Steven Carbó Email & Phone Number

Brooklyn, Ny

I work with private foundations and nonprofit organizations to expand voting rights, reform the criminal justice system, and advance social justice. My highly collaborative approach draws from finely honed skills in progressive policy change; a diverse and extensive national network of advocates, organizers, experts and policy makers; and a deep respect for community leadership and racial/ethnic inclusion. I have advised a multi-funder partnership on a set of expansive voting and elections practices and potential grantees that would increase voter registration opportunities and reduce polling place problems. I evaluated the efficacy of a proposed money and politics campaign, assessed the landscape of local of-color community leaders and organizations, and recommended grant recipients. And I undertook extensive research and drafted a detailed report on the impact of President Obama’s Presidential Commission on Election Administration in states around the country two years after issuance of the Commission’s report and recommendations.

Brooklyn, Ny

As lead staff and consultant on voting rights initiatives, I helped expand access to the vote for lower-income, of-color and immigrant communities in New York City and Phoenix, and laid the seeds for future success in Maryland and Hawaii.In New York City, I led a successful campaign with four partner organizations to restore a long-ignored voter registration mandate at 18 municipal agencies. We launched a field investigation of voter registration services provided at agency offices, recruiting and trainings a corps of volunteers to interview agency clients and frontline staff. I drafted a report that detailed our damning findings, summarizing them in an op-ed published by El Diario. The impact was far reaching. The city council enacted new legislation to strengthen the original voter registration mandate, and the mayor issued a clear directive to bring municipal agencies into compliance with the law. We worked with city officials to design an effective voter registration program. I also developed a model high school voter registration program in Phoenix, AZ, based on my research of effective initiatives around the country. I then worked with local Latino advocates in a successful effort to have the model adopted by the Phoenix United School District. It promises to facilitate future youth engagement by the city's overwhelming of-color student population. My work also extended to the re-enfranchisement of formerly incarcerated individuals in Maryland. I helped organize a legislative campaign to restore the vote to 40,000 probationers and parolees -- recruiting national support for in-state efforts, undertaking research, drafting fact sheets and talking points, and advising on model legislation and legislative strategy. Maryland ultimately restored the vote to probationers and parolees in February 2016.Finally, I co-developed for Hawaii policy makers and advocates an automatic voter registration proposal, the Holy Grail of registration reforms.

New York, Ny

I joined Demos at its inception in 2000 and launched the Democracy Program to advance progressive policy changes that would expand access to the vote, particularly for lower-income, of-color citizens and youth. I take great pride in having helped build a strong national community of voter advocates and fostering effective collaborations with state groups that remedied some of the most undemocratic practices brought to light in the 2000 election debacle. As Director, I was also able to assemble and manage a highly skilled team at Demos that greatly expanded the capacity and resources of state-based reform campaigns.These efforts paid off. Working with advocates, organizers, policy makers, elections officials and academics, we helped enact Same Day Registration (SDR) in five states and the District of Columbia. With SDR, any eligible citizen who had missed a state's early voter registration deadline or whose name had been improperly stricken from the voter rolls could still register to vote on Election Day and cast a ballot that would be counted. We put Same Day Registration on the map as a widely recognized, effective means of broadening electoral participation.I also helped raise public awareness of the extremely undemocratic practice of felon disenfranchisement. Co-leading a multi-year collaboration between national and state advocates and organizers, we helped overturn voting restrictions in Maryland and set the stage for further advances in several other states.I also advanced several important redistricting reform initiatives. Most significantly, I helped overturn New York’s long-standing and anti-democratic practice of counting incarcerated persons as residents of prison communities for purposes of drawing local legislative districts. I also co-authored a 2006 report analyzing California redistricting reform proposals, and led a staff inquiry into the results achieved by independent state redistricting commissions.

New York, Ny

Public health experts have raised alarms about the health risks associated with indoor pesticide usage. Many of the most common brands contain neurotoxins that are injurious to humans, particularly children. San Francisco and other cities have banned their usage in public buildings in favor of nontoxic alternatives. Working with the New York Public Interest Research Group, I helped spread awareness of the health risks associated with indoor pesticides in New York City's vast public housing system, and co-developed a proposed health study of these practices by epidemiologists and health experts at Queens College and the Mount Sinai Medical Center and local environmental advocates. Building on previous environmental justice experience in the South Bronx as Special Counsel to U.S. Rep. Jose Serranó, I also worked with the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance to help organize a statewide lobby for environmental justice ("EJ"). I identified EJ advocates working in African American, Latino and Native American communities around the state and organized the first statewide environmental justice conference. Those discussions resulted in a comprehensive environmental justice policy agenda aimed at state policy makers in Albany.The foundation community has at times turned to me as a knowledgeable resource in the voting rights and election reform arena, and contracted with me for peer view of foundation funding proposals.

Washington, Dc

As a legislative advocate in MALDEF’s Washington, DC office, I developed and advanced public policies for enhancing voting and language rights and expanding employment and educational opportunities for Latinos and other communities of color. My greatest achievement was in organizing a successful, multi-organizational campaign to reauthorize and expand bilingual voting provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act. With that policy change, many thousands of additional limited-English-proficient Latino, Asian American, Native American and Alaskan Native citizens have been able to exercise their fundamental right to vote.I also led a staff team that analyzed the potential impact of the then-proposed North American Free Trade Agreement on Latino workers and communities in the US. I drafted a comprehensive report and worked with my colleagues to recommend a policy position for MALDEF's Board of Directors. I also joined with colleagues at two other national Latino organizations to advocate for inclusion of safeguards and benefits for stateside Latino communities into the the treaty.

Juris Doctor (J.D.)

Bachelor Of Arts (Ba), Political Science, English