ISPS Director’s Fellow, Jared Milfred, Now Chairman of the City’s Democracy Fund

Jared Milfred is a junior at Yale and an ISPS Director’s Fellow in Domestic Policy. As a freshman at Yale, he founded Democracy United, a nonpartisan university student-run political advocacy organization which advocates for government transparency and election fairness. Before arriving at Yale, the Oregon native became the youngest licensed nuclear reactor operator at age 17.

He spends his spare time volunteering as an EMT in New Haven.

To add to the list of early accomplishments, Milfred now holds the honor of being the youngest chairman of the Democracy Fund for the City of New Haven. The Democracy Fund is New Haven’s public finance program, approved in 2007 by the state Elections Enforcement Commission. As part of the Clean Elections movement, mayoral candidates can opt into the program, which offers matching public money for candidates who agree to cap individual donations at $370. It is open to non-incumbent as well as incumbent candidates, and has been used by both, but is meant to allow people to run for the mayor’s office who are not well-financed.

In an article in the New Haven Register, Milfred is quoted as saying about the Democracy Fund, “the mission is to provide more clout for individuals who can only afford to donate modest sums of money.” On the national campaign front, Milfred says that he would like the Electoral College “ditched,” and supports the movement for presidential elections being based on the popular vote.

Read more about Jared Milfred in New Haven Register and WTNH