What to know about the

Newsom recall effort

Monday, May 17th at 7:00 pm

Zoom link

Meeting ID: 960 4055 7735, Passcode: 507049

Join the Silicon Valley Democratic Club and Bay Area Iranian-American Democrats to discuss the Newsom recall effort. Our guest speakers are Brandon V. Stracener, Senior Research Fellow for the California Constitution Center at UC Berkeley School of Law and Bill James, Chair of the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee. The event will be moderated by Helen Chapman, AD28 Delegate and Secretary of the Santa Clara County Central Committee. You can read some of Brandon's writing on the recall here.

Meeting agenda here

About our speaker, Brandon V. Stracener

Brandon is a Senior Research Fellow for the California Constitution Center at UC Berkeley School of Law. He writes on constitutional issues, especially issues involving the California Constitution, and California courts. Brandon has also published on issues involving the U.S. Constitution and attempts at constitutional reform in Iceland. Brandon is at times a Lecturer at Berkeley Law on Advanced Legal Writing and is an attorney in private practice. Part of his passion for constitutional law and the courts derives from clerking for the Honorable Kimberly J. Mueller, District Judge at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, and the Honorable Lucy H. Koh, District Judge at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. While in law school, he externed for the Honorable Consuelo María Callahan, Circuit Judge at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Honorable Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California. These experiences sparked Brandon's interest in the approaches of different court systems and different underlying foundational law. His law school work included leading a student team comprising Berkeley Law and UC Davis Law students in revising California’s Political Reform Act.

Brandon received his JD from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and his BA in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley.

About our speaker, Bill James

Bill James is Chair of the Santa Clara County Democratic Party. Bill has been active in the local Democratic Party for more than 25 years, and he has been Chair for the past 4 years.  He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and served in the Navy until 1991, including a two and a half year tour on a ship based in Yokosuka, Japan.  His Navy service brought him to California, where he settled after leaving the service.  Bill attended Stanford Law School and works as a patent lawyer.  Bill and his wife met in law school.  They lived together in Mexico City for an academic year under a Fulbright Scholarship.  He is the father of three teenagers.

About our moderator, Helen Chapman

Helen’s dedication to improving and serving the community spans decades. She has served on the board for Green Foothills, San José Parks Commission, and co-founded the San José Parks Foundation. Currently she is a Director for the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority for Area 3, serves as Secretary of the Lincoln High School Foundation Board and is President of Shasta/Hanchett Park Neighborhood. She was just recently was recognized as one the 2020 Women of Influence by the San Jose Business Journal and was also named Assembly District 28 Women of the Year in 2017.

Helen is also the Secretary for the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee and elected delegate for Assembly District 28, as well as a member of DAWN, and the Silicon Valley Democratic Club.

She works as a Policy and Legislative Advisor for Councilmember Sergio Jimenez, District 2 specializing in Housing and Environmental Policy.

In her free time, she enjoys hiking, gardening, and spending time with her grandson.