Ed Bender
Ed Bender is the
Executive Director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics,
a nonpartisan organization dedicated to accurate, comprehensive and
unbiased documentation and research on campaign finance at the state
level. Mr. Bender
had previously served as the Institute's research director
since its creation in 1999. In that role, he led the research functions
of the Institute, directing both the development of campaign finance
databases and analyses of those databases.
A former journalist, Edwin also worked for seven years as Research
Director for the Money in Western Politics Project of the Western States
Center. While there, he helped develop many techniques for researching
state campaign-finance data.
Robert Biersack
Robert Biersack is Deputy Press Officer at the Federal Election Commission,
where he has served in the Data Systems Development Division (DSDD)
since April 1983, specializing in electronic filing of campaign finance
reports and dissemination of campaign finance data.
For the past several years, he has been instrumental in defining, planning,
implementing, and executing statistical studies related to campaign
finance information filed at the FEC. He is also a key participant in
the design and implementation of the FEC's electronic filing program
and Internet-accessible database.
A graduate of Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
Mr. Biersack has written extensively on campaign finance, political
parties, and interest groups, and is co-editor of After the Revolution:
PACs Lobbies, and the Republican Congress, and Risky
Business?: PAC Decision-making in Congressional Elections.
He has been recognized by media, academic, and campaign-finance communities
for his analyses and presentations of complex data, and has been an
adjunct lecturer for the departments of politics at numerous universities
in the Washington, D.C. area.
Bruce E. Cain
Bruce E. Cain, Robson Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley
and Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies, came to Berkeley
in 1989 from the California Institute of Technology, where he taught
from 1976 to 1989. A summa cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College (1970),
he studied as a Rhodes Scholar (1970-1972) at Trinity College, Oxford.
In 1976 he received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.
His writings include The
Reapportionment Puzzle (1984), The Personal
Vote (1987), written with John Forejohn and Morris Fiorina, and Congressional
Redistricting (1991), with David Butler. He has also co-edited numerous
books, including Developments in American Politics, Volume I - IV, with
Gillian Peele, Constitutional Reform in California, with Roger Noll,
Racial and Ethnic Politics in California, Vol. II, with Michael Preston
and Sandra Bass, and Voting at the Political Fault Line: California's
Experiment with the Blanket Primary with Elisabeth R. Gerber (2002).
Professor Cain has served as a polling consultant for state and senate
races to Fairbank, Canapary and Maulin (1985-86); as a redistricting
consultant to numerous government agencies and commissions since 1989;
as a consultant to the Los Angeles Times (1986-89) and as a political
commentator for radio and television stations in Los Angeles and the
Bay Area.
He received the
Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public
Service in March 2000, and was elected to the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences in April 2000.
Anthony Corrado
Anthony Corrado is Charles A. Dana Professor of Government at Colby
College in Waterville, Maine, and a leading authority on campaign finance
issues. He currently serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution and as a member of the American Bar Association's Advisory
Commission on Election Law. He is also the Chair of the Board of Trustees
of the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan research organization
located in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Corrado is the author or editor of a number of books on campaign
finance and elections, including Financing the 2004 Election, Paying
for Presidents, The New Campaign Finance Sourcebook, and Campaign
Finance Reform: Beyond the Basics. He is also a frequent commentator on national
politics, and has appeared regularly on National Public Radio, as well
as on the NBC Nightly News, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, C-SPAN and The
News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
Jim Drinkard
Jim Drinkard is an Assistant Washington Bureau Chief of the Associated
Press. He has covered Washington politics and policy since 1981, when
he arrived in the capital as a Midwestern regional reporter for AP.
He has covered agriculture policy, the Iran-Contra scandal, congressional
ethics, foreign policy, intelligence matters and the congressional leadership.
In 1993 he pioneered
a beat focusing on lobbyists, interest groups, money and politics
-- coverage that twice won reporting awards. From
1998-2006 he covered similar issues for USA Today, chronicling
the record-breaking fundraising of the 2000 elections
and the push to revamp the campaign finance system.
He is a graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina, and earned
an M.A. degree in journalism at the University of Missouri. He is married
and has two children.
