Norm Eisen, Special Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee on Impeachment
2020-08-06 | BigTent Zoom Room

Spotlight Speaker: Norm Eisen, Barbara McQuade and Danya Perry
2022-06-10 | BigTent Zoom Room

Spotlight Speaker: Ryan Busse
2022-06-15 | BigTent Zoom Room

Tent Talk: Reverend Gregory Lewis, Souls to the Polls
2022-07-12 | BigTent Zoom Room

Spotlight Speaker: Michael Lewis
2022-07-13 | BigTent Zoom Room

Spotlight Speaker: Dan Pfeiffer
2022-08-03 | BigTent Zoom Room

Tent Talk: Plan A
2022-09-13 | BigTent Zoom Room

Spotlight Speaker: Cecile Richards
2022-09-14 | BigTent Zoom Room

Tent Talk: Kate Fellman- You Can Vote
2022-09-27 | BigTent Zoom Room

Spotlight Speaker: David Pepper
2022-09-28 | BigTent Zoom Room

Tent Talk: Make The Road PA
2022-10-18 | BigTent Zoom Room

Tent Talk: PA Youth Vote
2022-11-01 | BigTent Zoom Room

PA Midterm Election Debrief and Q&A: Jen Devor, Better Civics
2022-11-29 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | BigTent Zoom Room
Jen Devor, President & Co-Founder of Better Civics, is coming back under the Tent for a debrief of the Pennsylvania midterm elections followed by Q&A session.
Better Civics is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to revolutionizing civic engagement and voter turnout through education. Better Civics works with community partners to create tools and resources that better explain how government works and encourage individuals to be more civically engaged.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKER:
Jen Devor is a South Philly block captain, public school advocate, voting enthusiast, and a published author on civic engagement. She is the President and Co-Founder of Better Civics. In addition to leading Better Civics, Jen serves as the Vice President of Partnerships at Campus Philly, an economic development organization with the mission of attracting and retaining college students to the Greater Philadelphia Region. These roles work seamlessly together as Jen continues to engage all residents civically.
Jen was a 2019 candidate for City Commissioner, the office that oversees election activity in Philadelphia. She ran a great race and was endorsed by various organizations, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, National Organization for Women, and Run for Something.
Jen holds a BS in Media and Communications from the University of the Arts. She is also an alumnus of The Center for Progressive Leadership, Leadership Philadelphia, The Citizen Planning Institute, and several political training programs.

Spotlight Speaker: Dahlia Lithwick
2022-11-30 19:00 - 20:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
Dahlia Lithwick is author of the best-selling new book Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America. She will discuss how women lawyers, independently of each other, sprang into action in 2016, holding our legal system accountable under the devastating policies being executed by Donald Trump and his administration. Sally Yates, Stacey Abrams, Becca Heller, and Roberta Kaplan are a few of those women lawyers that she profiles.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKER:
Dahlia Lithwick is a regular contributor at MSNBC and senior editor at Slate – and, in that capacity, has been writing their “Supreme Court Dispatches” and “Jurisprudence” columns since 1999. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Commentary, among other places. She is host of Amicus, Slate’s award-winning biweekly podcast about the law and the Supreme Court.
In 2018, Lithwick received the American Constitution Society’s Progressive Champion Award, and the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis. Lithwick won a 2013 National Magazine Award for her columns on the Affordable Care Act. She has been twice awarded an Online Journalism Award for her legal commentary. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October, 2018. In 2021, she was a recipient of the Women’s Media Center’s Exceptional Journalism Awards. In 2021 she won a Gracie Award for Amicus Presents: The Class of RBG, which featured the last in-person audio interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Lithwick has held visiting faculty positions at the University of Georgia Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem. She was the first online journalist invited to be on the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. She has testified before Congress about access to justice in the era of the Roberts Court and how MeToo impacts federal judicial law clerks. She has appeared on CNN, ABC, The Colbert Report, the Daily Show and is a frequent guest on The Rachel Maddow Show.
Ms. Lithwick earned her BA in English from Yale University and her JD degree from Stanford University. Her new book, Lady Justice, published by Penguin Press (September 2022), has already received rave reviews from the New York Times, the Boston Globe, among others. She is co-author of Me Versus Everybody (Workman Press, 2006) (with Brandt Goldstein) and of I Will Sing Life (Little, Brown 1992) (with Larry Berger). Her work has been featured in numerous anthologies including Jewish Jocks (2012), What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-one Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most (2013), About What was Lost (2006); A Good Quarrel (2009); Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare (2009); and Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary (2008).

