U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey will be the keynote speaker at the award ceremony for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting March 30 in Washington, D.C.
The Toner Prize, sponsored by the Newhouse School, honors the life and work of late alumna Robin Toner ’76, the first woman to be national political correspondent for The New York Times.
Booker has served in the U.S. Senate since 2013, taking an innovative and bipartisan approach to tackling some of the most difficult problems facing New Jersey and the U.S. He has emerged as a national leader in the Congressional push for common sense criminal justice reform, advocating for front-end sentencing reforms, pushing for the banning of juvenile solitary confinement in federal facilities and spearheading legislation to make the hiring process fairer for the formerly incarcerated.