GERRYMANDERING: OUR DEMOCRACY AT RISK

RESOURCES FROM ZOOM FORUM CHAT

OUR MODERATOR AND PANELISTS

MODERATOR RYAN O'CONNELL HR'73

Ryan received an A.B. in History from Harvard University in 1973 and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977. After working as a corporate lawyer and then a banker in New York City, Ryan found his true calling as a bond analyst on Wall Street. At firms such as Moody’s, Citigroup, and Bloomberg, he wrote frequently about banks and other financial institutions. These firms are particularly fascinating because they are profoundly affected by the economy and government policies as well as market trends. Ryan retired in the summer of 2018.

Ryan has a lifelong interest in politics. He has written a bi-monthly newsletter on politics since 2015, providing a moderate Democratic perspective. His website is The Wall Street Democrat.

Ryan has published his articles in Medium, Salon and The Globalist, an English-language online daily based in Berlin, Germany.

CALL TO ACTION

• Read a summary of the For the People Act in our resources list. Then, whatever party they represent, contact your senators and urge them to vote for the For the People Act, which would protect Americans’ voting rights.

ALICIA BANNON

@alicia_bannon

Alicia Bannon is the managing director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. She leads the Center’s Fair Courts Project, where she directs research, advocacy, and litigation to promote a fair judicial system. Bannon has authored several nationally recognized reports and articles on judicial selection, access to justice, judicial diversity, and government dysfunction, and her writing has been featured in the New York Times, Atlantic, and Time, among other outlets.

Bannon received her JD from Yale Law School. She clerked for Hon. Sonia Sotomayor in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Hon. Kimba M. Wood in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She graduated from Harvard College summa cum laude with a degree in social studies. Prior to law school, she worked in Kenya and Uganda, managing impact evaluations of education and health interventions, and at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.

CALLS TO ACTION

• Educate yourself on judicial gerrymandering and the bills proposed around the country that seek to politicize the courts and weaken the role they play in our democracy.

• 38 states use elections to choose Justices - vote in those elections!

BRIAN CANNON

@BrianRCannon

As the Director of Campaigns, Brian guides and supports state efforts to pass Final-Five Voting. He also plays an integral part in IPI's growing strategy as a member of the senior leadership team. Prior to joining IPI, Cannon served as the executive director of the redistricting reform organization, OneVirginia2021. Cannon successfully led the reform through the legislature twice - once under a Republican majority and once under a Democratic majority.

Before joining OneVirginia2021, Cannon worked with The Fahrenheit Group and several entrepreneurs in the Richmond area. While in law school studying election law, Cannon was part of the winning team in the 2011 student redistricting competition in Virginia.

Cannon has a J.D. and B.A. from The College of William & Mary. He lives with his wife and two children in Richmond, Virginia.

CALLS TO ACTION

• Raise the issue of gerrymandering on social media, follow the panelists of this Forum on Twitter (handles provided in this email and in our website). Read their publications and the publications of their organizations.

• If there is a town hall, fundraiser, or event with a politician happening, attend and raise the issue in the Q&A section.

• If you are in Virginia, follow Virginia2021Foundation.

JIM HARBISON HR'73, PHD '77

@jimharbison

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in Physics in 1973 and his PhD in Applied Physics in 1977 at Harvard, Jim spent the first half of his career at Bell Laboratories and Bellcore doing material science research on the semiconductor materials that form the basis of the optoelectronic revolution underlying today’s worldwide communications infrastructure. This work resulted in 4 patents, over 200 professional publications and the publication of a popular book in the Scientific American Library Series entitled “Lasers: Harnessing the Atom’s Light”.

Jim then moved into software research. He subsequently left Bellcore to co-found a startup, which created an ultra-efficient pattern recognition software engine. This grew over the next two decades into a product that eventually became a part of IBM’s Enterprise Marketing Suite of products. Jim’s wide-ranging interests, fostered even in those long-gone undergraduate days at Harvard, coupled with his concern over voter suppression, have recently led him to look in greater depth at the emerging application of mathematics to the vitally important problem of eliminating gerrymandering in order to keep our democracy vital and strong.

CALLS TO ACTION

• Make yourself knowledgeable about gerrymandering. Read our primer and our list of resources.

• Get involved - go to hearings and town halls and contact your elected representatives at all levels again and again.

• Your individual voice matters - so be in it for the long run.

MICHAEL LI

@mcpli

Michael Li serves as senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, where his work focuses on redistricting, voting rights, and elections. Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Li practiced law at Baker Botts L.L.P. in Dallas for ten years. He was the author of a widely cited blog on redistricting and election law issues that the New York Times called “indispensable.” He is a regular writer and commentator on election law issues, appearing on PBS Newshour, MSNBC, and NPR, and in print in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Roll Call, Vox, National Journal, Texas Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and San Antonio Express-News, among others.

In addition to his election law work, Li previously served as executive director of Be One Texas, a donor alliance that oversaw strategic and targeted investments in nonprofit organizations working to increase voter participation and engagement in historically disadvantaged African American and Hispanic communities in Texas.

CALLS TO ACTION

• Call your representatives (in the Senate in particular) to pass the For the People Act this summer - on August 16th, states will start drawing maps for redistricting, so we need this bill passed by that deadline.

• Call your representatives in the House and tell them to call the Senate representatives to ask them to pass the bill.