Editor, The Weekly Standard
William Kristol is the editor of The Weekly Standard. He is also a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday, a contributor for the Fox News Channel, and a monthly columnist for the Washington Post. Before starting the Weekly Standard in 1995, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory. Prior to that, Mr. Kristol served as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle during the first Bush Administration, and to Education Secretary William Bennett under President Reagan. Before coming to Washington in 1985, Mr. Kristol was on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Founder, Eagle Forum
Phyllis Schlafly was a national leader of the conservative movement since the publication of her best-selling 1964 book, A Choice Not An Echo. She created the pro-family movement in 1972, when she started her national volunteer organization called Eagle Forum. In a ten-year battle, Mrs. Schlafly led the pro-family movement to victory over the principal legislative goal of the radical feminists, called the Equal Rights Amendment. An articulate and successful opponent of the radical feminist movement, she debated on college campuses more frequently than any other conservative. She was named one of the 100 most important women of the 20th century by the Ladies’ Home Journal.
Mrs. Schlafly’s monthly newsletter called The Phyllis Schlafly Report was published for fifty years. At her request, the monthly newsletter was renamed after her death to the Eagle Forum Report: the Successor to The Phyllis Schlafly Report. Eagle Forum is the publisher of the Eagle Forum Report.
Her syndicated column appeared in 100 newspapers, and on many conservative websites.
Mrs. Schlafly was the author or editor of 27 books on subjects as varied as family and feminism (The Power of the Positive Woman and Feminist Fantasies); the judiciary (The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It); religion (No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom); nuclear strategy (Strike From Space and Kissinger on the Couch); education (Child Abuse in the Classroom); child care (Who Will Rock the Cradle?); and phonics (First Reader and Turbo Reader).
Mrs. Schlafly was a lawyer and served as a member of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, 1985-1991, appointed by President Ronald Reagan. She testified before more than 50 Congressional and State Legislative committees on constitutional, national defense, and family issues.
Mrs. Schlafly was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington University, received her Master’s in Political Science from Harvard University, and received her J.D. from Washington University Law School. In 2008, Washington University/St. Louis awarded Phyllis Schlafly an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.
Phyllis Schlafly was America’s best-known advocate of the dignity and honor that we as a society owe to the role of fulltime homemaker. The mother of six children, she was the 1992 Illinois Mother of the Year.
Author, Journalist, Researcher, and Consultant
Karl Zinsmeister is an experienced executive, original researcher, and productive author with deep analytical, communications, public-policy, creative, and marketing skills—including high-level experience managing a range of publications, businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies. He is currently a consultant to major business figures and wealth creators as a designer of large-scale philanthropy projects, historian of American civil society, and expert on social reform and culture change.
He has written a dozen books—embedded war reporting, histories, political analysis, reference works, a novel, literary collections, academic volumes, a storytelling cookbook, even a book-length Marvel comic book. Two of his works have recently been optioned for development into a television series and a documentary film. He has edited or co-produced many other books.
Zinsmeister's magazine and newspaper journalism totals several hundred articles. These have been published in a wide range of national publications, from cover stories for The Atlantic to essays in the Wall Street Journal, where he is a frequent contributor. Karl also has more than two decades of experience as an Editor in Chief, managing writing, artistic, and business teams producing nationally circulated magazines of thought and culture.
He created The Almanac of American Philanthropy—the authoritative 1,342-page reference on private giving that is often referred to as “the bible” documenting America's distinctive tradition of solving major problems through civil society and voluntary action. Between cash contributions and volunteer labor, philanthropy is approaching the trillion-dollar level as an annual undertaking in the U.S., and it is one of our country's most potent sources of social innovation and improvement.
Zinsmeister established the nation's first independent advisory on philanthropy for veterans and servicemembers. He raised $15 million and designed an unprecedented randomized-control experiment to prove out better ways of assisting men and women injured during military service.
He created the “Sweet Charity” podcast, presenting 5-10 minute stories on important achievements in philanthropic creativity. He wrote and edited a series of “Wise Giver's Guides” offering donors practical help in specific fields. The volumes he authored himself include one analyzing charter schools, and another on the relationship between philanthropy and public policy.