Spotlight Speaker: (He’s Back!) Ambassador (Ret.) Norm Eisen
2023-04-03 19:00 - 20:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
On Monday, April 3rd at 7pm ET, join BigTentUSA as we welcome Ambassador Norm Eisen (Ret.). He will provide an update on all of the current investigations and the indictment by the Manhattan DA.
Ambassador Norm Eisen (Ret.)
Ambassador Norman L. Eisen (ret.) is the Co-Founder and Executive Chair of the States United Democracy Center. An attorney and author who has served in a broad array of government roles, he was special counsel and special assistant to President Barack Obama for ethics and government reform from 2009-11. Following his service in the White House, he was our ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2011-14, in 2019, he was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for the impeachment and trial of President Donald J Trump.

Tent Talk: Kate Fellman, You Can Vote
2023-04-18 12:00 - 13:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
Kate Fellman, Founder and Executive Director of You Can Vote will be joining us. With everchanging election laws in North Carolina, Fellman will debrief us on the state’s 2022 midterm election, what is ahead for their 2023 local elections in the Fall, and how they are innovating and laying the groundwork for the 2024 general election. You Can Vote trains and mobilizes volunteers to educate, register, and empower all North Carolina citizens to successfully cast their ballot.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKER:
Kate Fellman worked in the Organizational Effectiveness department headquarters of General Mills while earning her degree in Mass Communications and Social Science from Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, MN. Kate has worked in community organizing and electoral politics for over 20 years. She began her political work as an intern in the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone’s final campaign supporting the “Women for Wellstone” contingent. Kate began educating and registering NC citizens in early 2008 and hasn’t stopped. She saw first-hand the widespread confusion regarding what’s on the ballot and how, when, and where to vote. In 2013, Kate organized volunteers to develop a program to provide communities with localized, fact-based voting information.
You Can Vote (YCV) launched in 2014 as a permanent educational campaign to mobilize volunteers and build community leadership. Today, YCV works across the state of North Carolina to increase civic literacy and participation of historically marginalized populations whose votes have been historically suppressed: people of color (POC), low-income people, people who are currently and formerly incarcerated, people with disabilities and young people 18-25.

Spotlight Speakers: Charlie Sykes and Rick Wilson
2023-04-26 19:00 - 20:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
On Wednesday, April 26th at 7:00pm ET, join BigTentUSA as we welcome Charlie Sykes and Rick Wilson to discuss the current dangers of fascism in our country and how we can fight back.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS:
Charlie Sykes
Charlie Sykes is a founder and editor-at-large of The Bulwark, host of The Bulwark Podcast, and an NBC/ MSNBC contributor.
He is also author of nine books, including A Nation of Victims, Dumbing Down Our Kids, Profscam, The Hollow Men, The End of Privacy, 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School, A Nation of Moochers, and Fail U. The False Promise of Higher Education. He was co-editor of the National Review College Guide.
His most recent book, How the Right Lost Its Mind, published by St. Martin’s Press, was released in October 2017. An updated paperback edition was released in October, 2018.
Sykes has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Time.com, USA Today, National Review, The New York Review of Books, the New York Daily News, and other national publications. He has appeared on Meet the Press, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, State of the Union with Jake Tapper, the Today Show, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, PBS, the BBC, and has been profiled on NPR. He has also spoken extensively on university campuses.
Rick Wilson
Rick Wilson was a longtime Republican political strategist, award-winning ad-maker, and political commentator. In 2015, Rick emerged as one of the earliest and most vocal critics of Donald Trump, helping found the Never Trump movement.
Published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Politico, The Hill, The London Spectator, Rolling Stone, The New York Daily News, USA Today, The Bulwark and beyond, he’s frequently called on for sharp-edged and witty political insight on the national news networks, CNN, and MSNBC. He’s a frequent guest on Real Time with Bill Maher.
A 30-year veteran of politics, Rick got his start in the 1988 Presidential campaign of George Herbert Walker Bush, and since has produced groundbreaking advertising and provided winning strategic counsel to political candidates, SuperPACS, state parties, the national campaign committees, and corporate, association, and government clients across the nation and around the world. He is a co-founder of the Lincoln Project.

