Schumer Announces Election Assistance Commission Nominees Thomas Hicks and Myrna Pérez Clear Senate Rules Committee

SCHUMER ANNOUNCES ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION NOMINEES THOMAS HICKS AND MYRNA PÉREZ CLEAR SENATE RULES COMMITTEE

WASHINGTON, DC-- U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, announced today that Thomas Hicks and Myrna Pérez, nominees to the Election Assistance Commission, have been reported out to the full Senate. Both nominees were reported out of the Rules Committee by voice vote on April 9, 2014. The nominees will now be placed on the Senate’s Executive Calendar. The Rules Committee held a hearing on the nominations of Thomas Hicks and Myrna Pérez on December 11, 2013.

Mr. Hicks is the Senior Elections Counsel on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration since 2003, where he oversees all Committee matters relating to Federal elections and campaign finance.  Prior to that, he was a Policy Analyst for Common Cause, a non-profit, public advocacy organization working in support of election and campaign finance reform.  He also previously served as a Special Assistant in the Office of Congressional Relations at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  He received his J.D. from the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, and his B.A. in Government from Clark University (Worcester, MA).

Ms. Pérez is currently an adjunct professor and the Director of the Voting Rights and Elections Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where she has worked and published on a variety of voting rights issues.  Previously, Ms. Pérez was the Civil Rights Fellow at Relman, Dane, and Colfax, a civil rights law firm in Washington, DC, and served as a policy analyst at the United States Government Accountability Office. Ms. Pérez is the recipient of several awards, including the Puerto Rican Bar Association Award for Excellence in Academia and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Excellence in Public Service and is a past Chair of the Election Law Committee of the City of New York Bar Association.  She clerked for Judge Anita B. Brody of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and for Judge Julio M. Fuentes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  Ms. Pérez holds a B.A. from Yale College, an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.