page_title: Rodney Ellis
section_title: Business career and personal
hierarchical_section_title: Rodney Ellis / Business career and personal
caption_attribution_description: English: Innocence Project founders Barry Scheck &amp; Peter Neufeld, executive director Madeline deLone, and board chair Senator Rodney Ellis
context_page_description: Rodney Glenn Ellis is an American politician. He represented Texas' 13th state senate district in the Texas Senate from 1990 to 2017. The district contains portions of Harris County, including downtown Houston, and Fort Bend County. He is a member of the Democratic Party. On June 25, 2016, Ellis won the Democratic Party's nomination for Harris County Commissioners Court Precinct 1. He was elected county commissioner on November 8, 2016 and sworn into office on January 1, 2017.
  Ellis was elected to the Texas Senate on February 13, 1990, and sworn into office on February 27, 1990. In his 26-year tenure, Ellis passed 700 pieces of legislation and earned praise for his leadership on increasing access to college for high-achieving Texas students, championing criminal justice reforms to protect the innocent and hold the guilty accountable, and fighting to provide quality, affordable health care to the most vulnerable Texans, amongst many other issues.
  Ellis sat on the Senate State Affairs, Transportation, and Business & Commerce Committees.
context_section_description: Ellis is a senior advisor in the Public Policy and Regulation practice group for Dentons, the world's largest law firm. Ellis previously served as an advisor to the Mexican government during the ratification of the NAFTA Treaty. He also advised the buy side on the $1.3 billion privatization of Telkom South Africa, at the time the largest privatization in Africa.
  Ellis chairs the board of directors for the Innocence Project and co-chairs the National Conference of State Legislatures Task Force on International Relations. He also serves on the National Conference of State Legislatures Executive Committee, the LBJ Foundation board of trustees, the University of Texas School of Law Foundation board of trustees, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Ellis previously served on the board of the National Commission on Energy Policy, the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the Center for Policy Alternatives, and the Commission to Engage African Americans on Energy, Climate Change, and the Environment.
  Ellis helped to negotiate bringing Lucy (Australopithecus), a natural history exhibit, to Houston.  Ellis led a delegation to the National Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to bring Lucy's bones to the United States and the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Lucy, who lived 3.2 million years ago and is perhaps man's earliest known ancestor, was discovered in 1974.
  Ellis is an avid cyclist who has authored "Complete Streets" legislation to improve safety for motorists and cyclists and sponsored or taken part in numerous cycling events, like the MS 150, in Texas and across the country.  Ellis has sponsored the annual National Conference of State Legislatures Bipartisan Bike Ride each year since 2005.
  Ellis is an art collector and has a collection of African art.
  Ellis was listed as a bundler for President Barack Obama's reelection campaign in 2012.
caption: Ellis with Innocence Project founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld and executive director Madeline deLone, 2013
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