WASHINGTON – Immediately after officially announcing his new run for the 2020 American presidency, the US Senator Bernie Sanders has named Faiz Shakir, a prominent Muslim civil rights lawyer, to lead his effort, in a first for a major American presidential bid, Anadolu Agency reported.
Shakir was named a campaign manager by the independent senator. He’s a Harvard University graduate and former national political director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Before the ACLU, the 39-year-old Pakistani origin was a senior adviser to the then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and also advised Nancy Pelosi, the current House majority leader.
During seven years at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based liberal think tank, he spearheaded an anti-Islamophobia campaign which produced a report, “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.”
Shakir was also the editor and founding member of ThinkProgress website during the Bush and Obama administrations. He’s known for having a firm argument that court debt shouldn’t lead to people losing their jobs.
Sanders, a strong spoiler ahead of Hillary Clinton’s Democratic nomination for president in 2016, joins a crowded field of hopefuls for the 2020 Democratic nod. Though an independent, progressive Sanders caucuses with the Democrats.
The 2020 American presidential election, scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, 2020, will be the 59th quadrennial vote.
Americans will select presidential electors who in turn will either elect a new president and vice president through the Electoral College or reelect the incumbents.
The series of presidential primary elections and caucuses are likely to be held during the first six months of 2020. This nominating process is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots selecting a slate of delegates to a political party’s nominating convention, who then, in turn, elect their party’s presidential nominee.
President Donald Trump of the Republican Party, who was elected in 2016, is seeking reelection to a second term. The winner of the 2020 presidential election is scheduled to be inaugurated on January 20, 2021.