Michael Deegan-McCree is All Voting is Local’s Chief of Staff.

McCree is a Black civil rights and justice reform strategist who has spent his career expanding access to the democratic process and leading movements to secure freedom for those directly impacted by the criminal legal system. McCree believes that in order to fulfill the promise of the United States, we cannot just open the gates of opportunity to all Americans, but we must give those most impacted by the failures of our past the tools to walk through them.

He most recently worked as the senior impact strategist at the Last Prisoner Project, where he built their National Reentry Partnerships program to help those coming home from prison rebuild their lives. He also worked as the lead advocacy strategist for the Black Census & Redistricting Hub, expanding voting rights to disenfranchised communities in California.

From March 2019 to April 2021, he worked as the national partnerships coordinator at the Bail Project, fighting against pretrial incarceration and the cash bail system. McCree’s criminal justice work began at Dream Corps Justice in 2018, where he helped to lead the legislative campaign to pass the First Step Act through Congress.

He also worked for his hometown member of Congress, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and California State Senator Nancy Skinner. He was a New Leaders Council Fellow in 2020 in Los Angeles, California, and sits on the Washington, D.C., board.