In response to national concern over polarization and government stalemate, Zinsmeister researched and released a political/historical work What Comes Next?, describing how America can be dramatically improved by private actors even amidst political gridlock, documented by encouraging examples from our past.
From 2006 to 2009 Zinsmeister served in the West Wing as President George W. Bush’s chief domestic policy adviser. His responsibilities stretched across many issues: the formulation of new immigration policies, the mortgage and student-loan credit crises, stem-cell and biotechnology innovation, improving care for military veterans, school reform, issues in health, transportation, environmental quality, and national competitiveness.
Earlier in his career Karl was a U.S. Senate aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He has been an adviser to many public policy groups, and has testified before Congressional committees and Presidential commissions on topics including family issues, economic policy, and the Iraq war.
For more than a decade, Zinsmeister occupied the J. B. Fuqua Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, a premier Washington, D.C. think tank, where he researched economic, demographic, and cultural topics. While there he created an acclaimed national monthly magazine of politics, business, and culture, The American Enterprise. Author and former Cabinet Secretary William Bennett called it “one of America’s finest magazines.... intellectually interesting, well-written, lively, wide-ranging, and above all useful.” Zinsmeister wrote nearly 300 articles for the magazine, and conducted interviews with public figures extending from Rudy Giuliani to Pat Moynihan, Andres Duany to Rupert Murdoch.
In concert with his wife, Zinsmeister conceived and produced a feature documentary film entitled Warriors that aired nationally on PBS in 2007. The film won $450,000 of funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in a major international competition. It presented personal profiles of America’s fighting forces via on-the-scene footage that Zinsmeister and two combat cameramen shot in Iraq. The New York Times described Warriors as “entirely compelling.” Footage from the film was used as a plot item in the final week of the HBO television series The Sopranos.
In the private sector, Zinsmeister was an executive in his native region of upstate New York at the Stickley company—an historic firm that designs, manufactures, and markets iconic American Arts & Crafts furniture designs worldwide. His responsibilities included marketing and sales, advertising, catalogs, photography, websites, communications, the Stickley Museum, some product design, and the modernization of many business and data systems. Zinsmeister has also operated his own businesses over a period of years, including designing, financing, renovating, and building eight properties with historic appeal, in Washington and New York.
A graduate of Yale University, Zinsmeister did further studies at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. During college he won national rowing championships in both the U.S. and Ireland. He has given hundreds of public lectures, originated a weekly radio commentary syndicated to 100 stations, and appeared often on a wide variety of national television and radio programs. He has lived, worked, or traveled in 40 countries, and nearly every U.S. state. He holds the highest U.S. security clearance.
Zinsmeister is married and has three grown children. He is an active outdoorsman, enjoys extended wilderness backpacking trips, and swims, bicycles, sculls, skis, and hikes often. He has been an avid photographer, woodworker, gardener and keeper of hens, taught Sunday school, and sung in church choirs. He currently lives in Washington, D.C. on a houseboat he designed and built himself.
Writer, Historian, and Lecturer
Elizabeth Ann Fox-Genovese (May 28, 1941 – January 2, 2007) was an American historian best known for her works on women and society in the Antebellum South. A Marxist early on in her career, she later converted to Roman Catholicism and became a primary voice of the conservative women's movement. She was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2003.
Voss-Bascom Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin Law School
Jane Larson (1958–2011) was the Voss-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Jane was born in Omaha, Neb., the oldest daughter of Donald G. and Wilma M. Larson. She graduated from Alameda West High School in Pleasanton, Calif. She received her undergraduate degree Phi Beta Kappa with a specialization in women's history from Macalester College in 1980. She received her law degree with high honors from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1985. She worked as a judicial clerk for Justice Rosalie Wahl of the Minnesota Supreme Court and for Judge Theodore McMillian of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. From 1987 to 1990, she was an associate at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy.
