Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner previously worked in the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office as a deputy director and legislative counsel to the Ohio General Assembly during the administration of Sherrod Brown. On November 7, 2006, she defeated Republican Greg Hartmann.

Since taking office Secretary Brunner has worked to restore confidence in the Ohio election system. Some of her key accomplishments include the smooth administration of the 2008 March Presidential Primary which saw a record turnout of 45%. This was accomplished by providing good, hands-on direction to Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections; conducting a massive review of the voting systems used in Ohio for the 2008 election cycle – the results of which provided great insight as to the reliability of these systems; and the creation of the Voting Rights Institute (VRI), which provides access to elections for all voters in Ohio. The VRI was formed as a resource for voters, activists, political parties and others to become more engaged with election issues in Ohio.

As was seen from the disastrous administration of the 2006 Presidential Election in Ohio, Secretary of State Brunner has already overcome significant challenges. She has assembled a talented team who have learned and done much in 14 months by communicating and respecting the trust they have been given by Ohioans.

Since being elected to Congress in 2006, Congressman Keith Ellison has aggressively pursued a progressive policy agenda based on his four guiding values: peace, increasing prosperity for working families, promoting environmental sustainability, and advancing civil and human rights. As a member of the House Financial Services and Judiciary committees, Ellison has devoted a significant amount of his time in his first term to the areas of consumer justice and voting rights.

Ellison has emerged as a major new voice in Congress on behalf of consumers and working families. The first bill he introduced was focused on cracking down on an abusive practice called universal default, whereby creditors increase the rate on one loan or credit card, even when the consumer has not missed a payment, because of a late payment on another loan or credit card. Just this month, Ellison launched a Consumer Justice Caucus that creates an open and honest forum to address the concerns and interests of consumers by bringing Members of Congress together with industry groups and advocates for consumers, labor, and human rights.

Ellison has also emerged as a leader on voting rights. Ellison authored a friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court, joined by all the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, to highlight the constitutional shortcomings of the requirement by some states that voters provide photo identifications to vote in a federal election. Additionally, Ellison is working on several new laws to encourage voting including election day voter registration and mandating a national standard for casting provisional ballots.

Jamie Raskin is a professor of Constitutional Law at American University and bestselling author who decided to run for the Maryland State Senate in 2006 when his State Senator, the President Pro Tem of the Maryland Senate, sponsored a disastrous electricity deregulation bill and a resolution praising President Bush’s military invasion of Iraq. Defying the pundits and naysayers who said that he could never topple a 32–year incumbent Democrat who chaired the Montgomery County delegation, Raskin defeated his political machine opponent in a landslide upset.

Since his election, Raskin has seen the Maryland General Assembly pass more than a dozen of his bills, including the first statewide civil rights statute, a farm-to-schools bill to get locally grown vegetables into Maryland public schools, and the historic National Popular Vote Law. This law made Maryland the first state to join an interstate compact to choose the president by a direct popular election; it was recently signed into law in New Jersey and Illinois. The Washington Post has described Raskin as the Senate’s “authority on constitutional issues”, and the Takoma Voice named him Montgomery County’s “Most Responsive Elected Official.”

Kyrsten Sinema likes to stay busy. Aside from being a member of the Arizona House of Representatives, she’s a college professor and an attorney. After graduating from college at the age of 18, she began a career in social work as a way to help those in need. However, her passion to create social justice eventually inspired her to go into politics. She saw Arizona’s Clean Elections system as a way for her to run – and win – a seat in the House so she could work to create the social justice she cared so much about without being beholden to special interests.

Rep. Sinema is particularly proud of her lead role on “Arizona Together,” the only campaign in the country to defeat a same-sex marriage ban. In addition, Sinema worked nine months to craft legislation to divest Arizona public funds from investments in Sudan. This law ultimately earned unanimous support from both Arizona legislative chambers.

Currently, Rep. Sinema is working on an omnibus energy bill, a bipartisan effort she’s been spearheading for eight months now. When she’s not in the state house, Rep. Sinema is an adjunct professor of social work at Arizona State University, practices criminal defense law in the Phoenix community and serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations.