The Public Interest Law Center is delighted to present Voting Rights in a Presidential Election Year, a panel discussion moderated by New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg and featuring panelists Marc Elias of Perkins Coie, Dale Ho of the ACLU, Mimi Marziani, Executive Director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, and Myrna Pérez of the Brennan Center for Justice.
Date: Monday, February 22, 2016
Panel discussion: 6:00pm-7:30pm, Lester Pollack Colloquium, 9th floor,
Furman Hall
Reception: 7:30pm-8:30pm, Sexton Lounge, 2nd floor, Furman Hall
(wine and light appetizers)
Please: RSVP via Symplicity or RSVP via Qualtrics
This is the first Presidential election since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled one of the central provisions of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional in 2013. Several states have enacted new restrictive voting laws, California has moved to automatic voter registration, and the Supreme Court is poised to render another landmark decision – this time on the “one person, one vote” principle. Come to our panel discussion and enjoy a lively conversation on these topics, and more, with some of the nation’s leading experts on voting rights and election law.
Participant biographies
Moderator: Jim Rutenberg was named media columnist for The New York Times in January 2016. Previously, Jim was a chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine (2014-16) and national political correspondent for The New York Times (2010-14), co-leading The Times’ daily coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign. In 2015, he published “Disenfranchised,” a series in The New York Times Magazine examining the ongoing effort to roll back the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
Marc Elias is the chair of Perkins Coie’s Political Law practice and the general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. His practice focuses on representing public officials, candidates, parties, corporations, tax-exempt organizations and Political Action Committees (PACs) in connection with campaign finance, governmental ethics, lobbying disclosure and white-collar criminal defense matters. He is a nationally recognized authority, advising and litigating claims under the Voting Rights Act, Help America Vote Act and National Voter Registration Act. He has been involved in voting rights and/or redistricting litigation in a number of states, including Texas, Florida, New York, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada and Minnesota.
Dale Ho is the Director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. His work includes litigation to combat voter suppression including, most notably, Shelby County v. Holder (defending the constitutionality of Sections 4(b) and 5 of the Voting Rights Act before the U.S. Supreme Court), and League of Women Voters of NC v. North Carolina (challenging cutbacks to early voting and the elimination of same-day registration in North Carolina). He supervises the ACLU’s voting rights litigation nationwide and engages in legislative advocacy to open new opportunities for participation for the historically disenfranchised.
Mimi Marziani (JD ’08) is the incoming Executive Director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a position she will assume in March 2016. Ms. Marziani comes to TCRP from Battleground Texas, where she served as Legal Director, directing the group’s voting rights work and overseeing compliance with election law. Before moving to Texas, Ms. Marziani spent several years as Counsel for the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where she litigated election law cases in federal courts across the country, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. Ms. Marziani teaches “Election Law and Policy” at the University of Texas School of Law and serves on the NYU Board of Trustees. Ms. Marziani has also taught constitutional law at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Policy and at NYU’s campus in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Myrna Pérez is Deputy Director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program and leads the Center’s work on voting rights and elections. Her work has been featured in media outlets across the country, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Huffington Post. She has testified before several state legislatures on a variety of voting rights related issues. Currently, she also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Law at NYU School of Law.