Meet Simone Leeper from Democracy Decoded

With a growing network of podcasts and organizations that create educational content about democracy, civic engagement and civil discourse, we caught up with one of our hosts Simone Leeper from Democracy Decoded about the podcast, changes being made as well as a new season that’s coming this fall!

Q: Tell me about yourself.

Simone: I am a legal counsel on the Campaign Legal Center’s redistricting team and I’m also the host of Democracy Decoded, which is CLC’s podcast.

Q: Tell me about Democracy Decoded.

Simone: Each season we delve into a different area of our work, a different area where democracy is facing challenges. And we talk about the ways that there’s positive change being made and the ways that listeners or average people can actually make a difference and fight those issues in our democracy.

The mission of Democracy Decoded is to teach people more about issues going on in their democracy that affect them that they might not know about, or opportunities to create change, innovative ways that our democracy can be better and that everyday people can work to get our democracy to be better. So we’re telling stories about everyday people who are changing their democracy, about people at CLC, my colleagues who are working hard in many different issue areas to create change.

Q: What got you involved in Democracy Decoded? 

Simone: Democracy Decoded is the brainchild of many brilliant people at CLC, I just have the benefit of being its host and its voice. The communications team at CLC and different members of the team have thought long and hard about whether a podcast would be a good medium for us to share our message. And when that idea started solidifying, they approached and asked me if I would be the host of the podcast and I gave an enthusiastic yes! 

Q: Since the establishment of the podcast, what is a challenge you have overcome as a team?

Simone: The challenges that CLC has faced have been challenges that have been faced by people across the country. There have been challenges of unfair maps being put in place and different voting systems of election that are unfair. CLC has been able to tear down some of those systems and challenge them in places like North Dakota, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and more. So now more Americans in those places have more of an equal voice in our democracy.  

Our whole country also faced a challenge on January 6, 2021, really to the heart of our democracy — being able to elect our own president. So last year, thanks in part to CLC advocacy, there was a group of bipartisan lawmakers that came together to draft and pass into law the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 which provided a much-needed update to the original Electoral Count Reform Act of 1887. This is the act that provides the legal framework for casting and counting electoral college votes in presidential elections, and now the updates to that law make it much more difficult for Congress to subvert future presidential elections.

Q: After three seasons of Democracy Decoded, is there something you want to achieve but have yet to do so?

Simone: We have more stories to tell! Season 1 of the podcast, we talked about public financing and campaign finance. Season 2, we were able to focus on voting rights. Season 3, we talked about state and local issues in elections. Obviously, I’m looking forward to a future season about redistricting because that’s the team that I spend most of my time on, but our next season will focus mainly on issues surrounding the 2024 election.  

Q: Is there a season 4 coming anytime soon?

Simone: There is a season 4 coming out this fall! We’re excited to keep making this podcast and hopefully, people keep enjoying it and learning!