Spencer Overton
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Spencer Overton is a law professor at The George Washington University Law School and a leading election law scholar.
Overton is the author of Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression (Norton, 2006), a book describing the way that politicians manipulate election laws to their advantage while diluting the value of the average American’s vote.
Overton served as a commissioner on the Jimmy Carter-James Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform from May to September of 2005 and dissented from the commission’s recommendation for a photo identification requirement to vote.
Overton also served on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Commission on Presidential Nomination Scheduling and Timing in Washington, DC from February to December 2005, where he led an effort to encourage Iowa to restore voting rights to citizens who had completed their sentences. In July 2005, Governor Tom Vilsack restored voting rights to 98,000 Iowans who had completed their sentences.
In 2005, Overton co-founded (with Professor Paul Butler) one of the leading African-American weblogs, Blackprof.com.
Overton has served on the National Governing Board of Common Cause in Washington, DC since March 2003, and in 2006 became chair of the board’s policy committee. He also serves on the governance committee of that group. Overton is also on the board of DEMOS and the Center for Responsive Politics.
Overton is a frequent media commentator and has appeared on various shows and networks [1].
Overton’s academic writings have appeared in prestigious law periodicals throughout the country including University of Michigan Law Review (forthcoming), University of Pennsylvania Law Review, University of California Los Angeles Law Review, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Election Law Journal, Vanderbilt Law Review, Florida State Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, Texas Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review. He is an Editorial Board member of the Election Law Journal in Los Angeles, California.
Overton’s achievements have earned him several awards including the Diverse Issues in Higher Education Magazine Emerging Scholars Award in January 2006, which recognizes ten emerging scholars in America, and the American Association of Law Schools’ Minority Section’s Derrick Bell Award, for its “most promising junior faculty member,” in 2004. In 2003 Overton was recognized in Black Enterprise Magazine as one of nine people who “may conceivably end up leading a major black empowerment organization.”
Overton received Bachelor of Arts in 1990 from Hampton University, graduating summa cum laude with a major in mass media and journalism. He received his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1993, graduating cum laude.
From 1993 to 1994, Overton worked as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Damon J. Keith at the U.S. Court Of Appeals, Sixth Circuit in Detroit, Michigan. From 1994 to 1996, he practiced law at Dickinson, Wright, Moon, Van Dusen & Freeman in Detroit, Michigan, and from 1997 to 2000, he practiced at Debevoise & Plimpton, in Washington, DC. Overton is admitted to the Maryland, Michigan, and Washington, DC bars.
Overton became interested in election law when he served as counsel to the NAACP Legal Redress Committee. He drafted legal memoranda and testified before the Judiciary Committees of the Michigan Senate and House of Representatives regarding the application of the Voting Rights Act to the proposed merger of Detroit Recorder’s Court with Wayne County Circuit Court. His interest deepened when, as a lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton, he represented the DNC in the Lincoln Bedroom/White House Coffee campaign finance investigations by Congress and the Justice Department.
From 1999 to 2000, Overton was a Charles Hamilton Houston Fellow at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he wrote Mistaken Identity: Unveiling the Property Characteristics of Political Money, an article analyzing property theories and campaign finance law.
From 2000 to 2002, Overton taught law at the University Of California, King Hall School Of Law in Davis, California. He is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and currently resides in the Washington DC area.