Tent Talk: Sylvester Johnson III, VoteRiders with Jessica Craven
2023-05-02 12:00 - 13:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
On Tuesday, May 2nd, at 12:00pm ET, Sylvester Johnson III, National Volunteer Manager and Voter ID Coalition Coordinator at VoteRiders is coming back for another Tent Talk. He will provide results from the 2022 elections, discuss which voter ID states they will be focusing on in 2023, the disenfranchisement of youth voters that is happening across many states, and what we can do to help. The renowned Jessica Craven will be moderating the discussion!
Jessica Craven is a full time activist, community organizer, political TikTok creator, and elected member of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party’s Central Committee. She’s also the author of “Chop Wood, Carry Water,” a daily actions e-mail.
ABOUT VOTERIDERS:
VoteRiders is a nonpartisan voter protection organization which helps voters navigate the Voter ID law requirements in various states across the country. We will learn about their work and begin sending letters making sure eligible voters have the ID and information they need to cast a ballot that counts. VoteRiders’ mission is to ensure that no eligible voter is prevented from casting a ballot that counts due to voter ID laws, either directly from lack of acceptable ID or indirectly because of voter confusion. VoteRiders educates voters and assists citizens to secure their voter ID. We inspire and support organizations, volunteers, and communities to sustain such voter ID education and assistance efforts.
BARRIERS TO THE BALLOT:
Tens of millions of voters find that obtaining an ID that fulfills voting requirements is costly and confusing. It often requires navigating arcane systems and bureaucratic barriers that cost time and money. All to exercise a basic freedom that should be equally accessible to all Americans.
We also see massive confusion about voter ID rules in EVERY STATE – among voters and poll workers alike. State laws are complicated to understand and often changing. Confusion can easily lead to disenfranchisement for too many Americans unless we take action.

Tent Talk: Ballotpedia
2023-05-16 12:00 - 13:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
On Tuesday, May 16th at 12pm ET Ballotpedia will be joining us to discuss citizen-led legislation (ballot measures), why it’s important, and ballot measure trends they are seeing around the country. Ballotpedia is the digital encyclopedia of American politics, and the nation’s premier resource for unbiased information on elections, politics, and policy As a non-partisan resource, they provide their readers curated content on all levels of U.S. politics that is relevant, reliable, and available for all.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS:
Geoff Pallay is Ballotpedia’s Editor in Chief. He has been in that role since March 2015, overseeing Ballotpedia’s editorial department. Since joining Ballotpedia’s staff in 2010, Geoff has made it a life’s purpose to bring neutral, high-quality encyclopedic information to political consumers.
During his time at the company, the encyclopedia has grown by more than 200,000 pages. As Editor in Chief, Geoff is responsible for managing the encyclopedic content and political coverage while ensuring that proper systems and structures are in place throughout the department.
Over the years, Geoff has been intimately involved in launching many of the new projects at Ballotpedia, including coverage of state legislatures, Congress, redistricting, public policy, municipal officeholders, presidential elections, and legislation tracking. Geoff serves as the final decision-maker over much of the newsletter and front page content as well as editorial coverage and strategies.
Geoff’s other roles at Ballotpedia have included Associate Chief Content Officer (2014-2015), Director of Research (2013-2014), and Director of Strategic Projects (2013).
Prior to joining Ballotpedia, Geoff was a policy analyst for the South Carolina Policy Council and a copy editor for the Beaufort Gazette. Originally from New Jersey, Geoff studied journalism and history at Emory University before earning a Masters of Public Administration at the College of Charleston. Geoff lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife and two children, where he also serves as Neighborhood Association President in his community.
Ryan Byrne is the Managing Editor of the Ballot Measures Team at Ballotpedia. Ryan has been researching and writing about ballot measures for Ballotpedia since 2013. His ballot measures analyses have been featured in the New York Times, NPR, and The Hill.

