Donate

Founder

Bob Brandon

President Emeritus & Senior Advisor

President Emeritus & Senior Advisor Robert “Bob” Brandon co-founded the Fair Elections Legal Network in 2006 as a national, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to remove barriers to registration and voting for traditionally underrepresented constituencies and improve overall election administration through administrative, legal, and legislative reform. Now, Fair Elections Center provides technical assistance, materials and legal analysis and support to a variety of mobilization organizations representing students and youth, minorities, and other underrepresented groups. Mr. Brandon has more than 50 years of public policy, legislative, media and campaign experience at the federal, state, and local levels. He has specialized in health policy, tax policy, access to higher education and internet policy at federal agencies, in Congress, and at the state and local level. Mr. Brandon has experience in all aspects of election law, how mobilization organizations interact with those laws and on voter suppression.

Over the last 20 years, he has held trainings on election law, interacted with election officials and non-profit voter registration and voter engagement organizations. He chairs the health planning agency for Washington DC. Mr. Brandon has been an advisor to the White House on health care strategy and an adjunct lecturer in law at the George Washington University Law School. He has written and testified extensively and appeared on numerous national TV and radio shows. He received his JD from the National Law Center at George Washington University where he was an editor of the Law Journal and elected Order of the Coif, and received his BA from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. He has written and testified extensively, and appeared on numerous national and local TV and radio shows. Mr. Brandon is a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia.

He can be reached at rbrandon@fairelectionscenter.org
Read More About Robert Brandon's Life and Career

Videos

Bob’s Greatest Hits

Bob Goes To Law School 1969 – 1973

George Washington University law students organize as legal marshals to patrol march routes for anti-war demonstrators after President Nixon’s illegal expansion of the Vietnam War into Laos and Cambodia provokes nationwide college campus strikes.

Law students from eight universities launch Law Students Against the War to lobby for a legislative end to the conflict.Bob is Founding Treasurer.

Law Students Against the War organize and train thousands of lawyers through major city bar organizations to lobby Congress for a legislative end to the war.

In 1971, Bob creates the Task Force on Drug Abuse to expose pharmaceutical industry over production and over-promotion of amphetamines and barbiturates.

  • Bob testifies before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Task Force’s 50-city study of the most abused and trafficked drugs seized by police and the drugs which are being advertised as non-addictive medications for “housewife syndrome” and other unsubstantiated sleep cures.
  • The Task Force petitions the federal Food and Drug Administration {FDA) to reclassify and significantly reduce the number of amphetamines and barbiturates that can be legally produced and marketed to consumers in the U.S.
  • The FDA reclassifies these drugs under the Controlled Substances Act. Production drops from 3 billion pills annually to a few hundred thousand.

Bob Starts His Legal Career

1973 – 1978

In 1973, Ralph Nadar hires Bob as the Executive Director of the Tax Reform Research Group (TRRG). TRRG becomes the main source of tax reform expertise to Congressional committees and staff, as well as journalists, reporters, and the general public.

  • The 1976 Federal Tax Bill incorporates tax reforms for the first time.
  • In 1976, TRRG publishes the first tax reform primer written for public consumption.
  • TRRG organizes and promotes the repeal of the oil depletion allowance loophole. 
  • Using the new Freedom of Information Act, TRRG exposes President Nixon’s illegal tax deduction for his vice-presidential papers. After the disclosure, the IRS disallows the deduction.
  • Based on Bob’s Freedom of Information Act filing, TRRG publicizes Nixon’s effort to use the IRS to investigate politically active organizations. 
  • TRRG exposure to the media of secretive narrow-interest tax breaks forces the U.S. House of Representatives Ways & Means Committee to adopt a new, more transparent public process.

Bob Joins the Citizen Labor Energy Coalition (CLEC)

1979 – 1984

In November 1978, Bob is hired as the Washington Director of the newly launched Citizen Labor Energy Coalition, a group of 180 unions, senior groups, and community organizations organizing political power around a critical consumer issue: energy costs. Bob is named Executive Director in 1982.

  • CLEC’s nationwide campaign to stop winter utility shut-offs for non-payment of bills results in 15 states moving to protect residents.
  • CLEC publishes a 1979 White Paper on how the oil and gas industry hides profits from state taxation and a report on federal and state tax evasion.
  • CLEC publishes a primer on energy policy, outlining problems and solutions.
  • CLEC launches a nationwide campaign to challenge the power of the oil and gas industry by fighting natural gas deregulation and avoiding substantial price increases for consumers through innovative grassroots strategies.
    • National data translated into state-specific information on the increased cost of deregulation is released to state media and policymakers.
    • 2500 people protest the American Petroleum Industry convention in Chicago.
    • Launches largest door-to-door canvas operation in 25 states to organize around issues and raise funds for advocacy.

