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Formation | 2016 |
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Founder | Lawrence Lessig |
Purpose | Promote citizen equality and reform institutions that currently defeat that equality |
Location | |
Methods | Litigation and advocacy |
Executive Director | Adam Eichen |
Charles Kolb, Celinda Lake, Lawrence Lessig, Richard Painter, Robert Reich | |
Website | equalcitizens |
Equal Citizens is an American non-profit, non-partisan group that is "dedicated to reforms that will achieve citizen equality".[1] It was founded in late 2016 by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig to continue the effort to bring about the set of reforms he proposed during his 2016 presidential campaign. Notably, as its inaugural campaign, the group launched "Electors Trust" immediately after the 2016 general election. They did this to provide free and strictly confidential legal support to any elector who wished to vote their conscience. Working together with several other groups, such as the Hamilton Electors and celebrities, the campaign resulted in the largest number of "faithless" electoral votes ever cast in a single presidential election.[2]
Equal Citizens has engaged in other high-profile legal cases across the U.S. on topics ranging from altering the campaign finance system with litigation to end super PACs, to amending the presidential election system with litigation that challenges the winner-take-all system of the Electoral College, to expanding vote-by-mail access [3] to young voters.
As of 2021, Equal Citizens is a coalition partner in the Declaration for American Democracy coalition[4] advocating for the passage of the For the People Act, John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and D.C. Statehood.
Equal Citizens also hosts the podcast Another Way,[5] hosted by Lawrence Lessig. The podcast is part of the Democracy Group,[6] a network of podcasts organized and funded by The McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State.
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