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Many powerful people around the country have changed policy for the better. They’ve deregulatedoccupational licenses, beaten back tax hikes, prevented their lawmakers from banning safe products, and moved their state from laggard to leader in school choice. In short, they’ve changed what was politically possible in their states: They’ve shifted the Overton Window. We launched the Overton Window podcast to talk to people who have made a difference about how they did it.
For instance, Garrett Ballengee of the Cardinal Institute of West Virginia spoke with us about its work to get lawmakers to approve the nation’s leading education scholarship law. There was very little school choice in the state before the institute’s victory. Students went to the district they were assigned. But victory came through persuasion, through building a coalition of groups aligned on the issue, and through some luck and skill at navigating the state’s political environment. Ballengee and his colleagues took something that had been completely unacceptable, shifted the window and scored a victory over a short time.
We spoke with people who employ effective tactics. Elizabeth Stelle of the Commonwealth Foundation got the state to begrudgingly reform its state-owned liquor monopoly after the state attorney general brought corruption charges against a number of public officials. The foundation bolstered the chance for reforms by highlighting the state’s mismanagement and publicizing it around the state, sometimes in billboard form.
Listeners will learn a lot by checking out the podcast. They can learn how commercial drone usage may be overregulated before the industry even gets off the ground. They can learn about how bacteria used for mosquito control may be the most important public health tool known to man. And even why some lawmakers in Mississippi wanted to ban sales of goat milk.
The show is also a meditation on power. And power doesn’t work the way it is often portrayed, with greed and force determining the laws through a corrupt system. Instead, people engage on their issues with an important goal in mind, persuasive evidence, clever marketing, and personal stories. These and other strategies and tactics both change the climate of popular opinion and convince lawmakers. Lawmakers want to be on the right side of issues, and policy advocates can make it easier for them to make the right call.
Power is less about throwing one’s weight around and more about truth, persuasion and winning over people’s minds and hearts. Groups and individuals devoted to change have used these strategies and tactics to shift what is politically possible, and The Overton Window podcast talks to the people who have made it happen.
Episodes run roughly a half hour and new episodes are out every other week. Listeners can check out a few episodes and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Spotify.
