Mariano-Florentino Cuellar

Mariano-Florentino Cuellar

2025 Washington China Forum

Mariano-Florentino Cuellar was listed as an attendee to the 2025 Washington China Forum, "a collaborative effort between the Council on Foreign Relations’ China Strategy Initiative and the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy’s 21st Century China Center.,

Obama forum

Students and community members came out en masse January 30 2008, for the "Faculty for Obama" forum held at Toyon Lounge. The talk featured candid policy discussions and a question and answer session with four presidential campaign advisors to Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). The speakers included Law Profs. Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Larry Marshall and William Gould, as well as Education Prof. Linda Darling-Hammond.

The event — hosted by Debashish Bakshi '08, head of the Stanford chapter of Students for Barack Obama — drew some one hundred fifty prospective voters, filling seats almost to capacity. The night was one of both impassioned political advocacy and thoughtful dialogue. as the four academics highlighted their involvement in the campaign and sought to distinguish Obama from his rival for the Democratic nomination. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). While all four professors gave specific examples of how the senators differ on critical issues, they often harked back to differences in philosophy and vision that, they said, were fundamental to the choice between the candidates.

Marshall, a national advocate for reform of the criminal justice system, recounted his own experience working with Obama in Illinois in 2001. It was a time, he said, when the long history of brutality and racism in the Chicago Police Department had created a crisis of inaction in the state legislature. Transformation of the justice system, it seemed, would not come through political avenues. But Obama changed that, Marshall said, by forming coalitions of people from across the political spectrum. "What we're talking about here with Senator Obama is an entirely different framework for what civility is in political discourse," Marshall said."We're talking about fundamental structural change; there's something different, there's something deep.

Cuellar, a veteran of the Clinton administration and a long-time Obama supporter, echoed Marshall's sentiments, declaring that this is the most important election with which he has ever been involved. Cuellar. who advises Obama on immigration reform, criminal justice and foreign policy lauded Obama's courage in addressing racial disparities in the criminal justice system and praised his principled stance on multi-lateralism. Obama. he said, was a man of moral conviction and integrity, neither swayed by the "political winds" nor immune to compromise.

Darling-Hammond gave a broad outline of Obama's platform for comprehensive education reform, citing his "equalize and invest" approach, emphasis on accountability and career ladder incentive program. She said that Obama's strategy mirrored programs in other academically successful nations and would do much to address educational inequities.

Gould, a professor emeritus who has previously campaigned for John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Bill Clinton, said he believes Obama's campaign to be of similar historical significance. Gould said he was attracted to Obama's positions on a broad array of issues, including labor reform, social security, regional trade and taxation. What appealed to him most, however, was Obama's drive to "overcome divisiveness on the basis of class and race, and to get us to work together as a country."

As the forum closed, supporters stood fit the end of the hall, distributing pledge cards in support of Obama. "At what point," demanded Marshall, "do we start voting our dreams?"

Tapped by Obama

With the presidential inauguration rapidly approaching. President-elect Barack Obama recruited a number of Stanford professors as advisers for his transition team. Among those selected advisers include Profs. Linda Darling-Hammond, Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Michael McFaul, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and Peter Blair Henry.

Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cnellar Another prominent player in the Obama Biden transition team is Prof. Cuellar, the Deane I. Johnson Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School. Cuellar will head the Immigration Policy Working Group along with T. Alexander Alcinikoff. Aleinikoff is currently dean of Georgetown University Law Center and executive vice president of Georgetown University. In an email to The Daily, Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer described Cuellar's work for the next two months. "As a member of the transition team, he is helping prepare legislative options, consulting with staff on Capitol Hill, analyzing possible regulatory and executive changes, and generally helping the new administration to deal with complicated immigration issues that affect the economy and national security." Kramer said. Advising for the (Obama campaign is not ("uellar's first foray into presidential politics. His past work includes a two-year stint at the U.S. Treasury Department in the Clinton administration. He served as senior advisor to the Undersecretary for Enforcement. and worked to combat money-laundering operations. As a full-time professor at Stanford. Cuellar specializes in administrative law and has considerable expertise on how organizations deal with complex problems in regulation, migration, interational security and criminal justice.