Full Participation: Making Every Voice Count

Description

Associated Program:
John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum
Speakers:
Eric Holder
Douglas Elmendorf
Archon Fung
Co-Sponsors:
Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation

The 2018 Godkin Lecture
A Conversation with
Eric Holder
Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice (2009-2015)
Partner, Covington & Burling (2001-2009, 2015-present)
Archon Fung (Moderator)
Academic Dean and Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government, HKS
Co-Director, Transparency Policy Project, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, HKS

Introductory Remarks by
Douglas Elmendorf
Dean and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

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Eric Holder advises clients on complex investigations and litigation matters, including those that are international in scope and involve significant regulatory enforcement issues and substantial reputational concerns. Mr. Holder, who was a partner at Covington from 2001 to 2009, rejoined the firm after serving for six years as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States.
Before his service as Attorney General, Mr. Holder maintained a wide-ranging investigations and litigation practice at Covington. Among numerous significant engagements, he led the firm’s representation of a major multi-national agricultural company in related civil, criminal, and investigative matters; acted as counsel to a special investigative committee of the board of directors of a Fortune 50 technology company; successfully tried a complex discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a leading financial services company; and represented several life sciences companies in litigation and investigations.
Mr. Holder served as Attorney General from February 2009 to April 2015. As the third longest serving Attorney General in U.S. history and the first African American to hold that office, Mr. Holder is an internationally recognized leader across a broad range of regulatory enforcement, criminal justice, and national security issues. In 2014, Time magazine named Mr. Holder to its list of 100 Most Influential People, noting that he had “worked tirelessly to ensure equal justice.”
Including his tenure as Attorney General, Mr. Holder has served in government for more than thirty years, having been appointed to various positions requiring U.S. Senate confirmation by Presidents Obama, Clinton and Reagan.

Archon Fung is the Academic Dean and Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance. He focuses upon public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He co-directs the Transparency Policy Project and leads democratic governance programs of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Kennedy School. His books include Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency (Cambridge University Press, with Mary Graham and David Weil) and Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy (Princeton University Press). He has authored five books, four edited collections, and over fifty articles appearing in professional journals. He received two S.B.s — in philosophy and physics — and his Ph.D. in political science from MIT.

Douglas W. Elmendorf is Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he also serves as the Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy.
Doug Elmendorf served as the director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 2009 through March 2015. Prior to joining CBO, he was at Brookings, where he was a senior fellow, the Edward M. Bernstein Scholar, and the director of The Hamilton Project. He was previously an assistant professor at Harvard University, a principal analyst at CBO, a senior economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department, and an assistant director of the Division of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board. In those positions, he worked on budget policy, health care issues, the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy, Social Security, income security programs, financial markets, macroeconomic analysis and forecasting, and other topics.
Doug Elmendorf earned his Ph.D. and A.M. in economics from Harvard University, where he was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow, and his A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University.