Bob and the CLEC Merge into Citizen Action

1984 – 1993

  • Citizen Action launches a National Campaign Against Toxic Hazards, which leads to significantly strengthened Super Fund law reauthorization: more sites, more accountability, more clean-up funds collected from polluters.
  • Bob helps draft and enact the first federal toxic release inventory law requiring annual public reporting by manufacturers of all toxic chemicals released into air, water, or ground. Partnered with fire fighters and state and local public safety agencies
  • Citizen Action publishes a report on toxic releases by companies, which is based on the first mandatory reporting from companies. This leads to voluntary action by companies to dramatically reduce chemical releases.
  • Citizen Action launches a national health care campaign, which:
    • Focuses on state-by-state healthcare access data and access reforms.
    • Advocates for Medicaid expansion to pregnant women and infants by raising the income cap.
    • Includes the Citizen Action single-payer health care plan introduced into legislation by Senator Paul Wellstone and Congressman Marty Russo.
    • Signs up 3 million members in 32 states and reaches 4.6 million voters through tireless canvassing.

Bob Forms Robert Brandon & Associates
Public Interest Consulting Firm

1993 – 2015

Robert Brandon & Associates is an opportunity for Bob to apply his legal knowledge, his grassroots and professional experience, and his broad interests to a wide range of critical issues, creating progress with a variety of public interest and private groups.

Bob becomes consultant to the Democratic National Committee advising the White House on health policy and works on the Clinton Health Care Initiative.

Bob starts Citizens Allied for Safety and Accountability with partner groups including National Council of Senior Citizens, Trial Lawyers, and the Institute for Injury Reduction.

  • Citizens Allied successfully opposes weakening federal product safety laws.

The firm organizes the Palestinian Legal Infrastructure Support Project after Vice President Gore creates Builders for Peace to pursue stability and investment in Gaza and the West Bank and enhance the peace process post Oslo Accords. The work:

  • Unifies three disparate Palestinian bars.
  • Trains lawyers on their potential role in building their emerging state.
  • Develops exchange programs between Palestinian and U.S. lawyers.

The firm organizes the Campaign for College Affordability in partnership with the Consumer Federation of America, U.S. PIRGs, and U.S. Students Association. This campaign:

  • Successfully supports lower rates for student loan consolidation.
  • Persuades Congress to enact the first ever student loan forgiveness programs based on a public service career.

Bob Launches Fair Election Legal Network and Fair Election Center

2006 – 2017

Bob forms the Fair Election Legal Network (FELN) to address the need for more proactive organizing to publicize and disseminate up-to-date, digestible voter guides to voter mobilization groups and to connect experienced Election Day lawyers around the country.

  • Training to student groups, African American, AAPI, and Hispanic organizations.
  • Support mobilization organizations for the 2008 elections.
  • A Voter Guide and training for the 2009 Virginia state elections.
  • Reports on the effects of housing foreclosures on voting access.
  • Intervention to stop the registration cross-checks system promoted by Kansas.
  • Targets Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as key election locations.
  • Advocates for pro-voter laws and challenges voter suppression laws in state legislatures.
  • Expands partnerships with voting rights and mobilization organizations, particularly America Votes and State Voices.
  • Works with Secretaries of State in Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, and Missouri.
  • Enlists student organizations and Congressional allies to help draft federal legislation to make colleges and universities voter registration and information sites under the National Voting Rights Act.
  • Compiles and distributes weekly voter suppression and redistricting updates for press and allies.
  • Launches Campus Vote Project (CVP) in nine states, including:
    • CVP website, materials, and training for college administrators.
    • Student voting guides covering 42 states.
  • Provides student voter information to college registrars and student affairs offices through their membership associations.
  • Organize National Voter Registration Day events with the Bus Federation and other civic organizations.
    • 60 colleges plan events with CVP.
    • FELN produces 42 state voter registration drive guides for non-partisan voter registration groups.
  • CVP hires its first on-campus student fellows.
  • FELN produces a 50-state legal framework for TurboVote’s online voter registration tool.
  • 58 colleges register 188,000 voters.
  • Launches Community Health Vote with the National Association of Community Health Centers and Non-Profit Vote.
    • The initiative registers community health center patients at 200 Health Clinics in nine states where an estimated 850,000 patients are not registered.
  • Partners with Young Invincibles to organize a national webinar call hosted by U.S. Dept. of Education to highlight the Higher Education Act requirement that colleges and universities provide voter registration information and forms to students.
  • Partners with The Democracy Commitment (TDC) to launch the National Community College Initiative with TDC’s 135 community college members.
  • Distributes voter information palm cards for 25 states with translations into Spanish, Hmong, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Bhutanese for the National Council of La Raza and APIA Votes for the 2014 elections.
  • Files a federal lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s ban on student IDs for voting on behalf of Fisk University student Justin Jones and The Nashville Student Organizing Committee.
  • Launches Work Elections prototype website.
  • Partners with the Native American Voting Rights Coalition to coordinate the first ever reservation-based voting rights survey in partnership with the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and tribes in four states.
  • Partners with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to file a federal lawsuit successfully challenging Louisiana’s 142-year-old proof of citizenship requirement for naturalized citizens; the state repeals the law in six weeks.

Launches the Voter Friendly Campus (VFC) program in partnership with the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA).

  • Expands CVP to 10 states.
  • Files a successful lawsuit in a Florida federal court challenging the state’s arbitrary system of restoring voting rights for felons; the court finds the state process unconstitutional.

In August 2017, the FELN formally transitions to become Fair Elections Center,  a stand-alone 501(c)(3) non-profit.