Madeline Janis

Madeline Janis was appointed to the Board of Commissioners on September 13, 2002 [Download News Release]. She is co-founder and Executive Director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) a non-profit that works to improve the status of the working poor in L.A. County. Ms. Janis led the historic campaign to pass L.A.'s living wage ordinance, which has since become a national model. Over the past six years, she has provided training and assistance to living wage coalitions in more than 20 cities across the country.

Janis served as the executive director of the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN) from 1989 to 1993, where she helped lead a successful campaign to legalize and regulate the activities of the mostly Latino immigrant sidewalk vendors. During this time, she also headed efforts to combat civil rights abuses of Central American immigrants by the L.A. Police Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and helped tens of thousands of Central American immigrants achieve legal immigrant status.

Prior to her work at CARECEN, Ms. Janis, an attorney, represented tenants and homeless people in slum housing litigation, and advocated for homeless disabled people who had been denied government benefits. She also worked for two years at the law firm of Latham & Watkins on commercial litigation and land use matters, representing many large companies throughout Los Angeles. She received degrees from UCLA Law School and Amherst College in Massachusetts.