In 1990, she joined the law faculty at Northwestern University School of Law, where she published a series of noted articles on legal history, property rights and social regulation, with particular emphasis on the rights of women and the poor (for example, "Free Markets Deep in the Heart of Texas," Georgetown Law Journal, 1995.) In 1996, she joined the faculty of University of Wisconsin Law School, where she continued her writing and lecturing on feminist legal theory and property law. Her academic writing has been called "a model of how to integrate the history of doctrine with the surrounding social values." She was an inspiring teacher, a self-taught decoder of Oriental rugs, and a jazz aficionado who requested Coltrane in lieu of epidural during the birth of her son, Simon. When she retired in October 2011, she was the Voss-Bascom Professor of Law.
Thomas B. Pahl is the Retired Deputy Director of the CFPB where he served from July 2020 through January 2021. Before his term at the CFPB, Pahl served as Policy Associate Director for Research, Markets, and Regulations beginning in April 2018. Previously, Pahl was the Acting Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission.
From 2013–2016, Tom served as Managing Counsel for the Office of Regulations at the CFPB. He has also held previous roles at the FTC focused on enforcement, rulemaking, and policy on financial services matters, including Assistant Director of the Division of Financial Practices. Pahl received his BA from the College of St. Thomas and his JD from Northwestern University School of Law.
Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
David Silberman has been involved in consumer finance issues from a wide range of perspectives for over three decades. As President and CEO of Union Privilege, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, he led the development and oversaw the delivery of a range of consumer financial products and services to union members. After leaving Union Privilege, Mr. Silberman served as General Counsel and Executive Vice President of the Kessler Financial Services, a privately-held company providing marketing and advisory services to financial institutions and their affinity-group partners.
Following the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, Mr. Silberman joined the implementation team for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and in 2011 was named the Associate Director for the Division of Research, Markets, and Regulations. In 2016-2017, he also served as the Acting Deputy Director for the CFPB. Mr. Silberman retired from the CFPB in 2020, and now serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Responsible Lending , Senior Advisor to the Financial Health Network, and an Adjunct Professor at the McCourt School for Public Policy at Georgetown University. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Alliance for Innovative Regulation and as a member of the Advisory Committee of FinRegLab.
Mr. Silberman is a graduate of Brandeis University and of the Harvard Law School. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Chief Judge David Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Before becoming involved with consumer financial services, Mr. Silberman was a labor lawyer with the firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser and as Deputy General Counsel of the AFL-CIO.
Managing Director, Banking Supervision and Regulation Group, Patomak Global Partners
Brian Johnson is Managing Director in the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group at Patomak Global Partners.
In this role, Mr. Johnson spearheads projects related to the regulation of consumer financial products under Keith Noreika, Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group and former acting Comptroller of the Currency.
Prior to joining Patomak, Mr. Johnson was a partner in Alston & Bird LLP’s financial services and products group. There, he advised financial institutions on consumer finance regulatory issues relating to product compliance, examination, enforcement investigations, and compliance management systems, and on strategic engagement with independent federal regulatory agencies and with Congress.
Mr. Johnson previously served as Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where he oversaw the agency’s rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement activities. He conceived and led the creation of high-profile agency initiatives, including the Office of Innovation, Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, policy symposia series, and Start Small, Save Up emergency savings program. He also served as the CFPB representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council Deputies’ Committee and advised on interagency matters involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
Mr. Johnson held various positions on Capitol Hill, including policy director and chief financial institutions counsel on the House Committee on Financial Services, where his portfolio covered consumer protection and credit, mortgage origination, credit reporting, banking, and data security. His efforts on the committee involved drafting legislation to provide regulatory relief to bank, credit union, and nondepository financial institutions, as well as conducting oversight of the activities of the CFPB, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Financial Research, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, and National Credit Union Administration.
Mr. Johnson received his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law and his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia.
John J. Flynn Endowed Professor of Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Christopher Peterson is the John J. Flynn Endowed Professor of Law at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law. He previously served as a Special Advisor in the Office of the Director at the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as a Special Advisor in the Office of Legal Policy for Personnel and Readiness in the United States Department of Defense, and as Senior Counsel for Enforcement Policy and Strategy in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Office of Enforcement. Professor Peterson has written dozens of scholarly articles and published three books on consumer finance. He has frequently testified in Congressional hearings and has presented his research to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and at the White House in both Democratic and Republican administrations. He is a fellow of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers, the American Bar Association's Consumer Financial Services Committee, and serves on the community advisory board of the American Fintech Council. Professor Peterson is a recipient of the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators’ Consumer Advocate of the Year award and the Pentagon’s Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence.
