EXPERTS
Robert Reich (Former Secretary of Labor, UC Berkeley Professor)
Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy at UC-Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has authored 13 books.
John Nichols (Journalist, Author - Dollarocracy)
John Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. Nichols has authored 11 books including the latest Dollarocracy and is a co-founder of Free Press.
Lawrence Lessig (Harvard Professor, Director of Center of Ethics, ROOT$TRIKERS, Author)
Lawrence Lessig is the director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University and the Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, having previously taught law at Stanford Law School. He is the founder of the Center for Internet and Society and Rootstrikers, as well as a founding board member of Creative Commons and author of several books including Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It.
Noam Chomsky (MIT Professor, Author, Linguist)
Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political commentator and activist. Sometimes described as the "father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy. He has spent most of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is currently Professor Emeritus, and has authored over 100 books.
Van Jones (Attorney, Activist, Author, Rebuild The Dream)
Van Jones is an American environmental advocate, civil rights activist, and attorney. He is a co-founder of four non-profit organizations including Rebuild the Dream, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change and Green for All. He has authored The Green Collar Economy and Rebuild The Dream. Under the Obama Administration, he was appointed the Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Marianne Williamson (NY Times Bestselling Author, Speaker)
Marianne Williamson is a spiritual teacher, author and lecturer. She has published ten books, including four New York Times #1 bestsellers. She is the founder of Project Angel Food, a co-founder of The Peace Alliance, and on theBoard of Directors of the RESULTS. Williamson is currently running for Congress in CA-33.
Jack Abramoff (Convicted Lobbyist)
Jack Abramoff is a former lobbyist who was convicted for corruption. Abramoff was College Republican National Committee National Chairman, a founding member of the International Freedom Foundation and has served on the board of directors of the National Center for Public Policy Research. Abramoff was a top lobbyist for the firm of Preston Gates & Ellis, andGreenberg Traurig.
Marge Baker is the Executive Vice President for Policy and Program at People For The American Way. She has worked for nearly 30 years in various public service roles. Prior to her current position she was the Staff Director for the late Senator Paul Wellstone on the Senate’s Employment, Safety and Training Subcommittee. She also served as a law clerk in the federal judiciary, and was head of consumer protection for a state regulatory agency.
Jerry Springer (Former Mayor of Cincinnati)
Jerry Springer is an American talk show host, best known for his tabloid talk show, The Jerry Springer Show. He was also an anchor and managing editor of WLWT, where he earned seven Emmys. He is also a former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mary Bottari (Center For Media and Democracy)
Mary Bottari is the Director of the Center for Media and Democracy’s Real Economy Project and editor of the www.BanksterUSA.org site for bank busting activists. For the last ten years she has served as a senior analyst for Public Citizen in its Global Trade Watch division. Prior to her stint at Public Citizen, Mary was press secretary for U.S. Senator Russ Feingold and worked in the Wisconsin State Senate.
Mark Crispin Miller (NYU Professor, Author)
Mark Crispin Miller is a Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. He is the author of several books, including Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform. He is also the editor of Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 and has a well-read blog, News From Underground.
Brad Friedman is an American blogger, journalist, actor, radio broadcaster, director and software programmer, most known for his criticism of election integrity in the US. Brad runs a popular blog on voting rights and election integrity called The Brad Blog, and a radio show on KPFK called The BradCast. Friedman has been invited to testify at the Election Assistance Commission's Voting Advocate Roundtable Discussion.
Lee Fang (Journalist)
Lee Fang is a reporting fellow with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. He covers money in politics, conservative movements and lobbying. Lee’s work has resulted in multiple calls for hearings in Congress and the Federal Election Commission. He is author of The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right, a recently published book on how the right-wing political infrastructure was rebuilt after President Obama's 2008 election.
Jason Leopold (Journalist)
Jason Leopold is an American investigative reporter. Leopold is known for his work at Truthout as a senior editor and reporter. He co-founded the web-based political magazine The Public Record, and serves as their editor-at-large. Leopold returned to Truthout as Deputy Managing Editor and lead investigative reporter. He is currently an investigative reporter for Al Jazeera America.
Thom Hartmann (TV & Radio Host, Author)
Thom Hartmann is a progressive national and internationally syndicated talk show host. He is the host of The Big Picture, which airs on Free Speech TV. He's a New York Times bestselling, 4-times Project Censored Award winning author of 24 books. His radio show, The Thom Hartmann Program, is widely syndicated. Thom founded a community for abused children in New Hampshire and a school for learning disabled and ADHD kids.
Jessica Levinson (Loyola Law Professor)
Jessica Levinson began teaching as an Adjunct Professor at Loyola Law in 2009. From 2008 to 2011, Levinson served as the Director of Political Reform at the Center for Governmental Studies. Levinson's work focuses on election law and governance issues, including campaign finance, ethics, ballot initiatives, redistricting, term limits, and state budgets. She is the vice-president of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.
