Episode
Why Young Lawmakers Are Quitting — and It’s Not Just Salary
- Podcast
- The Politics Guys
- Published
- Jun 17, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3267
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-politics-guys-547609/episodes/why-young-lawmakers-are-quitting-and-it-s-not-just-salary/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-politics-guys-547609/why-young-lawmakers-are-quitting-and-it-s-not-just-salary.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Mike talks with Layla Zaidane, president and CEO of Future Caucus , the largest nonpartisan organization of young lawmakers in the United States, about why the next generation of political leaders may be running into a system that makes public service nearly impossible. They discuss whether younger lawmakers really govern differently, how Future Caucus tries to build bipartisan trust without sanding away ideological disagreement, and why under-resourced state legislatures often end up empowering governors, lobbyists, and interest groups instead of elected representatives. They also dig into Future Caucus’s Exit Interview report, including the biggest reasons young lawmakers leave office: political violence, low pay, lack of staff, weak institutional support, unpredictable schedules, and the difficulty of serving without personal wealth or family flexibility. The conversation closes with a blunt but hopeful argument: if state legislatures are the farm system for national leadership, neglecting them is a long-term democratic failure. Future Caucus on X The Politics Guys on Facebook | X Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support . On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys. The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group , a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.