Congressman Scott Peters serves California’s 50th Congressional District, which includes the cities of Coronado, San Marcos, Escondido and most of San Diego. First elected in 2012, Scott commits to working with anyone in good faith to fix a broken Congress. Scott Peters currently serves on the House Budget Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee, and Joint Economic Committee.
Scott Peters is a civic leader who has made improving the quality of life in San Diego his life’s work. After a 15-year career as an environmental lawyer, Sent of downtown San Diego, the cleanup of the city’s beaches and bays, and the completion of a number of major infrastructure projects. He also pursued greater accountability and efficiency through the creation of a new Council/Mayor form of local government with an independent budget review function.
In 2001, the governor appointed Scott to the Commission on Tax Policy in the New Economy, and in 2002, the Speaker of the Assembly appointed Scott to the California Coastal Commission.
Scott later served as chairman of the San Diego Unified Port District – a major economic engine that supports over 40,000 high-skill, high-wage jobs for San Diegans, with $3.3 billion in direct regional economic impact.
He and his wife of 33 years reside in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, where they raised their son and daughter.
Ranked the 4th most independent Democrat in Congress by the National Journal, Scott understands that business problems have bipartisan solutions, and is never afraid to work across party lines to build consensus and get things done.
Winning the high-TEch Future
Rep. Scott Peters, CA-50
Matti Miranda is a strategist focusing on communications, development, and organizational infrastructure in the pursuit of advancing pragmatic progressive policy and candidates. Most recently, she held the role of Director of Development and Communications at Voices for a Second Chance raising the organizations mission by growing the audience by 244%, with the pool of small dollar donors by 300%+.
Matti Miranda, Director, New Democracy
Confronting America’s Artificial Housing Shortage
Jane Natoli, Organizing Director, SF YIMBY
Jane has been a YIMBY since 2016, when she helped found the chapter local Grow the Richmond. In addition to serving on the YIMBY Action board prior to taking her current role as the San Francisco Organizing Director, she serves as the PAC chair for Equality California and has served on several other boards. She is also on the Airport Commission. Prior to becoming the San Francisco Organizing Director, she was a Compliance Governance Lead for Lithic and a Financial Crimes Investigator at Stripe, with a focus on complex money laundering and fraud investigations.
Ned Resnikoff, Policy Director, California YIMBY
Ned Resnikoff is policy director for California YIMBY, where he focuses on long-range planning. A former journalist, he has had bylines in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, MSNBC, and various other publications. After earning a Masters in Public Policy from UC Berkeley in 2019, he served as a fiscal and policy analyst for the California Legislative Analyst's Office, and later as the policy manager for UCSF's Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, before joining California YIMBY in 2022.
Annie Fryman, Director, Special Projects, SPUR
Steven Buss, Director, GrowSF
Fighting Inequality with Public School Reform
Nick Melvoin, Member of the Los Angeles School Board
Nick Melvoin is proud to serve the dynamic communities of District 4 on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. Born and raised on the Westside of LA, Nick’s election to the Board in May of 2017 follows a career fighting for our city’s schoolchildren as a teacher and advocate.
As an LAUSD Board Member, Nick has focused on putting students and families at the center of District decision-making by increasing parent and community engagement, making the district more transparent and accountable, directing more resources to schools, protecting our most vulnerable students, and bringing a new spirit of partnership and collaboration to LA Unified. He also chairs the district's Facilities & Procurement Committee.
Nick began his career as an English teacher at Markham Middle School, an LAUSD campus in Watts. In addition to serving as a teacher, Nick has worked in the Obama White House with the Domestic Policy Council and the US Attorney’s office where he took part in various civil rights investigations.
Nick is also proud to serve as a director of Camp Harmony, a camp for homeless and underserved children. His commitment to solving educational inequity was first sparked as a volunteer at Camp Harmony more than sixteen years ago.
Lakisha Young, Co-Founder & CEO, The Oakland REACH
Lakisha Young is Founder & CEO of The Oakland REACH, a parent-run organization founded in 2016. She knows from her own story that winning in education is par for the course when you already have what you need to win in life — and because of that, everything the REACH does must be about ensuring every family has what they need to win in life.
Lakisha developed a formula that has guided the REACH’s work since day one: Ask families questions. Listen to their aspirations. Build the solutions. This formula has produced a mix of groundbreaking programming and advocacy work over the last 6 years, including The Opportunity Ticket, which gives the most vulnerable students higher preference for enrolling in quality schools, and the Literacy for All campaign.
