In early 1999, as a third-year law student, I had a conversation one day with a friend about an idea that seemed like a great concept on paper but that could never actually happen in the real world—automatic voter registration. That spring, I published my Note on the issue. Jason P.W. Halperin, Note, A Winner at The Polls: A Proposal for Mandatory Voter Registration, 3 NYU J. Legis. Pub. Policy 69-123 (1999).

Twenty-one years later, that friend of mine—Michael Gianaris—has risen to the position of Deputy Majority Leader of the New York State Senate, the number-two ranking Democrat in the Legislature's upper body. And when automatic voter registration (AVR) was passed by the Legislature in late July, Senator Gianaris justifiably deserved to take a big bow.