Speaker: 

• Thomas Healy, Author of "The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed his Mind--and Changed the History of Free Speech in America"

Free speech is widely regarded as our most important Constitutional right, as an indispensable feature of democratic government. Yet for the first 130 years of American history, the First Amendment was largely a dead letter. In this presentation, Professor Thomas Healy will discuss how the modern understanding of free speech emerged during the turbulent years after World War I, when the country was in the midst of a devastating pandemic. He will also explore whether that understanding, premised on faith in the marketplace of ideas, is still viable in an era of “fake news” and rampant misinformation.

Professor Thomas Healy researches and writes in the fields of constitutional law, freedom of speech, legal history, civil rights, and federal courts.  His book "The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind – and Changed the History of Free Speech in America" won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, was selected as a New York Times Book Review editor's choice, and was named one of the fifteen best non-fiction books of 2013 by the Christian Science Monitor.  His latest book, “Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of American Utopia,” chronicles the 1970s attempt to build a city dedicated to racial equality on a former slave plantation in rural North Carolina.  Professor Healy has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Public Scholar Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  He has also been a Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University and a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Culture at Columbia Law School.

Professor Healy received his B.A. in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Book Review and Essay Editor of the Columbia Law Review.  Prior to joining Seton Hall Law, he clerked for Judge Michael Daly Hawkins on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and was an associate at Sidley Austin Brown and Wood in Washington D.C., where he practiced appellate litigation and worked on several cases before the United States Supreme Court.  He also worked for many years as a newspaper reporter, first in North Carolina and later as Supreme Court Correspondent for the Baltimore Sun.  He has written essays and book reviews for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Nation, The L.A. Review of Books, and other publications.

Moderator: 

• Amanda Gonzalez, Director of Lawyer Engagement at We The Action

Panelists:

• Julianne Pastula, General Counsel of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission
• Ben Williams, National Council of State Legislatures
• Douglas M. Spencer, Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School, Manager of All About Redistricting website
• Kathay Feng, Director of Redistricting & Representation, Common Cause

2021 is THE year for redistricting to happen. With so many changes – from an adjusted Census timeline to states adopting redistricting reforms – this panel will provide a progress report on what is happening around the country. How are state and local redistricting processes proceeding? What are the challenges to transparency and public participation in an unpredictable pandemic and political environment? Which states make the naughty list and which have been nice? 

Moderator:

• Jane T. Feldman, Member, Denver Board of Ethics

Panelists:

• Meg Froelich, Colorado State Representative
• Mark Quiner, Director of the Ethics Center at National Conference of State Legislatures
• Pierre Legault, Senior Ethics Officer at the Canadian Senate

Over the past year or so several elected officials in both the US and Canada have been caught violating COVID restrictions, traveling during a crisis, sending inappropriate tweets and posting misinformation on Facebook, among other “misbehavior.” Most Ethics Codes cover conflicts of interest and acceptance of gifts, nepotism, post-employment restrictions, etc., but not general conduct. This panel of experienced ethics professionals will discuss which jurisdictions have broader codes, and what are the advantages and pitfalls if codes are broadly drafted to cover these “transgressions.”  

Moderator:

• Matthew Reed, Staff Attorney, Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission

Panelists:

• Taya Moxley-Goldsmith, Director, Minnesota Data Practice Office
• Mary Dulacki, Chief Deputy Executive Director, Colorado Department of Public Safety
• Brian Foley, Retired Executive Assistant to the Commissioner of the CT Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) 

This session will focus on the proliferation of different kinds of technology used by law enforcement, much of which creates records subject to transparency laws. With body cam footage at the top of the list, the panel will explore how the use of those records could impact the shape of law enforcement. 

Moderator:

• Beth Rotman, Money in Politics & Ethics Program Director, Common Cause

Panelists:

• Shana M. Broussard, Chair of the Federal Election Commission
• Allen Dickerson, Vice Chair of the Federal Election Commission

After lacking the quorum of members necessary to fully function in the months leading up to the 2020 general elections, the Federal Election Commission is back, baby! Join us for a moderated conversation between FEC Chair Shana Broussard and Vice Chair Allen Dickerson, both of whom were confirmed by the U.S. Senate in December 2020.  We’ll look back on legal and policy issues the Commission tackled in 2021 and ahead to its priorities for 2022, when the Commission will oversee campaign finance activities of thousands of candidates running for nearly 500 U.S. House and Senate seats in the midterm elections.