During the pandemic, Lakisha pioneered the REACH’s most innovative work to date: The Virtual Family Hub, a one-stop shop supporting families’ economic survival and their children’s educational success. Inspired by the Hub, the REACH is adopting The Liberator Model as a framework for strengthening academic achievement and socio-economic well-being. Moving forward, Lakisha is grounding all work in a deep belief that there is nothing more powerful than having a life of your own design.
Lakisha regularly consults other cities across the country interested in exploring parent advocacy, serves as a Senior Fellow at The Center on Reinventing Public Education and is a regular contributor to their “People in Action” series.
Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director, Reinventing America’s Schools Project, Progressive Policy Institute
Tressa Pankovits is the Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools, which researches innovations needed to create a 21st century model for public education that is geared to the knowledge economy. Her research and advocacy have appeared in the Washington Post, The Hill, Real Clear Education, The 74Million, and other publications. She has published numerous white papers and model legislation.
Prior to joining RAS, Tressa was Chief of Staff of AVID, a national nonprofit that provides professional development to teachers in 7,500 schools across the U.S. Earlier, Tressa served 10 years as Chief Operating Officer for the Vallas Group, Inc., led by esteemed education and public finance expert Paul Vallas.
Her political career included managing state and local campaigns. She serves as Secretary to the Board of Directors of C.O.R.E., the disaster relief NGO founded by actor Sean Penn. Tressa earned her B.A. in political science and journalism at San Diego State University and her J.D. from the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Chicago Kent College of Law.
Taming Inflation and Debt: The Stakes for Young Americans
Rep. Jim Costa, CA-21
James Manuel Costa has represented the San Joaquin Valley in the United States House of Representatives since 2005. Costa proudly represents California’s 21st Congressional District, which includes parts of Fresno and Tulare counties.
A son of Portuguese immigrants from the Azores Islands, he was raised on a dairy farm in Fresno’s Kearney Park area and is a third-generation family farmer in the San Joaquin Valley. Costa is a product of Fresno County schools, an alumnus of San Joaquin Memorial High School and California State University, Fresno.
As a member of Congress, Costa has applied his farming background to fighting for water, agriculture, healthcare, and the economy. In these capacities, he has protected California agriculture, enhanced water storage, repaired critical infrastructure, and advocated for a strong national defense to keep us safe from threats here at home and abroad.
His efforts in Congress have been recognized by organizations like the American Farm Bureau Federation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Organization for Victim Assistance. Costa is committed to building a stronger nation for our children and protecting the future of our democracy for generations to come.
Tobias Read, State Treasurer, Oregon
Elected Oregon’s 29th State Treasurer in 2016, Tobias is a collaborative problem solver who draws upon his management, political and finance policy experience to serve Oregonians as Treasurer.
He worked in the U.S. Treasury and as a liaison between designers, engineers and manufacturing units for Nike Inc. In 2006, he was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives, where he served a decade and championed legislation to invest in public education, improve state financial management, finance critical infrastructure improvements, and to help Oregonians save for a more secure future.
He was elected Speaker Pro Tempore and earned the chairmanship of the House Committee on Transportation and Economic Development, and the House Committee on Higher Education, Innovation, and Workforce Development. He also served on the House Revenue Committee in multiple legislative sessions. He was a member of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, the primary budget writing body for the Legislature.
He pushed to strengthen the state’s rainy day fund, which was a key factor that helped the state to earn a credit rating upgrade in 2011. He also helped lead the coalition that ultimately approved full-day kindergarten, underscoring that one of Oregon’s best possible investments is in our kids. He led efforts to promote infrastructure projects using innovative public-private partnerships, and was a chief sponsor of the Oregon Investment Act, which streamlined Lottery investments in promising Oregon startups.
In 2015, he was a chief sponsor of the Oregon Retirement Savings Plan, which became the first operating state-sponsored retirement program in 2017. Known as OregonSaves, the program enrolls Oregon workers who lack access to a retirement savings option through their employers, and will allow hundreds of thousands more Oregonians to retire with dignity after a lifetime of work.
The Treasurer protects the state’s credit ratings, sits on the Oregon Investment Council and State Land Board, and oversees public investing, banking, bonding and financial empowerment programs including the Oregon 529 Savings Network and the Oregon Retirement Savings Plan.
Pavan Venkatakrishnan, Legislative Assistant, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
Pavan Venkatakrishnan serves as a Legislative Assistant at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public and working with policymakers on fiscal policy issues. Pavan’s work has included analysis and advocacy on entitlement, tax, energy, and health spending issues.