Spotlight Speakers: Jonathan Alter and David Greenberg
2023-05-31 19:00 - 20:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
Jonathan Alter and David Greenberg will join us to provide a historical framework for our current political and cultural reality. They will define the events in modern history that led us to this moment. Evangeline Morphos will moderate conversation.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS:
Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer and radio host.
Alter’s most recent book is “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.” (2020), which received uniformly favorable reviews. His earlier books include three New York Times bestsellers: “The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies” (2013), “The Promise: President Obama, Year One” (2010) and “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope” (2006), also one of the Times’ “Notable Books” of the year.
A former senior editor and columnist at Newsweek, Alter is a longtime political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He co-produced and co-directed the HBO documentary “Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists,” which won the 2020 Emmy for Outstanding Historical Documentary. In 2013-2014, he was an executive producer of “Alpha House,“ a comedy on Amazon.
Over the years, Alter has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Monthly, the New Yorker, Bloomberg, the Daily Beast and other publications. In 2021, he launched a weekly Substack newsletter called “OLD GOATS, Ruminating with Friends,” which includes frequent columns and his conversations with accomplished people of wisdom and experience. Since 2016, he has hosted “Alter Family Politics“ each week on Sirius XM, 102 with his three adult children.
David Greenberg is a professor of History and of Journalism & Media Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and a frequent commentator in the national news media on contemporary politics and public affairs. He specializes in American political and cultural history. His most recent book, Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency (W.W. Norton, 2016) examines the rise of the White House spin machine, from the Progressive Era to the present day, and the debates that Americans have waged over its implications for democracy.
Evangeline Morphos is a producer and educator who has worked in theatre, film, and television; and for twenty-five years was a Professor in the Theater and Film Divisions of Columbia University, where she established the University’s first courses in television and in new media. Evangeline has consulted on numerous new media projects for Democratic political campaigns, and has been active in arts advocacy. She writes frequently on the arts and politics for The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Reuters and NBC.com.She graduated from Wellesley College, and has a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her late husband was the American political historian Alan Brinkley.

Tent Talk: Civic Influencers
2023-06-06 12:00 - 13:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
Maxim Thorne, CEO of Civic Influencers, and Rohan Preston, Theater Critic at the Star Tribune will join on on Tuesday, June 6th at 12pm ET. Civic Influencers gives young voters on-the-ground data and winning strategies on campuses and in communities to boost civic power and impact elections.
Read Thorne’s latest Washington Post Op-Ed article here on the Right’s effort to silence young voters.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS:
“I know what it is like to feel the entire continuum of being young, marginalized and disenfranchised to becoming whole, empowered and American. Now more than ever, we need to reimagine, protect and strengthen the pillars of our democracy. We have to turbocharge and make real an intersectional and holistic democracy movement building on the centrality of the rich diversity of youth. Every innovation and tried and true is on the table, be it texting, digital organizing, short films, dorm storming, student panels, marches and more.” – Maxim Thorne
Maxim Thorne earned a B.A. (cum laude honors) in Economics and Political Science from Yale College and a J.D. from the Yale Law School. Maxim has served as the Managing Director of The Andrew Goodman Foundation, Senior Vice President and Chief Communications and Development Officer of NAACP, the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Human Rights Campaign and HRC Foundation and the Executive Director of NJ Head Start Association. As a dedicated leader and advocate, Maxim has served on the Board of Directors of many organizations as well, including the founding Board of Yale Black Alumni Association, Chaired the 40th Anniversary of the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale, Honorary Co-Chair of the 50th Anniversary of the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale, the Board of Governors of Yale University, Executive Committee of the Yale Law School, GLAAD, the North Star Fund, Amistad Research Center, Barnert Hospital Foundation and Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey. He also serves on the Yale Alumni Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
Rohan Preston has been lead theater critic at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis since 1998, helping to shape the ecology of one of the nation’s most dynamic arts meccas but one that also is ground zero for the nation’s post-George Floyd racial reckoning. He has interviewed and written on Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Edward Albee, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks and a host of other luminary arts leaders. He led a Star Tribune team that won an Emmy for a documentary on the historic 2008 elections and has twice served on the Pulitzer jury for drama. Mr. Preston previously wrote for the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times. Also a poet, playwright and composer, he was reared in New York and educated at Yale.

