Redistricting reform — Incumbent legislators should not have the power to draw their own district lines. We must transfer this power to independent non-partisan commissions and create fair standards for redistricting, thereby promoting competition in our electoral process and improving representation for the people.
7. Ensure non-partisan election administration
The Secretary of the Commonwealth must be a Secretary for all of us, regardless of party affiliation. The Secretary should not be allowed to serve as a co-chair of campaigns of candidates. To ensuring the people's trust in the integrity of our elections, the Secretary must conduct the administration of elections in a non-partisan manner.
8. Make government more accessible to all of us
Democracy is not just about our participation on Election Day. We need to participate every day and our government needs to be accessible to us every day. This means a government that is open and transparent, that encourages people to make their voices heard, and that enlists citizen participation in addressing the major issues of our time.
9. Re-authorize the Voting Rights Act of 1965
We must continue the fight to protect the right to vote and to end voting disenfranchisement schemes. The Secretary of the Commonwealth must fight for congressional re-authorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
10. Amend the US Constitution to ensure an affirmative right to vote
One hundred and eight democratic nations in the world have explicit language guaranteeing the right to vote in their constitutions, and the United States — along with only ten other such nations — does not. As a result, the way we administer elections in this country changes from state to state, from county to county, from locality to locality. The Secretary of the Commonwealth must fight for a constitutional amendment that affirmatively guarantees the right to vote in the US Constitution.
John Bonifaz is a dedicated leader who has spent years working with citizens across the country to protect the right to vote and to broaden citizen participation in the democratic process.In 1994, John founded the National Voting Rights Institute, based in Boston, and, after directing the organization for a decade, he now serves as its general counsel. NVRI today is a prominent legal and public education center committed to preserving the right of all citizens to vote and to participate in the electoral process on an equal and meaningful basis. Since founding NVRI, John has been at the forefront of many of the key voting rights struggles facing the nation today. Some highlights of his work at NVRI include:
- Leading the fight in the courts for presidential candidates Michael Badnarik and David Cobb in their demand for a full recount in Ohio of all of the votes cast for President in the 2004 general election.
- Defending the Massachusetts Clean Elections Law, which was passed overwhelmingly by the voters of the Commonwealth in 1998. John led the effort to challenge the Massachusetts legislature's refusal to fund the law and NVRI won a landmark ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, forcing the state to provide the necessary funds to all qualified candidates running in the 2002 state elections.
- Working to overhaul the nation's campaign finance system by defending mandatory campaign spending limits, public financing of elections, and other important campaign reforms. John and NVRI are pressing for a US Supreme Court review of a 1976 ruling which equated money with speech and sanctioned today's system of unlimited campaign spending, and John has led a challenge to today's exclusionary system on voting rights grounds, linking the movement for change in the way we finance our elections to earlier civil rights struggles.
In 1999, in recognition of his pathbreaking work with the National Voting Rights Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded John with a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, otherwise known as the "genius" award.
In addition to his leadership of NVRI, John has also been at the forefront of opposing the Bush administration's war in Iraq. In February and March 2003, John served as the plaintiffs' lead counsel in John Doe I v. President Bush, a constitutional challenge to President George W. Bush's authority to wage war against Iraq absent a congressional declaration of war or equivalent action. John represented a coalition of US soldiers, parents of US soldiers, and Members of Congress (led by Representatives John Conyers, Jr. and Dennis Kucinich) arguing that the president's planned first-strike invasion of Iraq violated the War Powers Clause of the US Constitution.
John is the author of: Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush (NationBooks-NY, foreword by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., January 2004), on the illegality of the Iraq war. The book presents an accounting of the John Doe I v. President Bush case and its meaning for the United States Constitution. He has also written numerous articles on the war and on the fight for democracy here at home which have appeared in publications such as The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, TomPaine.com, The Columbia Law Review, and The Yale Law & Policy Review.
John is also a co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, a national coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and public interest organizations seeking a formal congressional investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. The coalition, launched in May 2005, focuses on the new and compelling evidence revealed by the release of the Downing Street Minutes, showing that the President may have engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for sending the nation to war.
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