our team

  • Scott Fay, President

    SCOTT FAY was recently named one of Washington DC’s most influential people in Washingtonian Magazine. He brings more than two decades of senior-level policy, political, and advocacy experience to the fight for comprehensive democracy reform.

    Fay began his career working in the office of the late-Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), rising through the ranks to Senior Advisor and National Political Director—a position he held during Senator Kennedy’s consequential presidential endorsement of then-Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). Fay went on to serve as Chief of Staff to Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), lead House sponsor of the DISCLOSE Act to end dark money in politics.

    Fay was Executive Vice President at End Citizens United/Let America Vote where he designed and led ECU/LAV Action Fund’s multi-million dollar national campaign to enact the For the People/Freedom to Vote Act (H.R. 1/S. 1). Fay also helped implement ECU’s highly successful 2018 electoral program and served as its PAC Director. More recently, Fay was a Senior Fellow at Democracy 21, an organization founded by pro-democracy reform champion Fred Wertheimer.

    Previously, Fay served as Vice President at The Sheridan Group—a multi-client issue advocacy firm for high-performing, mission-driven organizations—where he advised some of the nation’s top nonprofit organizations like Bono’s ONE Campaign and the national service organization City Year on cutting-edge government affairs and advocacy strategies.

    Fay earned a Master’s degree in Public Communications from American University and a B.A. in Political Science from Boston University.

  • Reggie Babin, Senior Advisor

    REGGIE BABIN served for nearly a decade in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, most recently as the chief counsel to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY). Reggie’s experience includes working with industry, trade associations and coalitions, as well as state and local governments, and national and New York-based stakeholders and constituencies. He also co-managed a number of House caucuses, including Justice and Public Safety, Congressional Refinery and Congressional Maritime.

    In his role as chief counsel to Leader Schumer, Reggie engaged with senior staff in the Senate, House of Representatives, the White House and executive branch agencies. Reggie oversaw Sen. Schumer’s portfolio on issues including democracy reform and election administration, criminal justice and policing, human and civil rights, cannabis reform and drug enforcement, and gun safety. He also developed, coordinated and oversaw Senate Democratic Caucus strategy related to these issues.

    Prior to working with Sen. Schumer, Reggie served as the legislative director and, earlier, counsel to Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-LA). In his role, he managed a legislative portfolio including energy and the environment, intellectual property, judicial and legal reform, criminal justice and law enforcement, and human and civil rights.

    Before joining Rep. Richmond’s office, Reggie served as an associate counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight. He collaborated with senior staff to develop new legislation on government contracting oversight. He led an investigation into the lack of federal government oversight of U.S. infrastructure and assisted in conducting investigations and oversight hearings.

    Reggie is currently lobbying & public policy senior counsel at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where he was recently named to the National Bar Association’s 2023-2024 class of Top 40 Under 40.

  • Robby Mook, Senior Advisor

    Robby Mook, a CNN political commentator, is a nationally recognized campaign manager and strategist who ran the 2016 presidential campaign for Hillary Clinton.

    Mook’s successes include the 2013 election of Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe – the first time in 40 years that Virginians elected a governor from the same party as the sitting U.S President – and the 2008 election of Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire’s first woman Senator. He also was state director for Clinton’s 2008 presidential primary campaign in three states where she defeated Barack Obama in the primaries. In 2012, he served as Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

  • Sam Jones, Director of Policy and Research

    SAM JONES brings over a decade of experience working on elections, voting rights, campaign finance and democracy reform issues, specializing in research and strategic analysis for policy change and grassroots organizing.

    Jones worked for over five years at End Citizens United // Let America Vote, helping create and build out the organization's research department, and, most recently, serving as the Policy Director for the organization's Action Fund. In this role, Jones helped lead ECU//LAV's national campaign to pass the most significant anti-corruption and voting rights federal bill in generations. Prior to joining ECU, Jones worked at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission as well as performed political and campaign research at both the national and local levels, including working at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and on various U.S. Senate campaigns.