Spotlight Speakers: Billy Ray, Gretchen Barton and Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA), moderated by Sanjyot P. Dunung
2023-06-14 19:00 - 20:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
Academy Award-Nominated Screenwriter, Billy Ray and Public Opinion Researcher, Gretchen Barton and Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) & moderated by Author Sanjyot P. Dunung will discuss how voters feel about the state of the nation and how to message across the political divide.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS:
Billy Ray wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Captain Phillips, for which he won the WGA award. He also wrote, directed, and executive-produced Showtime’s “The Comey Rule,” which had the biggest debut of any limited series in that network’s history. Ray’s films as writer, co-writer, or writer-director include “The Hunger Games,” “Richard Jewell,” “Shattered Glass,” and “Breach.” He serves on the boards of Common Defense and Big Sunday. He believes in democracy, justice, and the Dodgers.
Gretchen Barton is the founder of Worthy Strategy Group, LLC, and former Research Director at Future Majority. She is a deep-listening researcher and strategist who has designed and led research initiatives in the political and policy space across America on poverty, the youth vote, global nuclear weapons disarmament, immigration, gender in America, what Americans need in their next President, how Americans know what’s true, what the Democratic and Republican party brands mean and more. She’s worked on presidential to mayoral campaigns and is currently leading an initiative called What it Will Take, laying the narrative groundwork for the first female president, and advising on History Wars, a Johns Hopkins research initiative looking to unpack a way to bring Americans together around a shared future, if not a shared history.
Susan Wild (D-PA) is in her third term as a member of the United States House of Representatives in the heart of the Lehigh Valley and is the first woman to represent the Valley in Congress. From September 2022 to January 2023, she was chair of the House Ethics Committee and continues to sit on the committee as ranking member. She also co-chairs the New Democrat Coalition Climate Change Task Force and is vice chair of both the Congressional Labor and Working Families Caucus and the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human rights and International Organizations.
Sanjyot P. Dunung is an author and serial entrepreneur with expertise on the intersection of culture, business, global affairs, technology, and education.
She has written sixteen international business books and textbooks; has appeared on a range of global media; and, speaks at conferences addressing international business, global cultures and entrepreneurship. Her first novel, Maddie & Sayara, explores the diverging paths of young girls around the world. Sanjyot is actively engaged in a number of public-private initiatives advocating for secular, capitalist, democratic values globally. She currently serves on the Board of Truman Center for National Policy, Advisory Board of the Thunderbird School of Global Management and the Board of the National Small Business Association. Sanjyot has received several awards, including the 2021 Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award and the 2021 AmChamRepresent Business Transformation Award: Women in Business.

