In My Civic Era: Women in Politics, Civic Engagement & Local Government

Send us Fan MailElection night is the scoreboard, but the part that shapes the next two years starts now. In this episode, Ashley walks through everything that happens between Election Day and swearing-in: how votes get counted and certified, how Georgia's new automatic recount rule works, what the lame-duck Congress does, why the Speaker vote comes first, and why committees are where bills really live or die. Plus: divided government explained, what's ahead when the Georgia General Assembly convenes in January, why women are winning governor's races but losing ground in Congress, and a 60-day plan to follow politics like an insider instead of a spectator. 📰 Read this week's essay, "I Think We've Made Politics Entirely Too Miserable": https://civicera.substack.com/SourcesBrennan Center, "Georgia Election Certification Processes and Guardrails" (2026)Cobb County Courier, "Which Comes First After Election Day, Certification or a Recount?"Georgia.gov, Georgia Election Guide (runoff dates)ABC News, 2026 midterm coverage, including the Mississippi Senate recountLegal United States, "When Does the New Congress Get Sworn In?"CBS News, 2026 midterm election resultsUVA Today, on midterm losses since 1900David R. Mayhew, Divided We Govern (Yale University Press, 1991)Sarah A. Binder, Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock (Brookings, 2003)Georgia.gov, Guide to the Legislative Session (40 days, Crossover Day, Sine Die)Senate Press Office, "Capitol Recap: A Welcome Back to the Gold Dome" (second-Monday convening)CAWP, results for women candidates in 2026Fox and Lawless, "Why Are Women Still Not Running for Public Office?" (Brookings)Blue State, on Eitan Hersh's 2018 survey on political hobbyismIn My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved. 

Send us Fan MailCivic engagement doesn't end when you leave the polling place. Voting every two to four years is the bare minimum, and the real work happens at the meetings almost nobody attends. In this election-week episode, Lemon Price shares why 12,000 people saw her nonpartisan voting post but fewer than 100 read it, what Georgians keep missing at the bottom of the ballot, and how she built relationships with local officials in under a year after moving somewhere new. You'll walk away with a plan for the day after the election, whether your candidate wins or loses. Share it with a friend who's voting Tuesday, and tag Lemon on Instagram when you vote.Mentioned in this episode:Last week's episode: Civility and the Future of Local DemocracyGeorgia's 2026 constitutional amendments, explained (WSB-TV)Georgia runoff information (Georgia.gov)My SAVE Act piece on Civic EraMy InstagramIn My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved. 

Send us Fan MailCivic engagement starts in the local meeting room, and right now that room is getting meaner. 83% of women in local office say hostility has made them less willing to do parts of the job, and when they step back, the questions they would have asked go unasked.In this episode, Ashley Price takes the word civility back from tone-policing, walks through the data on harassment, news deserts, and trust in local government, and introduces Civility With a Spine: five moves for women who want to stay firm on the issue and still be the person everyone takes a meeting with. Share it with the woman who says she'd never run because people are too mean, and tag Ashley on LinkedIn.Sources:BDI–CivicPulse Survey, Q3 2025: 54% insulted, 37% harassed, 17% threatenedBDI briefing on 2025 findings: 73% less willing (up from 66%); 83% of womenADL and BDI threats dataset: women targeted 3.4x more than menBDI school board survey, 2024: one in five women vs one in ten men worry about attacksLeading Under Pressure briefing book, Mayors Innovation Project: 84% of women mayors harassedMedill State of Local News 2025: 213 news desert counties, 1,524 with one source, 50 million affectedCarnegie: Does Local News Reduce Polarization?: shrinking newsrooms, fewer local candidatesGallup trust in government: about two-thirds trust local governmentMichigan Public Policy Survey, spring 2025: 40% of officials trust residents, down from 65% in 2020In My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved. 

Send us Fan MailWomen’s political participation can hinge on a name matching the right documents. Ashley explains what the SAVE America Act could mean for voter registration, why it stalled in the Senate, and how state proof-of-citizenship rules may affect voters whose names changed after marriage. Learn what to check before registering and why these rules matter for civic engagement.No telling you how to vote. Ever. Just what’s happening, what both sides are saying, and what you need to do so nobody gets turned away on a technicality.In this episode:What the SAVE America Act would actually do, in plain EnglishThe 14 states with their own proof-of-citizenship laws, and the 11 states voting on related ballot measuresSuffragist Lucy Stone, who was turned away from voting over her last nameWhy name-matching hits married and divorced women, military families, and rural voters hardestWhat “just bring your documents” actually costsBoth sides of the debate, fairlyHow to use your power at the state level, whatever side you’re onYour 7-step checklist for this weekYour checklist:Check your voter registration at vote.orgLook up your state’s rules if your name changedFind your marriage certificate, divorce decree, or name-change orderMake a vital-documents folderGet a passport in your current legal nameRead your ballot measures before you voteSend this episode to one woman who got married recentlyRead the full breakdown with sources on Substack.Look up your sample ballot: ballotpedia.org/Sample_Ballot_LookupIn My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved. 

