Julián Castro

Helen Gym

Seated in 2016, Councilmember Helen Gym is a longtime educator and community organizer and the first Asian American woman elected to Philadelphia City Council. In her first term, she led a schools agenda that championed the successful end of a state takeover of the Philadelphia school system, passed a tax on soda distributors to fund pre-K, and restored nurses, counselors, music programs and safe drinking water to every public school. She established the city’s first legal defense fund for renters facing eviction and introduced and passed the nation’s most expansive “Fair Workweek” law to give stable schedules and a path to full-time hours for 130,000 part-time workers. She is Vice Chair of Local Progress, a network of progressive municipal electeds, where she leads national efforts to support Sanctuary Cities, affordable housing, and public education.

Other sessions: Making Progressive Values a Winning Issue: SCOTUS, Public Education and Guns (Sponsored Panel)

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a current candidate for United States Congress for the 2018 midterm elections in New York’s 14th Congressional district.

Prior to her candidacy, Alexandria worked for the Foreign Affairs and Immigration office of the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, served as the National Hispanic Institute’s Social Entrepreneur in Residence, and founded Brook Avenue Press, a project to develop methods on parent-child literacy education. In the wake of the financial criss Alexandria spent time working in the NYC restaurant industry, which fueled her passion for working-class advocacy. Most recently she produced “The Road to,” a live web series documenting cross-country road trip visiting sites like Flint, MI; Standing Rock, and Women’s March DC.

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Rep. Tim Ryan

Mayor Randall Woodfin

Other sessions: Safeguarding Internet Freedom: Protecting Net Neutrality in the States

Bill de Blasio

Kevin de León

Kevin de León is President pro Tempore Emeritus of the California State Senate. The son of a single immigrant mother with a third grade education, he rose from San Diego’s Logan Heights barrio to lead the California State Senate, the first Latino to do so in over a century. As leader of the State Senate, he delivered landmark gun-safety legislation, clean-energy mandates, environmental protections, and immigration reform. He authored the “Sanctuary State Bill” Senate Bill 54, created the CalSavers retirement security program, reallocated $2 billion for supportive housing and wraparound services for individuals experiencing homeless and mental illness under his ballot initiative “No Place Like Home”, and wrote Senate Bill 100 which legally commits California to 100% clean energy by 2045. Before politics, Senator de León served the public as a community organizer, taught ESL and U.S.citizenship courses, and advocated for public schools. He graduated with honors from Pitzer College. The Senator is currently a professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a Distinguished Fellow at the USC Schwarzenegger Institute as well as a candidate for the Los Angeles City Council. He has one daughter and a dog, whose name is Popeye.

Other sessions: Organizing Around Jerry Brown's Legacy, the Global Climate McSummit

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