Kenneth A. Gross
Kenneth A. Gross is a Partner at the law firm of Skadden, Arps where
he advises clients on matters relating to the regulation of political
activity. A noted authority on campaign law compliance, gift and gratuity
rules, lobby registration provisions and securities laws regulating
political activity and municipal securities transactions, Mr. Gross
counsels numerous Fortune 500 corporations and political candidates
at the state and federal level. As former Associate General Counsel
of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Mr. Gross headed the General
Counsel's Enforcement Division and supervised the legal staff charged
with the review of the FEC's Audit Division.
Mr. Gross is well known for his experience regarding the Ethics in
Government Act and U.S. House of Representatives and Senate ethics rules.
He has also worked extensively with federal and state lobby registration
laws, in particular compliance with the Federal Lobby Registration Act
and the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Additionally, he advises corporations
on internal ethics guidelines.
Mr. Gross co-chairs
the Practicing Law Institute's annual seminar on "Corporate
Political Activities." He is a member of the American Bar Association's
Standing Committee on Election Law and chaired the Election
Law Committee for the Federal Bar Association.
In addition, he
is the co-author of the Ethics Handbook for Entertaining and Lobbying
Public Officials. His published articles on campaign finance have
appeared in the Stanford Law and Policy Review; the Yale Law & Policy
Review; Federal Bar Journal; Corporate Political Activity; Money, Elections
and Democracy; and several other publications. He is also the author
of supplements to a treatise entitled "Federal Regulation of Campaign
Finance and Political Activity."
Mr. Gross serves on the board of trustees of the Campaign Finance Institute
and is a member of the Executive Committee and counsel to the American
Council of Young Political Leaders.
Mr. Gross has served on the faculty of New York University and George
Washington University. He received a J.D. from the Emory University
School of Law and a B.A. from the University of Bridgeport where he
graduated cum laude.
Brooks Jackson
Brooks Jackson is
the Director of Annenberg Political Fact Check. Mr. Jackson has covered
Washington and national politics for over 35 years, reporting for
The Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and CNN. Mr. Jackson
joined CNN in March 1990 as a special assignment correspondent. His
first series of reports on the Savings and Loan scandal in 1991 won
a CableACE Award for CNN. During the 1992 elections, Jackson's "Ad
Police" reports pioneered the TV adwatch medium and gained critical
acclaim.
During the 1996
campaigns, Jackson helped viewers sift through the political advertising
and campaign rhetoric with his regular "Spin
Patrol" reports. In May 1997, his reporting made him the first
winner on the now-annual Jerald F. terHorst Award for
Excellence in Political Reporting, given by George Washington
University's Graduate School of Political Management and School of Media
and Public Affairs.
Prior to joining CNN, he worked as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal
based in Washington, D.C., from 1980-1990. From 1970-1980, Jackson was
a reporter for the Associated Press in Washington, D.C. He began his
reporting career in the AP's New York City Bureau.
During his tenure
with the AP, Jackson won the 1974 Raymond Clapper Award and the Associated
Press Managing Editors Association Award for his report
on the "Milk Fund" scandal.
In 1985, he won the Worth Bingham Award for his Wall
Street Journal stories on 1984 campaign funding. He is the author
of Honest Graft: Big Money and the American Political Process (1988),
which chronicled the rise and fall of political fund-raiser Tony Coelho.
More recently, Jackson authored unSpun: Finding Facts in a World
of Disinformation in 2007 with Kathleen Hall Jamieson.
Jackson earned a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University's Medill
School of Journalism, and a master's degree in broadcast journalism
from Syracuse University.
Gary Jacobson
Gary C. Jacobson is Professor of Political Science at the University
of California, San Diego, where he has taught since 1979. He received
his A.B. from Stanford in 1966 and his Ph.D. from Yale in 1972. From
1970 to 1979 he taught at Trinity College, Hartford. He has also taught
at U.C. Riverside (1968), Yale (1973) and Stanford (1986-87). During
1990-91 he was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral
Sciences.
Jacobson specializes
in the study of U.S. elections, parties, interest groups, public opinion,
campaign finance, and Congress. He is the author of
Money in Congressional Elections (1980), The Politics
of Congressional Elections (6th ed., 2004), The Electoral
Origins of Divided Government (1990), and coauthor of Strategy
and Choice in Congressional Elections (2nd ed., 1983) and The Logic of American Politics (3rd ed., 2006). His
most recent book is A Divider, Not A Uniter: George W.
Bush and the American People (2008).
