California Common Cause Staff Bios
California Common Cause’s Executive Director, Kathay Feng , brings over ten years of experience working in the area of election reform. During that time, she has developed strong relations with both local and state election administrators, community advocate organizations, election integrity advocates, and national and state experts. As a result, California Common Cause occupies a unique position of trust in bringing these disparate stakeholders together to talk about potential solutions. California Common Cause has anchored a statewide coalition of election reform groups, called California Voter Empowerment Circle (CalVEC), that meets regularly to talk about major election policies. She recently co-authored and played a leadership role in winning the passage of Prop. 11, to reform California ’s redistricting process. She sits on the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee for the Help America Vote Act and the LA County Human Relations Commission. Prior to joining Common Cause in 2005, she directed the Voting Rights and Anti-discrimination Unit of Asian Pacific American Legal Center. She was responsible for organizing poll monitoring of hundreds of poll sites in Southern California , building a statewide coalition to advocate for communities in the 2001 redistricting process, the creation of the Office of Independent Review providing oversight for the LA Sheriff’s Department, and representing hate crime victims. She is a graduate of UCLA Law School and Cornell University .
Derek Cressman serves as Common Cause's Regional Director of State Operations for Western States. In addition to helping manage state operations, Derek coordinates Common Cause's work on national popular vote, vote-by-mail, campaign finance reform, and other electoral reform issues. He is regularly called provide testimony and expert advice to the California Legislature and the Fair Political Practices Commission. His recent publications include: What We Know about Voting by Mail (2008), Safe Seats, Dangerous Democracy: How Politicians Draw Districts to Rig Election Results (2005), The Recall’s Broken Promise, How Big Money Still Runs California’s Elections (2007) He has worked on democracy issues since 1995, and is considered a leading expert on money in politics and democracy issues. Prior to joining Common Cause, Derek founded and directed TheRestOfUs.org, a non-profit watchdog that raised awareness of the role of big money in politics. He serves as the Democracy Program Director for PIRG, directing their state and federal work on campaign finance reform, electoral reform, ethics, and the initiative process. He has also worked as a campus organizer, ballot question campaign director, and as a green entrepreneur, founding Earth Tones, the environmental telephone company. He is a graduate of Williams College .
Jeanne Brown , San Diego Organizer, taught high school math and science for over 30 years. During that time she was active in many community projects, particularly with the environment, along with being a long-time member of Common Cause. After volunteering for a number of years with the local Common Cause chapter, she became the San Diego Organizer last year. Ms. Brown serves on the board of San Diego Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, helping to write the San Diego Clean Elections Initiative. She provides regular testimony to the Ethics Commission and Rules Committee of the City Council on the issues of campaign finance, elections and ethics. She helped build a large coalition of supporters to pass Proposition 11 in San Diego County , working with the four League of Women Voters' chapters, AARP, minority groups, champers and other groups to prepare speakers groups and signature collectors on the importance and specifics of the proposition. She helped organize and is on the board of San Diego Campaign for Progressive Radio, a group whose long-term goal is to improve the mass media in San Diego , including education of the public on the importance in a democracy for the public to be better informed.
JoAnn Fuller got her start in political activism when she interrupted her studies at San Francisco State to join civil rights activists marching in Selma , Alabama in 1965. Over the years, she has held a variety of local and national leadership positions with several nonprofits. After joining California Common Cause’s staff in 1999, JoAnn served as grassroots organizer when Common Cause passed public financing measures in Oakland , San Francisco , and Sacramento . She also aided other cities and counties with successful campaign finance reforms. Her special interest in media reform issues led her to organize the Sacramento Media Group. She collaborated on their three reports monitoring the local news and detailing the need for increased substantive news coverage especially before elections. Today she serves as California Common Cause’s Associate Director and continues to organize members and volunteers in Sacramento .
Emily Pears is the Northern California Organizer and Democracy Matters Coordinator. She works to organize events and campaigns around democracy reform issues in the Bay Area, and leads the Northern California Democracy Matters Campus chapters. Emily recently graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a B.A. in government. At Claremont McKenna, Emily worked as a research assistant and Assistant Student Manager at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government. Emily’s interest areas include political theory and democracy reform. Having worked at an election law firm and studied redistricting and electoral reform, she brings a strong familiarity with Common Cause’s issues.
Brooke Erdmann is the West Coast Development Coordinator. (Bio coming soon)
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