Contributor

Fred Wertheimer

President, Democracy 21

Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and promotes government integrity, accountability and transparency measures to accomplish its goals. Wertheimer has spent more than four decades working on democracy and governance issues, and is a recognized national leader and spokesman on money in politics issues, including campaign finance, ethics, lobbying and transparency reforms. He has been described by The New York Times as “the country’s leading proponent of campaign finance reform,” and “the dean of campaign finance reformers,” by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne as “the eminence grise of the campaign reform movement” and by The Boston Globe as a “legendary open-government activist.” A graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School, Wertheimer served from 1981 to 1995 as President of Common Cause, a nonpartisan citizens’ lobby.