Joe Spielberger

Joe Spielberger is the policy counsel at POGO's Effective and Accountable Government team, where he advocates in Congress and the executive branch to strengthen whistleblower rights, protect a merit based civil service, and promote government ethics and transparency.

Prior to joining POGO, Joe worked as the public policy counsel for the ACLU of Maryland, where he lobbied and testified in the Maryland General Assembly on police reform, criminal legal reform, immigrants’ rights, women’s rights, reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ rights, government transparency and accountability, and constitutional rights. He played a significant role in passing four major bills into law, including leading coalition efforts to successfully enact Maryland’s first state law governing police officers’ use of force.

He previously worked in state and local government for the Maryland House Judiciary Committee and the Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Human Services.

In law school, he served as a law clerk for a sex workers’ collective in Kolkata, India, the Federal Community Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights.

Prior to law school, he worked with people facing the death penalty in post-Katrina Louisiana, and homeless veterans in Washington, DC. He also interned for then-Representative Jane Harman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

He has been cited in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Appeal, Bloomberg, The Hill, and a Fourth Circuit decision in Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department.

Joe grew up in Chicago. He earned a J.D. from Villanova University, and a B.A. in American history from Loyola Marymount University.