Concurrently, Pavan has served for nearly two years as the Western Washington Student Representative on the Washington State Board of Education (WASBE). Pavan works to achieve better outcomes for the diverse student population of Washington State, collaborating with educators, administrators, and state lawmakers. In his role on WASBE, Pavan has testified before the education committees of both chambers of the Washington State Legislature and been interviewed by publications like the Seattle Times.
Ben Ritz, Director, Center for Funding America’s Future, Progressive Policy Institute
Ben Ritz is the Director of PPI’s Center for Funding America’s Future, which develops policy proposals to strengthen public investments in the foundation of our economy, modernize health and retirement programs to reflect an aging society, and transform our tax code to reward work over wealth. Ben's expert analysis has been published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, and other national news outlets.
Prior to joining PPI, Ben staffed the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Commission on Retirement Security and Personal Savings, where he helped develop its proposed reforms to Social Security and retirement-related tax expenditures. Ben also worked on other federal budget issues at BPC including sequestration, budget process reform, and the federal debt limit.
Before joining BPC, Ben served as Legislative Outreach Director for The Concord Coalition. In this capacity, Ben was responsible for coordinating activities with members of Congress and other organizations promoting fiscal responsibility, as well as tracking legislation and developing informational products to educate citizens about the federal budget.
Workers Need New Skills, and America Needs More Workers
Hilary Abell, Co Founder and Chief Policy & Impact Officer, Project Equity
Hilary Abell is Co-founder, Chief Policy & Impact Officer with Project Equity. She has been an employee ownership practitioner, thought leader, and advocate since 2003, and co-founded Project Equity with Alison Lingane in 2014. With a mission to foster economic resiliency in low-income communities, Project Equity raises awareness about broad-based employee ownership (EO), helps successful businesses transition to employee ownership, and develops policies and partnerships to advance EO. Recent highlights include seeing client companies in low-wage industries share more than $1M in profit with their worker-owners and helping pass the California Employee Ownership Act. Hilary’s publications include Worker Cooperatives: Pathways to Scale, The Case for Employee Ownership and California Cooperatives. Hilary has been a fellow with Echoing Green, Common Future, and the Institute for the Study of EO at Rutgers University. She and her co-founder received the 2022 Heinz Award for the Economy.
Kai Hirabayahsi, Senior Manager of Public Policy, Amazon
Kai Hirabayashi, Senior Manager of Public Policy, Amazon. Kai is a Senior Manager for Public Policy at Amazon.com in Washington, D.C. As part of the government affairs team, Kai advocates for Amazon’s immigration policy priorities before Congress and the administration. Previously Kai advocated for Amazon’s labor and workforce policy.
Prior to Amazon, Kai was Senior Government Affairs Rep at Caterpillar, Inc. Kai also served as Labor Counsel for the Senate HELP Committee. He has also worked for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Kai graduated from American University Law School in Washington, D.C. with an LL.M. in Administrative and Regulatory Law. He earned his J.D. from Gonzaga Law School in Spokane, WA, and his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington in Seattle.
Marlena Sessions, Executive Director, NOVAworks
Marlena Sessions is Director of NOVAworks, the regional workforce development agency based in Sunnyvale, CA. Previously, she was Director of the San Bernardino County Workforce Development Department and the Senior Vice President at Grant Associates. After beginning her career in direct service, Marlena held several positions at the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County, culminating with her role as its Chief Executive Officer for nine years. Marlena holds a Bachelor’s from Whitworth University and a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University.
Taylor Maag, Director of Workforce Development Policy, Progressive Policy Institute
Taylor Maag is the Director of Workforce Development Policy at PPI. In this role, Taylor focuses on developing policy solutions that strengthen our nation’s workforce, ensuring employers have the talent they need to remain competitive and people have the skills and critical supports necessary to succeed in today and tomorrow’s economy.
Prior to joining PPI, Taylor worked at Jobs for the Future (JFF) where she assisted in the development and implementation of JFF’s federal and state policy agenda, focusing on workforce reform and innovation, access and affordability in postsecondary education and federal poverty alleviation policy. Additionally, Taylor led JFF’s congressional and workforce-related practitioner networks to ensure federal policymakers were staying connected with leaders implementing innovative and successful strategies on the ground. Taylor also has worked in direct service as a Therapeutic Behavioral Coach for New Alternatives, a non-profit in San Diego, CA. In this role she provided in-home coaching and support for clients ages 2-21 that