Josh Silver

Josh Silver (born April 16, 1968) is an American nonprofit executive and political consultant who is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of RepresentUs, a post-partisan, nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to build the movement that fixes America's corrupt political system. Silver formerly worked as CEO and co-founder of Free Press, an "activist group that promotes accountability journalism and Internet openness". He was the director of development for a cultural arm of the Smithsonian Institution, and was the campaign manager of the successful 1998 "Clean Elections" ballot measure in Arizona. He has published on democracy, media, telecommunications, campaign finance and a range of other public policy issues. Silver has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal. Early life and education Silver was born in New York City and grew up in Ashfield and Shelburne, Massachusetts. His mother, Genie Zeiger, an essayist, poet, and creative writing teacher, died in 2009. His father, Carl Silver, is a clinical psychologist in Western Massachusetts. Silver has one sister. In 1995, he was on a river trip in Peru with a friend, Patchen Miller, when they were ambushed and shot; Silver was seriously wounded but survived; Miller did not. Silver attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington and The University of Grenoble in France.