About

Represent California

Mission

Represent Cal is a new campaign for a stronger, inclusive, and responsive democracy in California. By organizing Californians to support an independent, representative, and people-led California constitutional convention, we aim to ensure Californians of all backgrounds and political stripes are invited to address our state’s challenges together.

Coordinating Committee

Leonora Camner

Leonora Camner is Executive Director of Abundant Housing LA, a pro-housing advocacy and outreach organization. As the first staff member in 2019, she successfully led the effort to advocate for the Coastal Plan at the Southern California Association of Governments. She is currently serving on the Santa Monica Housing Commission.

Outside of Abundant Housing LA, Leonora is a mom of two girls. Previously, she was an attorney working in the non-profit sector to defend tenants from eviction. Additionally, she worked for the No on Measure LV Campaign in Santa Monica against an extreme anti-development ballot measure. She graduated from the University of Texas School of Law. For undergraduate studies, she attended New York University.

Wayne Liebman

Wayne Liebman is a physician, playwright, and community organizer. In 2020, he founded Public Access Democracy to advocate for a democratic system more representative of, and responsive to, its citizens. Public Access Democracy seeks to invest political power in deliberative citizen groups chosen by lot -- just as juries are. As a result of Public Access Democracy’s advocacy efforts, the city of Petaluma, California, has convened the first municipal citizens’ assembly in the state, to recommend a plan for the future use of its municipal fairground--a contentious issue that had been plaguing the city for several years.

Mike Draskovic

Mike Draskovic is a media producer and advocate from Los Angeles, CA. He is the co-founder of the Democracy Policy Network, an interstate policy infrastructure for deepening democracy, and Los Angeles for Democracy Vouchers, a campaign for an open campaign finance system in LA. In 2015, he founded Ovrture, a digital content studio, where he produced content for MSNBC, A&E, and various YouTubers. He spent five years at The ONE Campaign, a global anti-poverty advocacy organization, where he managed creative policy campaigns. He was a 2017 New America California Fellow and is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Mike is a graduate of the University of Southern California, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Tieira Ryder

Tieira Ryder is an advocate based in California that is committed to the greater good of all of humanity, other species, and the Earth itself.

Andrew Lewis

Andrew Lewis is a Public Service professional based in Los Angeles. Lewis was born and raised in Westwood Village, CA where he currently serves as the Vice President of the North Westwood Neighborhood Council. Lewis enjoys advocating for local and State public policy, as well as walks in his neighborhood. He is a graduate of UCLA, where he studied Political Science. He is the son of a Peruvian Immigrant, and African-American father.

Wendy Willis

Wendy Willis is the founder and director of Oregon's Kitchen Table, a program of the National Policy Consensus Center in the the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University and the Executive Director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium. She is the co-author of the textbook, Collaborative Governance: Principles, Processes, and Practical Tools, as well as the author of a book of essays, and two books of poems. Her most recent two literary books, A Long Late Pledge and These are Strange Times, My Dear, were both finalists for the Oregon Book Award. She also writes a regular column for The Fulcrum called "Democracy Pie" on the intersection of democracy and day-to-day life.

Advisory Board

Annie Bickerton

Bickerton works with foundations, government, and nonprofits to design, replicate, and scale programs that increase opportunity and equity.

She currently serves as project director at a national policy organization where she leads participatory research and program evaluations for nonprofits and government agencies.

She is also a proud union organizer and serves as President of Social Policy Workers United, a local of AFSCME Council 57. In LA, she has co-led mutual aid organization Westside Friends, served as committee chair for the Mar Vista Community Council, and served as a board member for Heart of LA Democratic Club. Annie has a M.S. in Nonprofit Management from The New School and a B.A. in Government from Hamilton College.

Matt Horton

Matt Horton is a director at the Milken Institute’s Center for Regional Economics and California Center. In this capacity, he interacts with government officials, business leaders, and other key stakeholders in directing statewide programming and policy initiatives. Horton’s programmatic work at the Institute is focused on identifying a variety of financial tools, public policies, and collaborative models that leaders can deploy to increase investments in education, community development, housing, employment, and other areas supporting human capital and place-based economic development. Previously, Horton worked for the Southern California Association of Governments, the nation’s largest metropolitan planning organization. There, Horton served as the primary point of contact for external and government affairs, coordinating regional policy development with elected officials as well as subregional, state, and federal stakeholders in Los Angeles and Orange counties. In this role, he developed plans with leaders across Southern California to address growth, build resiliency, and improve quality of life

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Rahmin Sarabi

Rahmin Sarabi, Co-Founder & Director of The American Public Trust, is a collaborative entrepreneur, leader, and organizer with a 15+ year background in startups and not-for-profit organizations that serve collective wellbeing. He is a practitioner of human-centered design, product management, creative facilitation, and systems thinking, with experience catalyzing collaborative efforts across teams, organizations, and ecosystems. His diverse experience includes work to grow and sustain local food systems, bring out people’s fullest contributions through organizational development & strategy, and enable impact through transformative change networks.

His work in democracy innovation includes the Michigan Citizens’ Panel on COVID-19and the first-of-its-kind Fairgrounds Advisory Panel in Petaluma, CA. In the startup ecosystem, he was a key part of the early team at Good Eggs and also helped scale Opendoor.

He is an active consultant with a practice in strategic design and network innovation with client work that includes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Novo Foundation, and Democracy R&D Network.

He is a board member of the Co-Intelligence Institute.

Jeffrey Bell

Jeff has a deep technical understanding of battery materials and manufacturing processes stemming from 5 years of experience in R&D geared towards development and scale up of novel materials for next generation lithium-ion batteries. He received a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Riverside where he researched novel carbon, nickel oxide, silicon and sulfur nano-structures for applications in next generation lithium-ion batteries.

In his current role as Head of Full Cell Design/Integration at Lyten (Li-S). Jeff oversees a team of 13 people for the scale up of equipment & processes, cell analysis, and integration of new components (such as new binder formulations/materials).

In his spare time Jeff works on his youtube channel promoting battery industry knowledge while also looking for ways to improve his new home in Santa Monica.

Susan Nero

Susan Nero is Professor Emerita in Management from Antioch University where she was the founding chair of the MA program in Nonprofit Management. Susan has a PhD in Human Systems Development from the Graduate School of Management at UCLA, in the field of organization development. She has been a professional member of the National Training Laboratories, and has been a consultant to nonprofit, governmental, and for-profit organizations. Susan is currently a member of the Executive Service Corps of Southern California where she and other members of the Corps provide volunteer consulting and coaching services to nonprofit organizations.

Susan has volunteered at the SEVA Foundation, NARAL, Pro-Choice of California, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Los Angeles Garden Council. She has been vice chair of the board of Co-opportunity, the Santa Monica food cooperative, and she is currently volunteering with Housing Mar Vista, a community-based organization serving the local homeless population.

Susan’s professional practice has focused on adult education, conflict resolution, and team and community development.

Greg Bartlett

Greg Bartlett grew up in an activist household. Dad was an organizer for SEIU-1199 in the Bronx and Mom was a Labor lawyer. He remembers, as a teen, being one of a million who marched against nuclear armament in Manhattan and rode the bus with Vietnam Vets to DC to protest the reinstatement of draft registration in the early 1980s. After decades of hoping for populist change, dreaming of it with Barack Obama, Greg began working for progressive change as an activist and organizer, helping bring SoCalBlue.org a website to connect organizers and activists to life and working with local LA organizers with LA Forward.