Spotlight Speaker: Professor Larry Diamond with Anne Wedner
2023-06-21 19:00 - 20:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
On Wednesday, June 21st at 7pm ET, Professor Larry Diamond, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University, specializing in democracy studies, Author, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, will join us. Anne Wedner, Commissioner, US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy will moderate the conversation. They will discuss the 12 steps to autocracy.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKER:
Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. At FSI, he leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, based at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for more than six years. He also co-leads with (Eileen Donahoe) the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His latest edited book (with Orville Schell), China’s Influence and American Interests (Hoover Press, 2019), urges a posture of constructive vigilance toward China’s global projection of “sharp power,” which it sees as a rising threat to democratic norms and institutions. He offers a massive open online course (MOOC) on Comparative Democratic Development through the edX platform and is now writing a textbook to accompany it.
Diamond’s book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad. A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria(1989). He has also edited or coedited more than forty books on democratic development around the world, most recently, Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Years.
During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has also advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America’s postwar engagement in Iraq.
Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.
Anne Wedner (Moderator):
Anne Terman Wedner has been a leader in grassroots political movements and continues to partner with organizations working toward a more just and inclusive society. She recently left her role as the Donor Engagement Director for Mi Vecino Florida. Since 2011, Anne has also served as a Commissioner on the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. During the 2020 election cycle, Anne relocated from Winnetka, Illinois, where she was an elected trustee, to Miami, Florida in order to develop voter outreach programs within underserved communities.
Previous to her political involvement, she developed strategic marketing and communications programs in the advertising and the financial services industries. In her early career, Anne represented the United States as a foreign service officer in France and Venezuela.
Anne continues to invest in organizations working to support democracy and democratic ideas. She is a board member at the USC Center for Public Diplomacy in Los Angeles and a “Cabinet Member” at the Roosevelt Foundation at Harvard’s Adams House. Until recently, Anne was also a board member at Freedom House and at the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threat. Anne holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a BA from Harvard where she majored in the History and Literature of France.

Spotlight Speaker: Stephen Vladeck with Dahlia Lithwick
2023-06-28 19:00 - 20:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
Stephen Vladeck, Author of The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic will join us on on Wednesday, June 28th at 7pm ET to discuss the dangers around the U.S. Supreme Court’s growing use of the shadow docket. The discussion will be moderated by Dahlia Lithwick.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKER:
Stephen I. Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) holds the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts, constitutional law, national security law, and military justice.

Professor Vladeck is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic.” He has argued over a dozen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court, and various lower federal civilian and military courts; has testified before numerous congressional committees and Executive Branch agencies and commissions and the Texas legislature; has served as an expert witness both in U.S. state and federal courts and in foreign tribunals; and has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession.
Vladeck is the co-host, together with Professor Bobby Chesney, of the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court.
Vladeck joined the Texas faculty in 2016 after 11 years teaching at the University of Miami School of Law and American University Washington College of Law. He is an elected member of the University of Texas Faculty Council (and of the Faculty Council’s Executive Committee); an elected member of the American Law Institute; a Distinguished Scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law; and a senior editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of National Security Law and Policy. He is the Supreme Court Fellow at the Project on Government Oversight’s Constitution Project; a Distinguished Fellow of the National Institute of Military Justice; and a member of the Advisory Committee to the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security, the American Constitution Society’s Board of Academic Advisors, and the advisory boards of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the RAND History of U.S. Military Policy.
A 2004 graduate of Yale Law School, Vladeck clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. While a law student, he was Executive Editor of the Yale Law Journal and the Student Director of the Balancing Civil Liberties & National Security Post-9/11 Litigation Project, and he was awarded the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for Outstanding Moot Court Oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for Best Team Performance in Moot Court. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics from Amherst College in 2001—where he wrote his senior thesis on “Leipzig’s Shadow: The War Crimes Trials of the First World War and Their Implications from Nuremberg to the Present,” and shared the Alfred J. Havighurst Prize as the outstanding senior History major. A native New Yorker and fatalistic Mets fan, Vladeck lives in central Austin with his wife, Karen (a Managing Director at Whistler Partners, and with whom he co-hosts the “In Loco Parent(i)s” podcast), their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney, and their nine-year-old pug, Roxanna.

