Marcia Johnson-Blanco Senior Counsel, Voting Rights Project As senior counsel of the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Ms. Johnson-Blanco is responsible for the Emerging Communities Initiative, a program to empower and assist the civic participation efforts of minorities living in communities experiencing dramatic demographic shifts.  She has also served as the deputy director of the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act organizing 10 hearings assessing the degree of discrimination in voting from 1982 to 2005.  Additionally, she has advocated for the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act and served on the legal team defending the constitutionality of the Act. Ms. Johnson-Blanco has served as counsel on amicus briefs before the State Supreme Courts in Michigan and Missouri in cases determining the constitutionality of Voter ID laws.  She has also served as counsel on the amicus brief before the United States Supreme Court in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. Before joining the Lawyers’ Committee in 2004, she served as the legislative representative for an independent labor union and spearheaded the legislative and voter education programs for several organizations dedicated to advocacy on behalf of Caribbean Americans.  Johnson-Blanco received her juris doctorate from Villanova Law School and a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from Georgetown University. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, was formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to involve the private bar in providing legal services to address racial discrimination. The principal mission of the Lawyers’ Committee is to secure, through the rule of law, equal justice under law, particularly in the areas of housing, community development, employment, voting, education and environmental justice.  For more information about the LCCRUL, visit www.lawyerscommittee.org. top back to Staff