Ann M. O'Leary

Ann M. O'Leary is a lawyer, nonprofit leader, and a senior policy advisor in Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential Campaign.^[2] O'Leary is a nationally recognized expert in developing polices that promote early childhood education and labor protections for working families. Until April 2015, she was vice president and director of the Children and Families program at Next Generation^[3] and a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress. At Next Generation she was the founding director of Too Small to Fail, a national initiative aimed at closing the "word gap" in vocabulary development in young children, which leads to lifelong disparities in education and health. Along with Christopher Edley, she is a cofounder of the Opportunity Institute, a nonprofit startup dedicated to advancing opportunities for children and families. Previously, O'Leary served as founding executive director of the University of California, Berkeley, Law School's Center on Health, Economic & Family Security Program. O'Leary also taught classes at UC Berkeley Law on health law, social policy and education law as a lecturer-in-residence.^[4] Prior to her career at Berkeley, O'Leary served as a deputy city attorney for the City of San Francisco, where she provided counsel to the Department of Elections and the Ethics Commission and served on the City Attorney's Affirmative Action Litigation Task Force. In her role as deputy city attorney, O'Leary was a leader in developing the concept for a suit against payday lenders throughout California to combat predatory lending practices. The suit resulted in a $7.5 million settlement enabling the City Attorney to provide repayments to low-income individuals.^[5] O'Leary also argued Committee on Jobs v. Herrera, unsuccessfully fighting to uphold the constitutionality of San Francisco's contribution limits for political committees that make independent expenditures. O'Leary also clerked on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for Judge John T. Noonan, Jr.

Early life and education

O'Leary was born and raised in Orono, Maine. She is the daughter of the late Charles 'Chick' O'Leary, who was a prominent union leader, and Pamela Braley O'Leary, a social worker.^[6] After graduating from Orono High School in 1989, O'Leary earned a B.A. in Critical Social Thought from Mount Holyoke College in 1993. O'Leary earned an M.A. from the Stanford University School of Education in 1997 and her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2005.

Personal

O'Leary is a long distance runner.^[7] O'Leary is married to California Supreme Court Associate Justice Goodwin Liu. O'Leary and her husband have two children: a daughter, Violet, and a son, Emmett.^[8] On August 30, 2016 O'Leary and Liu announced in a joint statement that they were separating.

Career

From 2001 to 2003, O'Leary served as legislative director for Senator Hillary Clinton. As legislative advisor, O'Leary oversaw the Senator's work on the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, and the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. She also served as a liaison for the victims of 9/11 who sought congressional action on a range of issues. Prior to that, O'Leary served in a number of positions in the Clinton Administration, including as special assistant to the President in the Domestic Policy Council,^[9] policy advisor to the First Lady, and senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Education.

In April 10, 2014, the William J. Clinton Library released documents written by O'Leary during her tenure as a liaison between the Hillary Clinton's office and President Bill Clinton's policy staff. In her August 2000 memo to Clinton Domestic Policy Adviser Bruce Reed, O'Leary pushed for government-wide vetting of an executive order to ban federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and argued that such a directive could be modeled on a 1941 order by President Franklin Roosevelt that banned racial discrimination by contractors.^[10]

Selected Publications

• O'Leary, Ann. 2014. "Marriage, Motherhood and Men.^[11]" In The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink. Washington: Center for American Progress.

• Boushey, Heather, Ann O'Leary, and Alexandra Mitukiewicz. 2013. "The Economic Benefits of Family and Medical Leave Insurance.^[12]" Washington: Center for American Progress.

• Hacker, Jacob S., and Ann O'Leary (eds.). 2012. Shared Responsibility, Shared Risk: Government, Markets and U.S. Social Policy in the Twenty-First Century.^[13] Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Boushey, Heather, Ann O'Leary, and Sarah Jane Glynn. 2013. "An Updated National Agenda for Work and Family Policies.^[14]" Washington: Center for American Progress.

• O'Leary, Ann, Matt Chayt, and Eve Weissman. 2012. "Social Security Cares: Why America Is Ready for Paid Family and Medical Leave.^[15]" Washington: Center for American Progress.

• O'Leary, Ann. 2012. "Protecting Workers and Their Families with Paid Family Leave and Caregiving.^[16]" Washington: Center for American Progress.

• Cooper, Donna, Adam Hersh, and Ann O'Leary. 2012. "The Competition That Really Matters: Comparing U.S., Chinese and Indian Investments in the Next Generation Workforce.^[17]" Washington: Center for American Progress.

• Berkeley Center for Health, Economic and Family Security and Georgetown Law's Workplace Flexibility 2010, "Family Security Insurance: A New Blueprint for Economic Security."^[18]

• O'Leary, Ann, 2010. "The Power to Act: There is well-established legal authority for much stronger presidential action to promote good jobs." The American Prospect.^[19]

• Boushey, Heather, and Ann O'Leary (eds.). 2009. The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation.^[20] New York: Simon & Schuster.

Professional Service

O'Leary currently sits on the board for public radio station KQED and the East Bay Community Law Center. O'Leary previously served on the Board of Public Advocates in San Francisco. She was a volunteer policy advisor to the 2008 Hillary Clinton for President campaign on issues related to children and working families. She advised the Obama-Biden Transition Team on early childhood education issues.

Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign 2016

On April 14, 2015, Hillary Clinton named O'Leary as one of her Senior Policy Advisors.^[21] Elle Magazine recognized her as one of "The Nerds" on Hillary Clinton's Girl Squad.^[22] In September, POLITICO named O'Leary to its POLITCO 50 list of thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2015.^[23]

References