Who We Are

by: Burnt Orange Report

Mon Nov 12, 2007 at 10:27 AM CST

Over half a decade has passed and BOR is a different site.  Since moving on to our latest soapblox platform, BOR has had over 4.5 million visitors come by the site over 8.5 million times to date.  There are over 5,000 members of our community, and our third editor never attended a single class at UT.

BOR's editorial staff -- Matt and KT -- have been involved in politics, collectively, for almost 20 years.  KT, has worked for internet guru ActBlue and now works for a U.S. Senate candidate.  Matt has been a part of local, state, and federal races all over the country and worked the 80th session under the pink dome. 

We don't bring this up to tell you how smart or clever we are, but to say, appearances might not always be what they seem.  We have student writers but BOR also has institutional leaders, political consultants, elected officials, lobbyist and concerned Texans writing in our journals and in the comments.

Our senior staff has been kind enough to write a few words about themselves below the fold.

Having written for Burnt Orange Report since 2003, Musselman became its second editor in the summer of 2005. Shortly thereafter, he spearheaded UT-Austin efforts against the state's constitutional ban on equal marriage rights resulting in a 1,000% increase in student turnout with an opposition vote averaging 85% on the measure. In 2006, he served as Tech Director for the Travis County Coordinated Campaign and wrote for the Secretary of State Project which elected 5 new Democratic officeholders in key states across the country. During this time he joined the steering committee of Democracy for Texas.

In 2007, Musselman took on the new role of Publisher of Burnt Orange Report upon his acceptance of employment at ActBlue in Cambridge, MA and graduation from UT-Austin as a Liberal Arts Honors Government major. He has since returned to his native Texas where he assisted Rick Noriega's US Senate campaign and served as Campaign Manager for Rep. Mark Strama who was re-elected with 63% of the vote. 

He currently sits on the board of Democracy for Texas, the TexBlog PAC, the Austin Stonewall Democrats, ALGPC, and the Capital City Young Democrats. He has done some technical work for Bill Spelman's Place 5 campaign for Austin City Council and is contracted with ActBlue. 

Matt Glazer- Editor-in-Chief
The political bug bit Matt Glazer as early as high school.  After graduating from Klein High in Spring Texas, he attended Trinity University in San Antonio.  His work on the Howard Dean campaign in San Antonio allowed him to be the second youngest delegate to the 2004 national delegate in Boston. Immediately after the convention he began working on campaigns all over the country ranging from a youth voter registration campaign in New Mexico during the 2004 election to campaigning in Atlanta against Coca Cola's irresponsible bottling policies across the globe.

After a year and a half, Glazer moved back to Texas and began working on municipal campaigns in San Antonio and working on water issues during the 79th legislative session.  However, the state legislature passage of HJR6 (the anti-family, marriage amendment) inspired Matt to stop working on environmental issues and he began a two year stint at Equality Texas and the No Nonsense in November Campaign.

After writing his own site, Just Another Blog, Glazer was hired at Burnt Orange Report as a writer and within six months was made editor of the site.  During this same period, Glazer worked for the John Courage for Congress campaign and Texas Progress Council.

Recently, Glazer worked the 80th legislative session for Rep. Pete Gallego focusing on natural resource issues and moving back to his environmental specialty-water.  He now does freelance work ranging from campaign management to strategic consulting.  During the 2008 primary, Glazer worked for mostly judicial candidates like the unanimously endorsed Jim Coronado and John Lipscombe.

Glazer has also consulted on internet strategy for Laura Morrison,  Democratic Party Chair Boyd Richie's Re-election campaign, and Rep. Juan Garcia.  He also worked on the Travis County Democratic Party's Coordianted Campaign (Turn Texas Blue) as the communications director.

Currently, Glazer is a freelance political hack. He is on contract with the Texas League of Conservation Voters and the Travis County Democratic Party. During 2009, Matt is also working as an advisor to Mayor candidate Lee Leffingwell, as well as the acting Director for the TexBlog PAC.