Spotlight Speaker: David Pepper, Saving Democracy
2023-07-12 19:00 - 20:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
A warm welcome to David Pepper, who is returning under the Tent. Join us as we speak to him about his new best-selling book, Saving Democracy: The User’s Manual For Every American. The book provides a framework for all pro-democracy activists (us!) to better understand the steps to save our democracy. As Pepper notes, “we are seeing ever-growing awareness about the threat to democracy, as well as emerging and successful best practices of how to fight back.” This book provides us the path to a more secure and vibrant democracy.
BigTentUSA is thrilled to co-host this Spotlight Speaker Series with The New York Buddy Group (NYBG). The NYBG is a group of volunteer activists who raise awareness and support for pro-democracy grassroots organizers and candidates in critical elections throughout the country. They enhance the education of their community and increase electoral awareness, action, focus and impact.

Tent Talk: The Fairness Project- Ohio’s Latest Power Grab
2023-07-18 12:00 - 13:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
We welcome Hannah Ledford Deputy Executive Director and Campaign Director for the Fairness Project.
In Latest Power Grab, Ohio Senate Advances Anti-Democratic Supermajority Requirement for Ballot Measures. In the latest attack on direct democracy, Ohio legislators on Wednesday voted to advance a supermajority threshold for future ballot measures, co-opting a tactic being pushed by extremist officials in multiple states to limit voters’ decision-making power.
Anti-abortion groups have been open about the fact that efforts to advance the supermajority threshold are intended to block a potential measure this November that would enshrine reproductive freedom in the state constitution. However, if the threshold were to be raised to 60%, it would impact all future ballot measures, not just those related to abortion.

In response to repeated attacks on direct democracy, including in states like South Dakota, Arkansas, Ohio and more, the Fairness Project has been fighting to defend the ballot measure process and ensure citizens can use this critical tool for years to come. Since last year, the Fairness Project has organized $5.6 million to fight back through its Ballot Measure Rescue Campaign.

The Fairness Project’s Ballot Measure Rescue Campaign is working to protect the ballot measure process itself across the country. They are leading a strategic multi-state coalition to fight back using litigation, legislative advocacy, and ballot measure campaigns. Where they need to bring litigation, they will litigate. Where they can stop bad laws from being passed, they will run aggressive communications and lobbying campaigns to stop anti-democratic bills. And where the legislature refers suppressive measures to the ballot, they will fight to win those ballot campaigns. Link for more information Here

Spotlight Speaker: Andrew Weissmann
2023-08-21 18:30 - 19:30 | BigTent Zoom Room
BigTent welcomed veteran prosecutor and legal analyst Andrew Weissmann, to answer questions we had (and some we didn’t know we had) about THE INDICTMENTS.
Weissmann served as the lead prosecutor for the Mueller investigation, was Chief Counsel of the FBI, and, while chief of the criminal division of the Eastern District of NY, prosecuted members of infamous crime families. Weissmann is the co-host, with Mary McCord, of the podcast Prosecuting Donald Trump.
Andrew Weissmann is a Professor of Practice with the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law. He served as a lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office (2017-19) and as Chief of the Fraud Section in the Department of Justice (2015-2019).
During his previous tenure at NYU Law (2013-2015), Weissmann was a Senior Fellow at both the Reiss Center on Law and Security and the Center for the Administration of Criminal Law. He taught courses in national security and criminal procedure.
From 2011 to 2013, Weissmann served as the General Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He previously served as special counsel to then-Director Mueller in 2005, after which he was a partner at Jenner & Block in New York City. From 2002-2005, he served as the Deputy and then the Director of the Enron Task Force in Washington, D.C., where he supervised the prosecution of more than 30 individuals in connection with the company’s collapse. Weissmann was a federal prosecutor for 15 years in the Eastern District of New York, where he served as the Chief of the Criminal Division. He prosecuted numerous members of the Colombo, Gambino, and Genovese families, including the bosses of the Colombo and Genovese families. Weissmann has extensive experience in private practice. Weissmann won the largest Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration award in history. He has taught criminal law and procedure at Fordham Law School and Brooklyn Law School. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School and was on the managing board of the Columbia Law Review. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and attended the University of Geneva on a Fulbright Fellowship.