He has served on the Board of Overseers of National Elections Studies
(1985-93), the Council of the American Political Science Association
(1993-94) and as Treasurer of the APSA (1996-97). He is a Fellow of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
David Jefferson
David Jefferson is a widely-known expert in the technology and security
of public elections. He day job in conducting research in advanced supercomputing
technologies at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Prior to working at the Lawrence Livermore Labs, Dr. Jefferson was
a computer scientist for Compaq Labs (previously Digital Equipment Labs)
in Palo Alto. At Digital, he led the team that built the 1994 California
Election Server in cooperation with the Secretary of State -- the first
comprehensive voter information site ever to appear on the Web.
In 1995, Dr. Jefferson led the Digital team that, in cooperation with
California Voter Foundation and SDR Technologies, constructed the San
Francisco Campaign Finance Database. The database was the first complete
and timely Internet publication of campaign finance data ever available
to voters for any election. Later at Compaq he helped build the 1998
California Campaign Finance Database (a joint project with the California
Voter Foundation). David later served on the Secretary of State's Advisory
Panel on Electronic Filing. For all of this work he was named a winner
of the James Madison Freedom of Information Award in 1996.
In 1999-2001 he was one of the leading experts on Internet voting technology
and security. He was the chair of the technical committee of the California
Secretary of State's task force on Internet Voting, and served on the
NSF Panel on Internet Voting. He wrote, testified, consulted, and lectured
widely on technical and security issues related to Internet voting.
In 2003 he was a member of the California Secretary of State's Task
Force on Touchscreen Voting, whose report set in motion the move toward
voter verified paper audit trails in California.
And from 2004 he has served as chair of the California Secretary of
State's Voting Systems Technology Assessment and Advisory Board (VSTAAB).
He has been a member of the CVF Board of Directors since 1996.
Michael Malbin
Michael J. Malbin, is a founder and the Executive Director of the Campaign
Finance Institute. He is also a Professor of Political Science at the
State University of New York at Albany. One of the country's leading
scholars in this field, Malbin has been writing extensively about money
and politics for more than three decades. Some of his co-authored books
include: The Election After Reform: Money, Politics and the Bipartisan
Campaign Reform Act; The Day After Reform: Sobering Campaign Finance
Lessons from the American States and Vital Statistics on Congress.
He has also been a reporter for National
Journal, resident fellow at
the American Enterprise Institute, guest scholar at The Brookings Institution,
Associate Director of the House Republican Conference, Speechwriter
to the Secretary of Defense, and a member of the National Humanities
Council.
Colleen C. McAndrews
Ms. McAndrews has
practiced political and election law in Southern California since
1989, initially with Simmons & McAndrews, which
merged with Bell & Hiltachk in 1993. She served as a Commissioner
on the Fair Political Practices Commission for six years
following her appointment to the position by Governor
Brown in 1977.
Ms. McAndrews has served as legal counsel and treasurer to state and
local political action committees, ballot measure committees, and candidates/officeholders
across the political sprectrum including former LA Mayors Richard Riordan
and James Hahn, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, District Attorney Gil
Garcetti, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
She advises corporate clients regarding local campaign, lobbying, and
conflict of interest ordinances prevalent in Southern California, including
the complex Los Angeles City Ethics Ordinance.
Ms. McAndrews served
as a member of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform,
co-chaired by former Presidents Carter and Ford, which reported to
the Congress and President Bush on election reform following the 2000
election and resulted in the Help America Vote Act of 2002. She also
served as a member of California Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg's
2001 Commission on Initiative Reform and was Co-Chair of Secretary
of State Bruce McPherson’s 2006 Task Force on Online Disclosure
of Campaign Finance Statements.
Ms. McAndrews served as an official U.S. observer of the Russian constitutional
and parliamentary elections in Moscow and Archangel in 1993. She also
trained emerging political parties in the former Soviet republics of
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan after independence.
Ms. McAndrews is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley
and received her law degree from the University of California at Los
Angeles. She served as President of the California Political Attorneys
Association, 1995-1996.
Ronald D. Michaelson
Dr. Ronald D. Michaelson is the former Executive Director of the Illinois
State Board of Elections and serves on the faculty of the University
of Illinois at Springfield's Institute for Legislative Studies.
Dr. Michaelson is the author of numerous articles on government that
have been published in leading state and national journals. He currently
holds an appointment to the Advisory Committee of the Federal Election
Commission, is past national chairman of the Council on Governmental
Ethics Laws, and is a frequent speaker at national conferences in the
areas of election administration and campaign finance.
Dr. Michaelson holds the following degrees: Bachelor of Arts, Wheaton
College, Wheaton, IL 1963; M.A. in Political Science, Northwestern University,
Chicago, IL 1965; and a Ph.D. in Government, Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale, IL 1970.
Lawrence Noble
Lawrence M. Noble
is a nationally recognized authority on campaign finance, ethics and
lobbying issues. He advises Skadden, Arps clients on matters relating
to the regulation of political activity. Immediately prior to joining
Skadden, Mr. Noble was the executive director and general counsel
of the Center for Responsive Politics, a non–partisan
research organization.
He served as General Counsel of the Federal Election Commission from
October 1987 through December 2000. He joined the FEC in 1977 as a litigation
attorney and also served as Assistant General Counsel for Litigation
and Deputy General Counsel. He was president of the Council on Governmental
Ethics Laws from 1997 to 1998 and, in December 2000, received the COGEL
Award for his outstanding contribution to the field of campaign finance
and ethics.
He has written and spoken extensively on campaign finance issues. Mr.
Noble has argued before the Supreme Court of the United States and testified
before Congress on problems with the existing campaign finance laws.
He has also served as an official observer and consultant with respect
to elections held in the former Soviet Union, Benin, Senegal, Mexico,
the Dominican Republic, Cambodia and Bangladesh. Mr. Noble also currently
teaches Campaign Finance Law at George Washington University Law School.
Norman Ornstein
Norman Ornstein
is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He also
serves as an election analyst for CBS News. In addition, Mr. Ornstein
writes a column called "Congress Inside Out" for
Roll Call newspaper. He is co-directing the AEI/Brookings
Election Reform Project, working to make our election
system work better.
Mr. Ornstein frequently appears on news programs such as Nightline,
Today, Face the Nation, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. At the NewsHour's
thirtieth anniversary celebration, he was recognized as the most frequent
guest on the show since its inception.
Mr. Ornstein writes frequently for the New York Times, Washington Post,
and other major newspapers and magazines. His books include Debt
and Taxes: How America Got Into Its Budget Mess, and What to Do about
It,
with John H. Makin; Intensive Care: How Congress Shapes Health Policy,
with Thomas E. Mann, and The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing
America and How to Get it Back on Track, which was named one of the
best books of 2006 by both The Washington Post and the St Louis Post-Dispatch.
Trevor Potter
Trevor Potter is
a former Commissioner and Chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
He currently heads the political activities practice of the D.C. law
firm Caplin & Drysdale.
Mr. Potter has specialized
in the area of campaign finance and election law for
the last 15 years. He is currently Chair and General Counsel of the
Campaign and Media Legal Center. He serves as General Counsel to the
Reform Institute, and served as Founding Co-Chair of the Campaign
Finance Institute. Mr. Potter is the Editor of the "Campaign Finance
Law" web site at the Brookings Institution, where he is a nonresident
Senior Fellow.
Mr. Potter held the position of Merrill Lecturer at the University
of Virginia School of Law (1996-1997), and was a Visiting Member of
the Senior Common Room at Lincoln College, Oxford University (1995).
Mr. Potter's previous government service was as an official at the Department
of Justice (1982-1984), and as Assistant General Counsel to the Federal
Communications Commission (1984-1985).
A frequent speaker
on political finance laws and lobbying disclosure issues, Mr. Potter
has testified as an expert on election law before Congress and in
litigation. He is an editor and author of various publications, including, "Where Are We Now? The Current State of Campaign Finance
Law" and "Issue Advocacy and Express Advocacy" in The
Campaign Finance Sourcebook (Brookings Institution, 1997).
Mr. Potter is a Chair of American Bar Association's Election Law Committee
of the Administrative Law Section. He is a graduate of the University
of Virginia School of Law (1982), and of Harvard College.
Michael Schudson
Since 1980 Michael Schudson has taught communication at the University
of California, San Diego and since 2005 has also been Professor of Communication
at the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University. Schudson
received a B.A. from Swarthmore College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard
in sociology. He taught at the University of Chicago before joining
the faculty in San Diego.
He is the author of six books concerning the history and sociology
of the American news media, advertising, popular culture, Watergate,
and cultural memory. Most recently, he has written a re-interpretation
of the development of public life and civic participation in the United
States from colonial days to the present, The Good Citizen: A History
of American Civic Life (1998 Free Press) and a brief introduction to
the study of news, The Sociology of News (W W Norton, 2003). |