Rashad Robinson (Color of Change)
Rashad Robinson is the Executive Director of Color of Change and is on the board of the Applied Research Center. In 2010 and 2011, Robinson was selected as one of "The Root 100," a list of emerging and influential African Americans under 45. He has previously held leadership roles at GLAAD, the Right to Vote Campaign, and FairVote. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and Current TV and he contributes to The Huffington Post.
Dani McClain (Journalist, Color of Change)
Dani McClain is an Oakland-based journalist. She was on staff at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and also had articles appear in the Miami Herald, The Root, Loop21, AlterNet, On the Issues, and Feministing. McClain served as a strategist and media director at ColorOfChange for four years, where she played a leading role in campaigns that resulted in civil rights victories, including the withdrawal of more than two dozen corporations from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Robert Weissman the President of Public Citizen. Weissman is also an expert on economic, health care, trade and globalization, intellectual property and regulatory policy, and issues related to financial accountability and corporate responsibility. He previously served as the Director Essential Action, the editor of Multinational Monitor, and was a Public interest attorney at Center for Study of Responsive Law.
Bob Edgar (Common Cause, Former Member of Congress)
Bob Edgar was in the United States Congress as a Representative from Pennsylvania. He served as president and CEO of Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization. Edgar served as President of Claremont School of Theology for ten years and ran the National Council of the Churches of Christ.
Kathay Feng, an activist and civil rights attorney, is executive director of California Common Cause. Feng headed the Voting Rights and Anti-Discrimination Unit at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. She helped the center pass key laws in the area of voting rights, anti-hate crimes laws, civil liberties advocacy, and election monitoring and polling efforts. Feng is a sponsor of California’s SB 1253 the Ballot Measure Transparency Act.
Ralph Anspach
Ralph Anspach is a retired American economics professor from San Francisco State University. He is best known, though, for creating the game Anti-Monopoly, which resulted in a 1974 trademark infringement lawsuit brought by Parker Brothers. In 1979, the parties reached a settlement allowing Anspach to continue marketing Anti-Monopoly.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy (Brennan Center Fellow, Stetson Law Professor)
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is an assistant professor of law at Stetson University. Torres-Spelliscy was counsel in the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law where she provided guidance on the issues of money in politics and the judiciary to state and federal lawmakers. She was an associate at Arnold & Porter LLP and a staffer for Senator Richard Durbin. Torres-Spelliscy has testified before Congress, and state and local legislative bodies as an expert on campaign finance reform. She has also helped draft legislation and Supreme Court briefs.
Doug Clopp (Common Cause)
Doug Clopp is the Deputy Director for Programs at Common Cause. He is the former Director of Governmental Affairs and Coalition Coordinator of Consumers for Affordable Health Care Foundation. Prior to his work on health policy, Doug was the Democracy Project Coordinator for the Maine Citizen Leadership Fund focusing on protecting and enhancing Maine’s landmark Clean Elections program, improving Maine’s campaign finance laws, and promoting governmental ethics.
Cliff Arnebeck (Common Cause, Alliance For Democracy)
Cliff Arnebeck is the chair of the Legal Affairs Committee of Common Cause Ohio and a national co-chair and attorney for the Alliance of Democracy. He first worked for Ohio Bell and later in the legal department for the American Electric Power Company before joining the Jones, Day law firm in Columbus, Ohio. In 1996 Arnebeck ran for Congress. Since then Arnebeck has focused on the fraudulent use of computers in counting votes as the major threat to American elections.
Bob Fitrakis (Journalist, Professor)
Bob Fitrakis is an American political author and writer, political candidate, and Professor of Political Science in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State Community College. He has been the editor of the Columbus Free Press since 1993 and wrote extensively about the U.S. presidential election, 2004 and related 2004 U.S. election voting controversies.
Paul Ekman (Professor)
Dr. Paul Ekman was a professor at the University of California-San Francisco. He is an American psychologist who pioneered in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He was ranked 59th out of the 100 most cited psychologists of the twentieth century. Ekman was named one of the top Time 100 most influential people in 2009. He is on the editorial board of Greater Good magazine.
Nick Nyhart is a co-founder and the President and CEO of Public Campaign. A three decade veteran of social change politics, issue advocacy, grassroots organizing, and non-profit management. Following the 1992 elections, Nyhart became Director of the Northeast Action Money and Politics Project, a six-state venture that laid the groundwork for Maine's 1996 breakthrough full public financing victory.
Adam Winkler (UCLA Law Professor)
Adam Winkler, a specialist in American constitutional law, is a law professor at UCLA. His work has been cited and quoted in landmark Supreme Court cases, including opinions dealing with the Second Amendment and with corporate political speech rights. Winkler practiced law with noted criminal defense lawyer, Howard Weitzman, at Katten Muchin Zavis & Weitzman and co-edited the six-volume Encyclopedia of the American Constitution.