John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action and guest of Voice of the Voters on July 18 and November 7, 2007, and May 7, 2008.
From Voter Action, May 8, 2007:
"We are honored to announce that John has accepted a long term position as Voter Action
Legal Director. John has been acting as legal consultant to Voter Action during a transition that began in January
when Voter action co-founder Lowell Finley assumed his new role as Assistant Secretary of State of California in charge of
voting technology. John comes from his position as Senior Legal Fellow at Demos, a New York
base national policy organization, in its Democracy Program. Voter Action looks forward to continuing an ongoing and productive
collaboration with Demos on our shared goals for a meaningful democracy.
"John's work to keep elections clean and free of corporate control has been nationally recognized
for years. He was the founder of the National Voting Rights Institute and formerly served as the staff attorney for the Washington,
D.C.-based Center for Responsive Politics, a leading research authority on the influence of private money in federal elections.
He is the co-author, with Jamin Raskin, of articles in the Yale Law & Policy Review and the Columbia Law Review, which
set forth the constitutional basis for the Institute's affirmative litigation work. In 1999, in recognition of his ground
breaking work with the National Voting Rights Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded John with
a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
"John will not only direct Voter Action’s ongoing legal efforts around the country but
will also assist Voter Action in the development of key programs such as our Watch the Vote Program and our state based citizen outreach and research activities. In addition, as new concerns such as meaningful election
audits, electronic poll books and privatized voter registration databases present themselves as new barriers to voting, John
will be here to help develop new strategies and oversight solutions for the future."
