Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Nicolas Heidorn '06
Nicolas Heidorn '06 is the founder of Heidorn Consulting, a firm that specializes in state and local policy and advocacy. He was formerly the policy director for California Common Cause, where he led the organization’s legislative advocacy in Sacramento. He was also the founder and director of the California Local Redistricting Project, which was a joint Common Cause-McGeorge School of Law effort to promote local redistricting best practices. With over a decade of experience advocating for voting and governance reforms, particularly in local government, Heidorn drafted Senate Bill 1108 (Allen, 2016), which for the first time authorized all California general law cities and counties to adopt independent citizens redistricting commissions. He has assisted several jurisdictions in setting up their own local commissions. Representing Common Cause, he was also part of the coalition that passed Assembly Bill 849 (Bonta, 2019), which adopted new criteria and public engagement requirements for city and county redistricting. 

Prior to joining Common Cause, Heidorn served as assistant general counsel at the California Environmental Protection Agency, a position he was appointed to by Governor Brown in 2013. Before that, he worked in the State Legislature for State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas and on the Proposition 11 campaign, which established California’s state Citizens Redistricting Commission. 

A former fellow with New America California, Heidorn received his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Ken Miller
Ken Miller is the Don H. and Edessa Rose Professor of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College and director of the Rose Institute of State and Local Government. Miller’s research focuses on state government institutions, with an emphasis on direct democracy and the interaction between law and politics. His publications include Texas vs. California: A History of Their Struggle for the Future of America (Oxford University Press, 2020), Direct Democracy and the Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2009), and co-edited volumes Parchment Barriers: Political Polarization and the Limits of Constitutional Order (University Press of Kansas, 2018) and The New Political Geography of California (Berkeley Public Policy Press, 2008). 

Miller was the Ann and Herbert Vaughan Fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University (2011-2012) and a visiting scholar at the John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University (2017-2018). 

Professor Miller and Mr. Heidorn's Athenaeum event is co-sponsored by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government.

Miller is a graduate of Pomona College, Harvard Law School, and University of California, Berkeley.