NextGen Climate and the Center for American Progress Launch Fair Shake Commission on Income Inequality and Middle Class Opportunity
OAKLAND – NextGen Climate President Tom Steyer today announced the formation of a commission designed to examine inequality in the Golden State and identify policies that can help ensure every Californian gets a fair shake.
The Fair Shake Commission on Income Inequality and Middle Class Opportunity, a joint project of NextGen Climate and the Center for American Progress (CAP), brings together a panel of 13 experts to focus on inequality and poverty in California. The commission will convene sessions in five cities around the state and recommend solutions that can be pursued via legislative action or on the ballot.
“For all of our state’s wealth and opportunity, there’s still a huge gap between the few and the many,” said Tom Steyer, who will serve as Chairman of the Commission. “The cost of gas and groceries are high. College tuition costs are rising. Hardworking families can barely afford to rent an apartment, much less dream of purchasing a home. It’s time for Californians to get a fair shake.”
California has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, with nearly 25 percent of its residents living in poverty. In addition, wages for California workers have continued to decrease even as more income flows to the state’s wealthiest residents.
“As the Center for American Progress’ Inclusive Prosperity Commission reported earlier this year, we need bold, new, and thoughtful solutions to spur middle-class growth. California has always been at the forefront of efforts to tackle economic inequality, and policy leaders throughout the state are in a prime position to affect change that will resonate from Sacramento to San Diego,” said Neera Tanden, President of the Center for American Progress. “By identifying the policies and the solutions to make actionable change, the Fair Shake Commission on Economic Inequality and Middle Class Opportunity will ensure that California is positioned to continue leading the nation with catalytic ideas to address income inequality.”
The goals of the Fair Shake Commission are practical and strategic. The Commission will examine the opportunities and challenges California faces in its quest to address growing inequality, identify achievable policies to effect both short-term and long-term change, and recommend ways to generate momentum to address these issues—both through the legislature and on the ballot.
After an inaugural meeting in Oakland, the Commission will visit San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno and Sacramento. Commissioners will bring their own expertise, as well as engage the best thinkers and practitioners in the state to identify actionable policy ideas to address these issues. Working in partnership with CAP, the commission will also engage the University of Southern California Program on Environmental and Regional Equity to better understand the demographics of inequality.
By January 2016, the Commission will produce a roadmap for how the Golden State can reduce economic insecurity and provide a fair shake for all Californians. Some of these ideas may pursued via legislation or ballot measures, while others will set out a direction for future advocacy and effort.
The results are intended to advance public understanding of how policy can help create a more fair and just society with opportunity for all.
Below are biographies of the 13 commissioners:
Laphonza Butler, SEIU ULTCW (United Long Term Care Workers’ Union)
Butler is Provisional President of SEIU Local 2015 – the newly formed statewide long term care union that unites the voices of 283,000 SEIU nursing home and home care providers throughout California. SEIU Local 2015 is the largest SEIU Local in California and the largest long term care local in the country.
Previously, Butler served for seven years as President of SEIU ULTCW, a local that successfully improved the lives of its 180,000 long term care workers through the improvement of hourly care worker wages, protection of program funding, and passage of legislation to restore vital care to seniors and people with disabilities. Prior to her leadership representing long term care workers, Butler served as SEIU’s Property Services Division Director in which she was responsible for the strategic direction of the more than 250,000 workers across the country.
In addition to her current role, Butler serves as an SEIU International Vice President, President of SEIU California State Council, and co-convener of Raise the Wage. She has also served as a Director for the Board of Governors of the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve System and was appointed by Senator Harry Reid to President Obama’s Long Term Care Commission.
Butler is a graduate of Jackson State University, in Jackson, MS.
Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink, Founder and CEO
Angela Glover Blackwell is Founder and CEO of PolicyLink, which she founded in 1999, and continues to drive its mission of advancing economic and social equity. Under her leadership, PolicyLink has become a leading voice in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, education, and infrastructure.
Prior to founding PolicyLink, she served as senior vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation. A lawyer by training, she gained national recognition as founder of the Oakland (CA) Urban Strategies Council. From 1977 to 1987, she was a partner at Public Advocates, a nationally known public interest law firm.
She is a frequent commentator for some of the nation’s top news organizations and has also been a guest on the PBS series Moyers & Company and PBS’s NewsHour. She appears in the sixth and final segment of the PBS six-part series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
She is the co-author of Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future, and contributed to Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream and The Covenant with Black America. In 2013, Angela and PolicyLink collaborated with the Center for American Progress to write and release All In Nation: An America that Works for All. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She served as co-chair of the Task Force on Poverty for the Center for American Progress. She currently serves on The President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans.
Hon. George Miller – U.S. Congress (ret.)
George Miller III is a former U.S. Representative, representing California’s 7th district and serving in Congress from 1975-2015. He is a lifelong California resident and member of the Democratic Party. During his tenure, he was a leading advocate in Congress on education, labor, the economy, and the environment, helping Democrats to develop and articulate a wide range of policies to benefit all Americans.
