Chicago Law School. Mikva also encouraged Obama to listen to preachers to understand public speaking, "listen[ing] to patterns of speech, how to take people up the ladders. It's almost a Baptist tradition to make someone faint, and, by God, he's doing it now." Other pursuits Mikva served as a mediator through JAMS, and was co-chairman of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Constitutional Amendments Committee. In November 2004, Mikva was an international election monitor of Ukraine's contested presidential election. In July 2006, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich named Mikva chair of the Illinois Human Rights Commission. In 2009, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn requested that Mikva lead a commission investigating the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign for admitting applicants (many of whom were not very well qualified) whose relatives or backers had connections to and had donated money to Illinois state lawmakers. Mikva Challenge Mikva and his wife Zoe started the Mikva Challenge in 1997. Mikva Challenge is a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose mission is to develop youth to be informed, empowered, and active citizens and community leaders who will promote a just and equitable society. Mikva Challenge has chapters in Chicago, IL, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, CA, and partner sites spanning the country including Cobb County, GA, Wilmington, DE, Rochester, NY, New York City, NY, Louisville, KY, Riverside, CA, New Hampshire, Detroit, MI and Macomb County, MI, Madison, WI and Milwaukee, WI. The organization helps youth to expand their political desire by working as election judges, volunteering on campaigns, advising city officials, and creating local activism projects to improve their schools and communities. Their motto is "Democracy is a Verb!" As of 2020, Mikva Challenge reaches 100,000 youth annually in programs in over 3,000 schools across the country. Death Mikva died under hospice care in Chicago, Illinois from complications of bladder cancer on July 4, 2016, aged 90. He was also suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at the time of his death. Legacy and awards Mikva's congressional and judicial papers are archived at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois. In 1998, Mikva received the Chicago History Museum's "Making History Award" for Distinction in Public Service. In 2016, Congress renamed the United States Post Office in downtown Evanston, Illinois, after Mikva, who had lived in Evanston and represented it as a congressional representative. See also List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 3) List