Moderator:

• Cathryn Motherwell, Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Integrity Commissioner (Ontario)

Panelists: 

• Emily Dennis, General Counsel, Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission
• Jordana Greenwald, Associate General Counsel, City of Philadelphia Board of Ethics
• Victoria Ortega, Deputy Clerk and Recorder, City of Denver
• The Honourable J. David Wake, Integrity Commissioner, Office of the Integrity Commissioner (Ontario)

Lobbyists are increasingly accused of being in a conflict of interest, most commonly because they have been active in a political campaign, and then lobby the newly elected public office holder. Some jurisdictions have no rules, and amidst the criticism elected officials have declared that they will not interact with their former campaign staff. Other jurisdictions prohibit a lobbyist from being a senior campaign official. And in some Canadian jurisdictions, if the lobbyist does take a top campaign job, their future lobbying activity could be significantly curtailed. Hear how different jurisdictions have responded in addressing lobbyist conflicts of interest. 

Moderator:

• Susan Willeke, Education & Communications Manager, Ohio Ethics Commission

Panelists:

• Alton Dillard, Communications Manager & Public Information Officer, Denver Clerk and Recorder/Denver Elections, @DenverElections @MileHighClerk

Extreme weather, crime, cyber-attacks, malfeasance, reputation crises, and PR incidents…clearly public entities should be prepared for a wide range of potential crises. Preparing your crisis communication plan in advance of a crisis ensures that in an emergency, your office will be able to promptly communicate internally, effectively share information externally, and rectify the situation as soon as possible.

Learn about the up-to-date technologies, systems, and protocols that will enable your organization to successfully communicate during any threats to your operations. Join Denver Clerk and Recorder/Denver Elections Division Communications Manager, Alton Dillard, who will share his expertise in the field of crisis communication, outline the high-level principles you need to know, and maybe even regale attendees with a few entertaining stories along the way!

Moderator:

• Erin Chlopak, Senior Director Campaign Finance Strategy at Campaign Legal Center 

Panelists:

• David Kolker, Senior Counsel at Campaign Legal Center and former Associate General Counsel of the Federal Election Commission
• Tyler Martinez, Senior Attorney at Mountain State Legal Foundation; Former attorney, Institute for Free Speech
• Ciara Torres Spelliscy, Professor of Law at Stetson University.

Campaign finance rules often implicate the competing interests of those seeking to influence elections, on the one hand, and voters seeking to make informed choices at the ballot box, on the other. Historically, the Supreme Court has balanced those interests by allowing unlimited spending to influence electionsindependently, while permitting transparency rules requiring public disclosure of who is spending money to influence elections, and allowing restrictions on the sources and amounts of money givendirectlyto candidates. But the composition of the Supreme Court has changed dramatically since the last major campaign finance decision. Will that balance continue to hold? And does this approach appropriately balance the competing interests of voters and donors? This panel will discuss how the Supreme Court’s approach to campaign finance rules has evolved over the past decade, and how recent shifts in the composition of the Supreme Court and lower courts may affect the fate of campaign finance rules in the future.

Speaker: 

• Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute and Member of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors

Amber McReynolds, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on voter-friendly election processes will speak about the expansion of the use of Vote by Mail in the last decade and where we can go from here. From her time creating Colorado’s modern voting system to helping numerous localities expand opportunities for voters to participate safely by mail during the 2020 pandemic elections, Amber will reveal the ways different jurisdictions can implement this secure method of voting.  She will also discuss the future opportunities for collaboration between election administrators and the U.S. Postal Service to improve voters’ experiences regardless of whether the election occurs during a pandemic, a natural disaster, or “normal” times.

Amber McReynolds is the Founding CEO for the National Vote at Home Institute and Coalition, co-author of the book ‘When Women Vote’, and is the former Director of Elections for the City and County of Denver, Colorado. Amber is an experienced election professional and is nationally recognized as an innovator and has proven that designing pro-voter policies, voter-centric processes, and implementing technical innovations will improve the voting experience for all. She was confirmed in June 2021 by the United States Senate to serve as a Governor for the United States Postal Service. 

Amber was recognized as a 2018 Top Public Official of the Year by Governing Magazine for her transformational work to improve the voting experience in Denver and across Colorado; Amber has a Master of Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Amber is also currently serving as a senior strategic advisor on various election-focused projects across the country, serves as an expert witness in election litigation, and collaborates with various national and state professional organizations to identify and implement best practices in election administration.