Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. He is the founder of Creative Commons and of Equal Citizens. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.
Eric Emerson Schmidt is an American businessman and former computer engineer who was the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011 and the company's executive chairman from 2011 to 2015. He also was the executive chairman of parent company Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2017, and technical advisor at Alphabet from 2017 to 2020. In November 2024, he was 48th richest according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index with an estimated net worth of US$35.4 billion.
John David Podesta Jr. is an American political consultant who has been serving as Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy since 2024, having previously served as the Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation from 2022 to 2024. Podesta previously served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001 and counselor to President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2015. Before that, he served in the Clinton administration as White House staff secretary from 1993 to 1995 and White House deputy chief of staff for operations from 1997 to 1998.
Margaret M. LaMontagne Spellings is an American government and non-profit executive who serves as president and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center. She previously served as the eighth United States secretary of education from 2005 to 2009. After leaving the government, Spellings served as president of the University of North Carolina System, overseeing the seventeen campus system from 2016 to 2019. She then served as president and CEO of Texas 2036 from 2019 to 2023.
Brian L. Roberts is an American billionaire businessman, and the chairman and CEO of Comcast, an American company providing cable, entertainment, and communications products and services which was founded by his father, Ralph J. Roberts.
The Clinton Foundation is a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. It was established by former president of the United States Bill Clinton with the stated mission to "strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence." Its offices are located in New York City and Little Rock, Arkansas.
The Sunlight Foundation was an American 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocated for open government. The organization was founded in April 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in the United States Congress, the executive branch, and in state and local governments. The foundation's primary focus was the role of money in politics. The organization sought to increase campaign finance regulations and disclosure requirements. The Sunlight Foundation ceased operations in September 2020.
The Democracy Alliance is a network of progressive megadonors who coordinate their political donations to groups that the Alliance has endorsed. Since its founding in 2005, the Democracy Alliance has given more than $1 billion to liberal organizations and political campaigns. According to The New York Times, the group "channels money from megadonors, whom the group keeps anonymous, to organizations it believes will advance a progressive agenda." It has been described by Politico as "the country's most powerful liberal donor club".
American Crossroads is a US Super PAC that raises funds from donors to advocate for certain candidates of the Republican Party. It has pioneered many of the new methods of fundraising opened up by the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. Its president is Steven J. Law, a former United States Deputy Secretary of Labor for President George W. Bush and the Chairman of the Board of Directors is former Republican National Committee chairman Mike Duncan. Advisers to the group include Senior Advisor and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.
Geeta Nargund is a professor and medical doctor in the field of natural and mild IVF and Advanced Technology in Reproductive Medicine.
The Business Council is a nonpartisan organization of business leaders headquartered in Washington, D.C. It holds meetings several times a year for high-level policy discussions.
Antony P. Ressler is an American billionaire businessman. He co-founded the private equity firms Apollo Global Management in 1990, and Ares Management in 1997. As of May 2024, his net worth was estimated by Forbes at $11.3 billion.
The 2017 Virginia gubernatorial election was held on November 7, 2017. Incumbent Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe was unable to run for re-election, as the Constitution of Virginia prohibits the officeholder from serving consecutive terms; he later ran unsuccessfully for a second term in 2021.
This is a list of endorsements for declared candidates for the Democratic primaries for the 2016 United States presidential election.
The 2016 presidential campaign of Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Harvard University and cofounder of Creative Commons, was formally announced on September 6, 2015, as Lessig confirmed his intentions to run for the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States in 2016. Lessig had promised to run if his exploratory committee raised $1 million by Labor Day, which it accomplished one day early. He described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation.
