Dan Schnur

Director, Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics

Dan Schnur is the Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. He is also the founder and Director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll series.�In 2010, Dan was appointed Chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). During his tenure, he implemented groundbreaking campaign finance disclosure requirements for independent committees. Dan also was a founder and co-chairman of the Voices of Reform project, the bi-partisan statewide effort whose work laid the foundation for California’s landmark redistricting reform.In 2014, Dan ran for statewide office as a non-partisan candidate for California Secretary of State.Dan is an Adjunct Instructor at the University of California at Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and has taught at the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics at Harvard University and George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.Dan has worked on four presidential and three gubernatorial campaigns as one of California’s leading political strategists. He served as the national Director of Communications for the 2000 presidential campaign of U.S. Senator John McCain and was the chief media spokesman for California Governor Pete Wilson.��Dan has been an advisor to the William & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Broad Education Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the James Irvine Foundation, the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stuart Foundation on a variety of K-12 education and college and workforce preparedness efforts.