JOIN US! ¡ACOMPAÑENOS!
VOTING RIGHTS
DERECHOS DE VOTO
COMMUNITY MEETING – REUNIÓN COMUNITARIA
PRESENTER: MOLLY P. MATTER, ESQ.
HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY
DEFENSA DE LOS DERERCHOS HUMANOS
Molly P. Matter is Chair of the Civil Rights Law Section of the Washington State Bar Association and solo practitioner at Amend Law LLC, a human rights and voting rights law firm. Between 2011-2018, Ms. Matter worked with renowned national voting rights leader, Joaquin G. Avila, at the National Voting Rights Advocacy Initiative housed at Seattle University School of Law. At the age of fifteen, Ms. Matter served on the Tacoma Human Rights Commission and asked city council to allow youth commissioners the right to vote. She has been a voting rights advocate ever since. In 2009, Ms. Matter testified to pass voting rights restoration legislation for formerly incarcerated in WA State. While in law school, Ms. Matter earned her black belt in Kajukenbo, gave birth to her daughter and interned with Washington State Supreme Court Justice, Steven González. In González’s chambers, Matter worked on the majority decision holding that child sex trafficking website Backpage.com was not entitled to immunity under the federal Communications Decency Act – the first state supreme court decision in the nation to rule in defense of children. In 2018, Ms. Matter volunteered with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, interviewing children detained and separated under the Zero Tolerance Policy. Matter’s scholarship focuses on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the right to vote. Ms. Matter is currently co-counsel in Higginson v Becerra (with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and Asian Americans Advancing Justice LA) defending the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA), the first state voting rights act drafted by Joaquin G. Avila. Ms. Matter enjoys speaking on the right to vote as an inherent human right, and as a mechanism of how we reach our full potential collectively.