*In-Person* Spotlight Speaker: Michael Waldman, How the Supreme Court is Reshaping America with AG William Tong (D-CT)
2023-09-13 18:00 - 20:00 | Greenwich, Connecticut, To Be Provided
Join us for cocktails and conversation, in Greenwich, CT on Wednesday, September 13th at 6:00PM with Michael Waldman, President of The Brennan Center for Justice, and Attorney General William Tong (D-CT). They will discuss Michael’s new book, Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America, what role the state courts play, and, possible court reforms that can protect our democracy.
In The Supermajority, Michael Waldman explores the tumultuous 2021–2022 Supreme Court term. He draws deeply on history to examine other times the Court veered from the popular will, provoking controversy and backlash. And he analyzes the most important new rulings and their implications for the law and for American society. Waldman asks: “What can we do when the Supreme Court challenges the country?”
Michael Waldman is president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to revitalize the nation’s systems of democracy and justice. He was director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1999 and is the author of The Second Amendment: A Biography and The Fight to Vote. Waldman was a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court. A graduate of Columbia College and NYU School of Law, he comments widely in the media on law and policy.
Address will be sent in a separate email.
*Michael Waldman’s book will be provided!

Tent Talk: We the People for Education with Tiffany Van Der Hyde
2023-09-19 12:00 - 13:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
Join us as we discussed the changing the narrative for public schools.
We The People For Education (WTPFE) wants to return local school districts’ focus to its students and tamp down on the extreme rhetoric pushed by some activists and elected officials. They’re tired of efforts like book bans that both target specific groups of people and can divide their local communities.
Tiffany Van Der Hyde, the group’s executive director, will speak to us and share the message they want to convey to people across the commonwealth, from Southwest Virginia to the Eastern Shore, and everywhere in between.
The organization wants to work with communities statewide to get people more involved with their local school boards and to help support candidates who support their mission.
“We understand that the problems we want to fix and the people we want to be able to reach out and support and help in this effort are from Roanoke to Virginia Beach to Fairfax to Harrisonburg and Rockingham; they’re everywhere,” said Van Der Hyde.
In Virginia, pretty much every locality has some sort of school board race coming up this year.
“I think as far as where people should pay attention, it’s their own backyard; it’s their own neighborhood school, school board races, it’s who’s at the end of your ballot,” she said. “Whether it’s you running…whether it’s starting a group of like-minded parents, or supporting another local entity who’s really focused on sound policy and student mental health, and supporting our teachers…I think there’s something in every community to be done right now,” she said.
We the People for Education is a non-partisan 501c4 focused on supporting and empowering pro-public education leadership in all of Virginia’s communities.

Tent Talk: Center for Common Ground with Andrea Miller
2023-09-26 12:00 - 13:00 | BigTent Zoom Room
Join us in a discussion with Andrea Miller, founding Board member of Center for Common Ground.
Center for Common Ground was founded to educate and empower under-represented voters in voter suppression states to engage in elections and advocate for their right to vote. In partnership with local, on-the-ground organizations, they build advocacy and voting campaigns that educate and mobilize Black voters across the South. Together, they provide voters with the tools they need to learn how national, state and local policy and politics impact their communities, where their elected officials stand, and what can be done to create needed change.
They partner with local on-the-ground organizations in our target states of Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. They also build technology tools to help empower local communities and organizing networks long after elections are over.
Andrea Miller is the Founding Board Member of the Center for Common Ground, Executive Director of People Demanding Action, Founding President of the National Women’s Political Caucus of Virginia, and a member of the Democracy and Governance working group of the Virginia Green New Deal. Andrea is an IT and Political Director and a digital and elections strategist. She designs and administers digital phone banks and texting programs. From 2013 to 2015, she led the Progressive Round Table on Capitol Hill, bringing together members of Congress, activists, and non-profit leaders. Her expertise is in voting rights, climate, and the Equal Rights Amendment. She has successfully advocated for legislation on both the Federal and State level. In 2008 she was the Democratic nominee for the Virginia 4th Congressional district.
Center for Common Ground
