The 2026 elections in November will see more than 80% of the nation’s legislative seats and nearly 150 statewide ballot measures on the ballot. We sat down with two NCSL elections experts -- Katy Owens Hubler, director of NCSL’s Elections and Redistricting Program, and Helen Brewer, who tracks statewide ballot measures—to find out where things stand about a month before Election Day.

Our focus on this podcast is cybersecurity at utilities. Electric, gas, and water utilities face billions of automated probes every year. While only a fraction of probes is successful, the cost of such attacks runs into the billions. We’re joined by two guests offering the perspectives from a small, municipal-owned utility and from a large, multistate investor-owned utility.

On this episode, we focus on how to use criminal justice data to better understand how a range of programs affect people in the justice system. We sat down with Mike Mueller-Smith, an associate professor of economics at the University of Michigan, and Montana Sen. Barry Usher, chair of the Judiciary Committee.

In this second of two episodes focused on energy affordability, we spoke with Katherine Jereza, an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Energy who directs the Office of Electricity, and Joseph Pereira, the director of Colorado's Office of the Utility Consumer Advocate.

The focus of the podcast is how states are working toward connecting education and training systems with the workforce. Three attendees at a recent NCSL meeting in Bozeman, Mont., joined the podcast to explain how states are working to understand the return on investment from state investment in education and training programs .

Our topic on this episode is energy affordability. The U.S. saw largely flat electricity demand from the late ’90s until just a couple of years ago but now increasing demand has strained the nation's ability to keep up. To offer some perspective, we sat down with Representative Craig Williams of Pennsylvania, and Janine Benner, the director of the Oregon Department of Energy.

The last year has seen an unusual spate of mid-decade redistricting and state legislatures are at the center of these efforts in blue and red states. To offer some perspective, we sat down with Erin Covey, who leads coverage of the U.S. House for the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, and Helen Brewer, who tracks redistricting legislation and developments for NCSL.

This episode will explore mental health and behavioral health in the workplace. Our guests include Julie Hocker, assistant secretary for Disability Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor, and Michigan Representative Curtis VanderWall.

As the nation prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, NCSL gathered a trio of experts to discuss the origin stories of their states. We discussed the status of each state at the time of the American Revolution, how the state's constitutions were written, and some other unusual historic notes.

Dr. Erica Groshen, former commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Paul Famolari with the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce join the podcast to discuss enhanced wage records and the role they can play in helping states better understand their workforce and evaluate job training and bachelor's degree programs.