Alissa Anderson currently serves as the deputy director of the California Budget Project (CBP). The California Budget Project engages in independent fiscal and policy analysis and public education with the goal of improving public policies affecting the economic and social well-being of low- and middle-income Californians. Prior to joining the CBP, Ms. Anderson was a research associate in the Education Policy Center at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. She also held a research internship at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy and provided research consulting to several organizations, including the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies in Los Angeles.
Craig Holman, Ph.D. is currently Legislative Representative for Public Citizen. As Legislative Representative, he serves as the organization’s Capitol Hill lobbyist on campaign finance and governmental ethics. He has authored and co-authored several studies on campaign finance and the initiative process, including four major works entitled BUYING TIME 2000: TELEVISION ADVERTISING IN THE 2000 FEDERAL ELECTIONS (2001); THE PRICE OF JUSTICE: A CASE STUDY IN JUDICIAL CAMPAIGN FINANCING (1995); TO GOVERN OURSELVES: BALLOT INITIATIVES IN THE LOS ANGELES AREA (1992), and DEMOCRACY BY INITIATIVE (1992).
John Neurohr is the Communication Director for the Center for American Progress (CAP). The Center for American Progress is dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action. Building on the achievements of progressive pioneers such as Teddy Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, CAP’s work addresses 21st-century challenges such as energy, national security, economic growth and opportunity, immigration, education, and health care. It develops new policy ideas, critique the policy that stems from conservative values, challenge the media to cover the issues that truly matter and shape the national debate. Founded in 2003 to provide long-term leadership and support to the progressive movement, CAP is headed by John D. Podesta and based in Washington, DC. CAP opened a Los Angeles office in 2007.
Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics and founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S. and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clean-energy economy in the U.S. His books include A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (co-authored, 2008); An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for Kenya (co-authored, 2008); An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for South Africa (co-authored, 2007); Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity (2003); and The Living Wage: Building A Fair Economy (co-authored, 1998). He has also worked with the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and as a member of the Capital Formation Subcouncil of the U.S. Competiveness Policy Council.
Jennifer S. Taub is a Lecturer and Coordinator of the Business Law Program at the Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests include corporate governance, financial regulation, investor protection, mutual fund governance, shareholders rights and sustainable business. Previously, Professor Taub was an Associate General Counsel for Fidelity Investments in Boston and Assistant Vice President for the Fidelity Fixed Income Funds. She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and earned her undergraduate degree, cum laude, with distinction in the English major from Yale College. Professor Taub is currently writing a book on the financial crisis for Yale University Press.