Send us Fan MailA woman works late, and a monster comes for her child. That’s the plot of Other Mommy, and Lemon is not okay about it. In this bonus episode, she breaks down the movie, the novel Fallow, Turning Point USA’s “wife school” messaging, and a tech CEO’s idea to end divorce with oxytocin. She also shares her own experience as the only woman at a company. Then she brings it home with the new State of the Georgia Girl Report, the childcare and paid leave numbers behind the message, and what you can actually do about it. Send this to a woman who’s been getting the call for years.In this episode:Why Other Mommy’s perfect mother and its monster are the same characterRussell gets high during a kitchen fire and still gets a passFallow by Sarah Anderson: a great first 70%, then an ending where the main character makes no choices and nobody faces consequencesTrad wife or ambitious woman, and a punishment either wayTurning Point USA’s wife school promo and Erika Kirk on boss babe culturePalmer Luckey’s “oxytocin doping for marriage counseling,” next to the fact that women initiate 69% of divorcesMy time as the only woman at a company, and what happened when I advocated for women-owned businessesThe 2026 State of the Georgia Girl Report: “The girl who is rising and the girl who is struggling are the same girl”Child care that costs almost as much as housing, Pre-K seats, paid leave, and after-school gapsWhat to do: speak up in the room, build a coalition, show up where the defaults get set, and be the caring adult for a girl who isn’t yoursRead the full piece, with every source: Civic Era on Substack Mentioned in this episode:How to speak at public meetings (last episode) State of the Georgia Girl Report 2026Fallow by Sarah AndersonPalmer Luckey on oxytocin and divorceWomen initiate 69% of divorces, American Sociological AssociationWho gets the call in your house? Send me a message. I want to know.The jobs number I was trying to remember: in the July 2026 jobs report, women accounted for all of the labor force decline, and about 845,000 women have left the labor force since January.In My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved. 

Send us Fan MailCivic engagement starts with knowing how local politics works—and how to make public comment count. Ashley Price explains who is listening at city council, school board, and county meetings, why comments often fail to influence decisions, and how to use your limited time more strategically.Hear what went wrong at a Statesboro city council meeting over a data center rezoning, plus what happened after a two-minute school board comment. Get practical guidance for speaking to local elected officials and turning a community concern into a stronger case for action.You’ll walk away knowing how to read the agenda and the packet, find the rules, figure out who actually has authority over your issue, and build a comment around one ask and one story. Plus what to do the day after so it counts.Your assignment this week: pull up the next agenda for your school board, city council, or county commission, find the public comment rules, and put the date on your calendar.Join the Civic Operating Room (free) Three weeks of live calls, Sundays at 7 p.m. Eastern. You’ll understand what’s going on civically where you live and build your own game plan to get involved. Can’t make it live? The calls stay in the community. Donations are optional and go toward the cost of running the training.Join the community: lemonprice.co/civicera Donate here. Mentioned in this episode Statesboro City Council public comment on the rezoning.In My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved. 

Send us Fan MailI ghosted you like a bad Hinge match, and I owe you an explanation. In this episode, I'm telling you what the last six weeks actually held: meetings with legislators across Georgia, a bill that could impact 1.7 million children, an affordability symposium that started as a conversation with the mayor, and a new seat on my county library board. My whole life went civic, so this podcast is going with it.The show is now In My Civic Era. From here on out, I'm teaching you how to get things done where you live: how to get appointed, who to call when the road floods and nobody is fixing it, and what to say with three minutes at a microphone. I will never tell you how to vote.Next week: a framework for public comment.Mentioned in this episodeShe Should Run Local Leader Lab: https://sheshouldrun.org/local-leader-lab/Schools Beyond Screens: https://www.schoolsbeyondscreens.com/United Way's ALICE data: https://www.unitedforalice.org/In My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved. 

Send us Fan MailMost of us have spent our whole lives quietly accepting somebody else's definition of who we are. Mother. Wife. The reliable one. The one who supposedly can't.This week I'm talking with Molly Kennedy, a disability advocate, speaker, and founder of Molly Kennedy Consulting, who has spent her life refusing to let other people's expectations become her reality. We get into what it actually looks like to adapt instead of shrink, why advocating for yourself is the least selfish thing you can do, and how she built a nonprofit to get more women with disabilities into leadership and at the table.You'll walk away looking sideways at the labels you've quietly accepted, and rethinking what you're actually capable of building. Give it a listen, share it with a woman who needs it, and come tell me what you think on LinkedIn.In My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved. 

Send us Fan MailIn 1989, Dr. Fay Niewiadomski had 50 cents in her bank account, four kids, an abusive husband, and a job as a university dean in an active war zone. She looked at all of it and decided to start a business anyway. In this conversation, Fay and Lemon dig into why women are brilliant at living small, how bedtime fairy tales conditioned us to be silent and compliant before we could even read, and why the beliefs you accepted without questioning have become a mental prison you hold the key to. Fay shares the three pillars of real leadership from her new book, Decisions That Matter, and the question-asking technique that lets you disagree in any room without losing it. If you have ever stayed quiet because you wanted to be liked, this one is going to sting a little. Share it with a friend who needs it, leave a review, and tag us on LinkedIn.Connect with Dr. Fay: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayniewiadomski/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fayniewiadomski/Substack: https://substack.com/@fayniewiadomskiFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ICTNLLPUKYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ICTNonlineMedia Appearances: https://www.ictn.com/news-events/Blog: https://www.ictn.com/blog/In My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved. 

Send us Fan MailOrganizations fail when everyone operates in their own lane. But here's what I realized at the Community Development Society conference: we're doing this in our own lives, and we're calling it normal.When you fragment yourself across different rooms — professional Lemon, civic Lemon, friend Lemon — you miss board seats, unlock opportunities stay invisible, and slowly lose yourself. In this episode, I'm breaking down what silos actually cost you, what whole-human leadership looks like, and three practical steps to integrate your life so you can stop being different versions of yourself everywhere you go.If you're tired of compartmentalizing, this one's for you. Share it with a woman who's operating as five different people, and tag me on LinkedIn, I want to know who's ready to lead whole.In My Civic Era is a nonpartisan podcast for women who want to understand local government and politics, and take their seat in the rooms where decisions get made.Subscribe on Substack: civicera.substack.com Follow along on Instagram: @ByAshleyPricePlease be sure to share this episode and leave a review. It helps others find the show, and we all want more women in government, so this will help them get involved.