His priorities in the 112th Congress were the creation of jobs and growing the economy, reauthorizing the federal K-12 education law, and ensuring that the historic health care reform law that he co-wrote was fully implemented. From 2007 to 2011, Miller served as chairman of the Education and Labor Committee. He served as chair of the U.S. Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, and served on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections and the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions.
Hon. Fabian Núñez, California Assembly (ret)
Currently a partner at Mercury, LLC, Núñez previously served as the California Assembly Speaker from 2004-2008 and served as a member of the State Assembly, representing the state’s 46th district. As Speaker, he oversaw an annual Assembly budget of approximately $150 million with 1,100 employees in over 103 offices statewide. He was also the Assembly’s lead negotiator on the California state budget, responsible for producing four state budgets, which ranged as high as $103 billion. He authored AB 32 – landmark climate change legislation that has become a blueprint for other states and the U.S. Congress in addressing environmental challenges.
From 2000-2002, Núñez was government affairs director for the Los Angeles Unified School District. In this capacity, he tackled a broad range of education issues and secured millions of dollars in funding for school construction projects, children’s health insurance and low-performing schools. Prior to that, from 1996 to 2000, he served as political director for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
Núñezcurrently serves on the Board of Directors for Zenith Insurance, the U.S. Soccer Federation, and previously served on the University Of California Board Of Regents from 2004-2008. During the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Núñezwas a national co-chairman for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Long Beach City College
Eloy Ortiz Oakley is Superintendent-President of LBCC and is best known for implementing innovative programs and policies, and strongly believes that the state’s 112 community colleges play a pivotal role in moving California forward. In 2014, Governor Brown appointed Oakley to the University of California Board of Regents, where he works to better serve all Californians in higher education.
To jumpstart the local economy, Oakley partnered with Goldman Sachs to launch the 10,000 Small Businesses Program, which has taught more than 90 local business owners how to expand operations, increase profits and create more jobs in the region. Most recently, he led the Launch of Innovation Fund So Cal in partnership with the Kaufmann Foundation. Innovation Fund So Cal provides seed funding to promising start-ups and spurs local job creation.
He is a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Association of California Community Colleges Administrators (ACCCA), the Presidents for Entrepreneurship Forum and a founding member of the President’s Alliance for Student Learning and Accountability.
Art Pulaski, California Labor Federation
Art Pulaski is the Chief Officer of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. The Federation represents 2.1 million members of 1,200 manufacturing, transportation, construction, service and public sector unions. The Federation leads Labor’s efforts in legislation, political and economic programs. In the economic arena, the Federation is focused on efforts to create jobs and workforce preparation. It fosters the concept of “high road” partnerships between unions and employers to support a well-trained and competitive workforce. The Federation has been a leader in landmark legislation including overtime pay to minimum wage, health care reform to workers’ rights, and the first Paid Family Leave law in the nation.
Pulaski supports the work of California’s unions to win better living and working conditions for their members and all working Californians. Pulaski has served on numerous gubernatorial panels and commissions on economic progress and workforce development. He was a founder of one of California’s model childcare centers, called PalCare, and served as president of nationally televised PBS series “We Do the Work,” the Labor Project for Working Families and the California Works Foundation.
Connie Rice, Advancement Project
Connie Rice is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Advancement Project and has received more than 50 major awards for her leadership of diverse coalitions, and her non-traditional approaches to litigating major cases involving police misconduct, employment discrimination and fair public resource allocation. She received the 2001 Peace Prize from the California Wellness Foundation and received the John Anson Ford Humanitarian Award from Los Angeles County. She successfully co-litigated class-action, civil rights cases winning more than $1.6 billion in policy changes and remedies during her nine year tenure in the Los Angeles office of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF).
Rice is a graduate of Harvard College and the New York University School of Law. In 1998, the Los Angeles Times designated her one of 24 leaders considered the “most experienced, civic-minded and thoughtful people on the subject of Los Angeles.” In 1999 California Law Business named her one of California’s top 10 most influential lawyers. She serves on the boards of the Public Policy Institute of California and public radio station KPCC.
Hon. Darrell Steinberg, State Senate (ret)
Darrell Steinberg is a shareholder in the Sacramento office of Greenberg Traurig and Chair of the California Government Law & Policy Practice. He provides strategic counsel to clients with matters involving state and local government.
Steinberg served as President Pro Tem of the State Senate from 2008 to 2014. His career of more than 20 years in public service also included six years in both the State Assembly and the Sacramento City Council. Over the course of his legislative tenure, Steinberg forged difficult agreements to usher the state from a $42 billion deficit to a surplus budget, implemented groundbreaking mental healthcare legislation, strengthened the state’s foster care system, improved K-12 education standards, reformed the statewide ballot initiative, and made historic investments in California’s water and transportation infrastructure.
Steinberg is also the Founder and Board Chair of The Steinberg Institute for Advancing Mental Health Policy and a Visiting Faculty without salary to the Department of Psychiatry at UC Davis School of Medicine and Director of Policy and Advocacy for the Behavioral Health Center of Excellence.