    Jones received an M.P.A. and Bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and continues to be a diehard Trojans fan.

our Board

  • Patti Solis Doyle, Chair

    Patti Solis Doyle is a veteran political advisor and commentator, with more than 30 years of experience in politics, presidential campaigns, and public service.

    Patti joined the Brunswick Group’s Washington, DC office in October 2019 as a Partner and Head of the U.S. Public Affairs offer. Patti advises clients on a range of critical issues with an emphasis on public affairs, politics, regulatory and communications.

    She previously served as an advisor to the Obama-Biden presidential campaign during the 2012 presidential election, and during the 2008 general election she was chief of staff for vice presidential operations. In that role, she built a national team of policy, communications, and political advisors before the nominee’s selection, and later managed day-to-day operations for vice presidential nominee Joe Biden.

    She was the campaign manager for Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid in 2007-2008 and managed her Senate re-election campaign before that. She also served as chief of staff to the First Lady’s first Senate campaign. Before that, she served as a senior advisor to Hillary Clinton throughout Governor Bill Clinton’s campaign and two terms in the White House.

    Patti was also the co-founder of a financial services firm, VAP Financial, and prior to that, partner in Utrecht & Phillips, a strategic advisory firm to Fortune 100 firms, non-profits, and local governments from 2009 to 2012.

    Patti is also a CNN political commentator.

    She is a graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Il.

  • Tom Sheridan

    Tom Sheridan is described as a “powerbroker for those without a voice.” A social worker by training and an advocate by trade, Tom brings a unique perspective to his work as one of Washington’s most senior political and public policy strategists. Tom is known on Capitol Hill and in the West Wing for using his deep understanding of the political process and decades-long relationships with senior Members of Congress and top Administration officials to help organizations achieve scalable, positive social change.

    From designing and leading the country’s most well-known issue campaigns, including his work for Bono’s ONE Campaign to create PEPFAR and his more recent role as lead strategist in Save the Children’s effort to form a new 501(c)(4) political arm, Tom is a seasoned operative who brings a unique approach to advocacy. This senior-level experience helping top-notch organizations achieve success makes Tom a highly sought-after political tactician for organizations determined to challenge the status quo and create meaningful change in our country and around the world.

    In 1991, Tom founded The Sheridan Group where he and his team work to craft effective strategies for socially responsible public policy initiatives to “help the good do better.” Over the years, The Sheridan Group has become the go-to firm in the nation’s capital for grassroots advocacy, issue campaign management and coalition-building for non-profit organizations, social entrepreneurs and socially conscious corporations.

    Tom began his career at the National Association of Social Workers and the Child Welfare League before joining the AIDS Action Council in the late 1980s, where he became the chief architect and strategist behind the enactment of the Ryan White CARE Act, landmark legislation for the HIV/AIDS community, as well as the lead lobbyist for the historic Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

  • Fred Wertheimer

    Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and promotes government integrity, accountability and transparency measures to accomplish its goals.

    Wertheimer has spent more than four decades working on democracy and governance issues, and is a recognized national leader and spokesman on money in politics issues, including campaign finance, ethics, lobbying and transparency reforms.

    He has been described by The New York Times as “the country’s leading proponent of campaign finance reform,” and “the dean of campaign finance reformers,” by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne as “the eminence grise of the campaign reform movement” and by The Boston Globe as a “legendary open-government activist.”

    The Washington Post said “Democracy 21 is one of Washington’s foremost watchdog groups.”

    Wertheimer was named as one of Washington’s 90 greatest lawyers of the last 30 years by Legal Times in 2008 and as one of Washington’s top lobbyists for several years by The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper.

    A graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School, Wertheimer served from 1981 to 1995 as President of Common Cause, a nonpartisan citizens’ lobby. He served in 1996 as a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and in 1997 as the J. Skelly Wright Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School. Wertheimer also has served as a political analyst and consultant for CBS News, ABC News and ABC’s Nightline.