Join us for a conversation with Mimi Marziani, a nationally recognized expert in voting rights and Texas politics, to explore the evolving landscape of election law and voter rights. Drawing on more than fifteen years of experience in constitutional law and civil rights advocacy, Marziani will discuss the legal and policy challenges shaping elections in Texas and their implications for voters and democracy.
Free and open to the public.
Speakers:
Mimi Marziani is a prominent civil rights litigator with more than fifteen years of experience in constitutional law and civil rights advocacy; she is a nationally recognized expert in voting rights and Texas politics. Ms. Marziani is commonly featured in the press, and has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman, Texas Tribune, New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Mother Jones, NPR, CNN and ABC News in recent years alone. She is a frequent speaker in a variety of public forums, and has testified before the U.S.Congress and other governmental bodies on numerous occasions. In 2020, she was recognized with an “Austin Under 40” award.
In 2023, Ms. Marziani co-founded Marziani, Stevens & Gonzalez PLLC, a boutique law firm providing battle-tested legal counsel to politically active nonprofits, candidates, election officials and similar clients, focused on legal needs arising under Texas and federal law. For over a decade, Ms. Marziani has been a trusted lawyer and strategist for progressive candidates and campaigns in Texas, including running the first coordinated, statewide voter protection program for Texas Democrats in 2014.
From 2016 to 2023, Ms. Marziani was the President of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a position she assumed in early 2016 at the age of 33. Under her leadership, TCRP tripled its budget and transformed into a national model for community lawyering, providing excellent legal representation to traditionally marginalized Texas communities and forcing the State of Texas to be accountable to the rule of law. Ms. Marziani has also worked as Counsel for the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice, and as a litigation associate of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP .
For years, Ms. Marziani has taught constitutional law and mentored young lawyers. Today, she serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, an instructor at NYU Abu Dhabi (January 2023), and on the NYU School of Law Board of Trustees. She also sits on the board of Way to Win, a donor network that invests in data-driven strategies to fund new media and grassroots efforts to win long-term political change, and recently acted as Senior Policy Counsel for democracySENTRY, a unique national project focused on achieving federal democracy reform at the first politically viable opportunity. And, from 2016-2021, Ms. Marziani chaired the Texas State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Ms. Marziani graduated cum laude from NYU School of Law, where she received the prestigious NYU President’s Service Award and the Dean John Sexton Prize for Service to the Law School. She clerked for the honorable James C. Francis, a U.S. magistrate judge for the Southern District of New York. She received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Vanderbilt University.
Moderated by:
Cliff Walker (D), Former Deputy Director, Texas Democratic Party
Cliff Walker is a seasoned campaign strategist with 18 years of experience progressive organization-building and candidate-advising. After spearheading the Texas House Democratic campaign effort in 2012 and helping launch Battleground Texas in 2014, he joined the Texas Democratic Party to Project LIFT in 2015, which has helped recruit, train, and elect over 150 candidates to hyper-local, non-partisan offices. Promoted to Deputy Executive Director in 2019, he helped guide strategy, develop the Party's voice, and raise the funds to support a team of over 250 campaign operatives and technical experts. Post-2020, Cliff co-founded Seeker Strategies, a POC-owned firm, where he advises a client roster of labor, environmental, and voting rights organizations.