Neera Tanden, Center for American Progress and CAP Action Fund
Neera Tanden currently serves as President of CAP and previously served as the Chief Operating Officer, where she oversaw strategic planning, operations, and fundraising.
Tanden formerly served as senior advisor for health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to that, Tanden was the director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign, and also served as policy director for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Before the presidential campaign, Tanden was Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at CAP, and prior to that, she was one of the first senior staff members at the Center, joining as Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy when CAP first opened its doors. In between, Tanden was legislative director for Sen. Clinton and served as Clinton’s deputy campaign manager and issues director for her Senate campaign in New York. Tanden also served as associate director for domestic policy in the Clinton White House and senior policy advisor to the first lady.
Tanden has appeared on the nation’s leading news outlets and has been named one of the “Most Influential Women in Washington” by National Journal and received the India Abroad Publisher’s Award for Excellence in 2011. Tanden was recently included on Elle magazine’s “Women in Washington Power List” and recognized as one of Fortune magazine’s “Most Powerful Women in Politics.” She received her bachelor of science from UCLA and her law degree from Yale Law School.
Manuel Pastor, Ph.D., University of Southern California/Program for Environmental and Regional Equity
Dr. Manuel Pastor, Ph.D. is a professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity, the Director at USC/PERE, and Director at the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII). Pastor’s research focuses on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities – and the social movements seeking to change those realities. Pastor speaks frequently on issues of demographic change, economic inequality and community empowerment.
His published books include: Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Regions (co-authored with Chris Benner); Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future (co-authored with Angela Glover Blackwell and Stewart Kwoh); This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity are Transforming Metropolitan America (co-authored with Chris Benner and Martha Matsuoka); Staircases or Treadmills: Labor Market Intermediaries and Economic Opportunity in a Changing Economy(co-authored with Chris Benner and Laura Leete); and Regions That Work: How Cities and Suburbs Can Grow Together (co-authored with Peter Dreier, Eugene Grigsby, and Marta Lopez-Garza).
Pastor has received fellowships from the Danforth, Guggenheim, and Kellogg foundations, and grants from the Irvine Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the California EPA, the W.T. Grant Foundation, The California Endowment, the California Air Resources Board, and many others.
Van Ton-Quinlivan, California Community Colleges
Van Ton-Quinlivan is Vice Chancellor of California Community Colleges and was named a White House Champion of Change in 2013 for her work in industry and education as well as her committed service as a community leader. In her current role, Ton-Quinlivan oversees the division that administers funding to advance the workforce mission across California’s 113 community colleges.
Ton-Quinlivan was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Apprenticeship by the U.S. Secretaries of Labor Hilda Solis and Tom Perez to provide advice and recommendations on policies affecting apprenticeship programs. She witnessed President Obama sign the Workforce Innovation & Opportunities Act (WIOA) legislation in 2014, and she now chairs California’s implementation of WIOA across seven state agencies. Ton-Quinlivan is vice chair of the National Skills Coalition, co-chair of the Workforce Action Team of the California Economic Summit, serves on the California Council on Science and Technology, and served on the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Closing the Skills Gap Implementation Team.
Previously, she oversaw workforce development for PG&E. She conceived, developed and implemented PowerPathway™, and was selected to attend the first White House Community College Summit, which focused on increasing the credentialing of the nation’s workforce. Ton-Quinlivan served on the National Commission on Energy Policy, America’s Task Force on Future Energy Jobs and on the executive committee of the Center for Energy Workforce Development.
Ton-Quinlivan holds degrees from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford Graduate School of Education, and Georgetown University.
Laura Tyson, Haas School of Business
Laura Tyson is Director of the Institute for Business & Social Impact, professor of business administration and economics, and a former dean, at the Haas School of Business and London Business School. She served as Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and later as Director of the White House National Economic Council. As an advisor and board director for both Fortune 500 corporations and major non-profit organizations, Tyson has spent much of her career working for positive social change in the for-profit sector, non-profit sector and public sector.
During her tenure as Dean at Berkeley-Haas from 1998 to 2001, Tyson launched the Center for Responsible Business, linking traditional MBA training with broader social goals. Tyson also launched the Global Social Venture Competition. Today students from around the world participate in the competition, which offers $50,000 in prizes and mentoring to pioneering nonprofit entrepreneurs.
Tyson co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Council on Women’s Empowerment and is the co-author of the Global Gender Gap Report. She currently chairs the board of trustees of UC Berkeley’s Blum Center on Developing Economies and is also on the board of Generation Investment Management, a company founded by former Vice President Al Gore. Generation invests in companies tackling environmental and sustainability challenges.
Attending on behalf of Neera Tanden
Marc Jarsulic, Center for American Progress
Marc Jarsulic is the Vice President for Economic Policy at American Progress. He has worked on economic policy matters as deputy staff director and chief economist at the Joint Economic Committee, as chief economist at the Senate Banking Committee, and as chief economist at Better Markets. He has practiced antitrust and securities law at the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in private practice. Before coming to Washington, he was professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame.
He earned an economics Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. at the University of Michigan. His most recent book is Anatomy of a Financial Crisis.