Sandy Newman

Early life and education

Newman was born and raised in Washington, D.C and graduated from Walt Whitman High School. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in government from Wesleyan University in 1974 and a J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School. He is the son of a labor, civil rights and women's rights attorney Winn Newman and women’s rights advocate Elaine Newman, and became involved in civil rights advocacy as a teen.

Career

Following law school, Newman was a law clerk for Judge Jean S. Breitenstein on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He then conducted test case litigation for the Center for Law and Social Policy, aimed at increasing access to health care for the poor and minorities.

Project VOTE!

In 1982 Newman started Project VOTE!, a national non-profit focused on increasing voter registration among low-income and minority citizens. He was one of the first people to advocate providing voter registration services at government assistance agencies—an idea that became law in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. During his tenure, the volunteers recruited by Project VOTE! organizers registered over two million voters, including 563,000 in 1992. In that year, Newman hired Barack Obama to be Project VOTE’s Illinois State Director. Years later, Obama shared the story in a video aimed at motivating his presidential campaign’s volunteers to register voters.

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids

In 1995, Newman founded Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. The organization is a national non-profit focused on increasing public safety through public investments in programs proven to help children get a good start. It is made up of nearly 5,000 police chiefs, sheriffs, and elected prosecutors who advocate for programs such as early childhood education, child abuse prevention, prenatal care, and coaching for parents.

Voter engagement and civic participation consulting

In 2003, Newman became concerned that large-scale minority voter registration drives by non-profit, non-partisan organizations had not been conducted since 1994. He shifted to a part-time status at Fight Crime: Invest in Kids and began advising donors and non-profit organizations in an effort to spur larger minority voter registration drives. In 2004, over 1.4 million new voters were successfully added to the rolls by non-profit organizations. In 2005, Newman resigned from the presidency of Fight Crime: Invest-in-Kids and began full-time advising of donors. In 2008, non-profits successfully registered four million new voters.

Voices for Progress

In 2009, Newman founded Voices for Progress, which combines the strategy of grassroots organizing with the influence of leaders. Newman developed this organization to advocate for climate change regulation, education funding and economic opportunity, immigration reform, campaign finance reform, and other issues. Though he remains on its board, he stepped down as president in April, 2017, and was succeeded by Daniel Penchina.

"Catholic Spring"

In October 2016, WikiLeaks published an email Newman had sent to John Podesta in which discussed the possibility of a "Catholic Spring":

"This whole controversy with the bishops opposing contraceptive coverage . . . has me thinking . . . There needs to be a Catholic Spring [italics added], in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church . . .

Of course, this idea may just reveal my total lack of understanding of the Catholic church, the economic power it can bring to bear against nuns and priests who count on it for their maintenance, etc. Even if the idea isn't crazy, I don't qualify to be involved and I have not thought at all about how one would "plant the seeds of the revolution," or who would plant them. Just wondering . . ."