benefits are paid for, much has been made about the impact that sports stadiums have on communities. In this episode, reporter Noah Cole speaks with Dr. Richard Noll of the Stanford Economics Department and Veronica Cummings of the Oakland’s City...

As Congress struggles to pass a spending bill that includes some of the biggest climate legislation the U.S. has seen, there’s another big hurdle the country needs to clear to make big moves on climate change —the electric grid. In this episode, reporter Elena Neale-Sacks talks to energy policy expert Steve Weissman, environmental scientist Grace Wu, and energy equity researcher Daniel Raimi, to better understand how the grid needs to change to better adapt to the effects of climate change...

Today's episode explores the new wave of "rights suppressing laws" with New York Times Op-Ed writers and legal scholars Jon Michaels and David Noll. Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/04/opinion/texas-abortion-law.html  

Season 5 of Talk Policy To Me is dropping soon, with new hosts Noah Cole and Amy Benziger. Listen and subscribe!

During the holiday season, food is often central to the celebration. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people are experiencing hunger for the first time, and food insecurity has become a daily reality for many. Today, we’re talking about what some say is a practical solution to rising hunger—urban agriculture and the policies that shape and support it. If you live in the Bay Area and are experiencing hunger this holiday season, check out these resources that may be able to...

In this final episode of TPTM Season 4, we say goodbye to hosts Reem and Colleen and hello to the incoming Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, Dr. David C. Wilson.

Cash transfers discourage work, price ceilings and floors (like the minimum wage) are economically inefficient, and trade makes everyone better off. If you’ve ever taken a basic economics course in high school or even in college, these were probably the major takeaways. But these are myths --dire oversimplifications at best, and outright inaccuracies at worst --that often represent the most basic building blocks of conservative arguments against critical safety net policies. In this episode...

CONTENT WARNING: This episode involves mention of police violence against people of color.  Since the 1970s, Black police officers have formed informal unions in response to racism within their departments and in the greater community. In this episode, reporter Elena Neale-Sacks talks to an economist, a law professor, and a former president of a Black police union to better understand the purpose these organizations serve, their limits, and the ways in which they differ from police unions...

As vaccine rates rise and health experts give more public activities the stamp of approval, people have begun shifting from private spaces to public ones. Today, we’re talking about what public spaces are and the policies that govern them. We’ll also talk about the unhoused folks for whom the distinction between public and private space is less clear.  Archival audio from YouTube user Saul Rouda.

On this episode of TPTM, we’re talking philanthropy yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Since the Gilded Age, philanthropists have positioned themselves as gracious, charitable forces in society who are experts in identifying and solving our social ails. But the institution of philanthropy has had its critics from day one. What are the origins of modern philanthropy in the US, and how did they lead us to where we are today? What role (if any) does philanthropy have in a democratic society? And...

With over 100 million users and counting in the US, TikTok is beginning to play a major role in the political education and mobilization of its young user base.   In this episode, which was written and recorded in the aftermath of the November 2020 election, Talk Policy to Me reporter Noah Cole spoke with Aidan Kohn-Murphy and Toni Akande, two of the teens who run the “Gen Z for Change” TikTok page. Aidan and Toni touched on how they used traditional organizing practices to get out the vote...

Last summer, as a part of the public reckoning with racialized police violence, chants and mantras like “Whose Streets? Our Streets” and “We Keep Us Safe” and “We Are The Change We’ve Been Waiting For” resounded in the streets and all over social media. What would it mean to take these slogans seriously? To actually imbue people and communities -- rather than political representatives and corporations --  with the power to create and change the world around them? Talk Policy To Me reporter...

Black History Month 2021 has been an eventful occasion at the Goldman School of Public Policy. One student organization, Black Students in Public Policy (BiPP) has been responsible for putting together a weekly speaker series on health and wellness, economic policy, politics, and social impact in the Black community.  In this episode of Talk Policy To Me, we hear from 7 students in BiPP who share their path to public policy and the ways that they are celebrating Black History Month. For more...