Partner, Alston & Bird
Nanci Weissgold is a co-leader of both Alston & Bird's Financial Services & Products Group and the firm’s Consumer Financial Services Team. As an acknowledged authority in her field, Nanci maintains a national practice on matters relating to consumer financial products and services and represent clients (including residential mortgage servicers, as well banks, non-bank consumer lenders, technology providers for the consumer financial services industry, AMC’s, and investors) in federal and state regulatory, supervisory, and enforcement matters. Nanci acts as regulatory counsel in connection with investments or acquisitions and perform compliance due diligence. Nanci is frequently called upon to provide litigation support and assist in the development of compliance management systems.
Nanci is a frequent speaker and presenter at legal and industry conferences and webinars, and has published numerous articles on mortgage banking, valuation, and consumer finance related topics. She served as articles editor of the Administrative Law Journal at American University. Nanci is a Fellow of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers and serves on the nominating committee for the Board of Regents. She is peer rated in the Martindale-Hubbell® directory as AV Preeminent®, the highest level of professional excellence. Nanci is nationally ranked by Chambers USA in Financial Services Regulation: Consumer Finance (Compliance), and in 2018, she was honored by the Burton Awards as a recipient of a “Law360 Distinguished Legal Writing Award.”
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
Managing Director, Banking Supervision and Regulation Group, Patomak Global Partners
Brian Johnson is Managing Director in the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group at Patomak Global Partners.
In this role, Mr. Johnson spearheads projects related to the regulation of consumer financial products under Keith Noreika, Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group and former acting Comptroller of the Currency.
Prior to joining Patomak, Mr. Johnson was a partner in Alston & Bird LLP’s financial services and products group. There, he advised financial institutions on consumer finance regulatory issues relating to product compliance, examination, enforcement investigations, and compliance management systems, and on strategic engagement with independent federal regulatory agencies and with Congress.
Mr. Johnson previously served as Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where he oversaw the agency’s rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement activities. He conceived and led the creation of high-profile agency initiatives, including the Office of Innovation, Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, policy symposia series, and Start Small, Save Up emergency savings program. He also served as the CFPB representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council Deputies’ Committee and advised on interagency matters involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
Mr. Johnson held various positions on Capitol Hill, including policy director and chief financial institutions counsel on the House Committee on Financial Services, where his portfolio covered consumer protection and credit, mortgage origination, credit reporting, banking, and data security. His efforts on the committee involved drafting legislation to provide regulatory relief to bank, credit union, and nondepository financial institutions, as well as conducting oversight of the activities of the CFPB, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Financial Research, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, and National Credit Union Administration.
Mr. Johnson received his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law and his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia.
Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Solidus Labs; Former Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The Honorable Kathleen L. Kraninger is the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Solidus Labs where she leads the firm’s regulatory strategy and works to advance market integrity and responsible innovation in digital asset markets. Solidus Labs is the first automated, comprehensive, and testable market surveillance and risk monitoring hub tailored for digital assets.
Previously, she served as the Senate-confirmed Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from December 2018 until January 2021, leading the 1,500-person independent, regulatory and law enforcement agency. She made her mark on all aspects of the agency’s mission and operations, particularly in facilitating innovation, promoting financial inclusion and leading through the economic uncertainty of the global pandemic. In addition, Kraninger served on the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Financial Stability Oversight Board, and as chair of the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council.
Her distinguished public sector career spans senior roles at the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget, and in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Kraninger graduated magna cum laude from Marquette University and earned a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. She served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine.
Managing Director, Banking Supervision and Regulation Group, Patomak Global Partners
Brian Johnson is Managing Director in the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group at Patomak Global Partners.
In this role, Mr. Johnson spearheads projects related to the regulation of consumer financial products under Keith Noreika, Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group and former acting Comptroller of the Currency.
Prior to joining Patomak, Mr. Johnson was a partner in Alston & Bird LLP’s financial services and products group. There, he advised financial institutions on consumer finance regulatory issues relating to product compliance, examination, enforcement investigations, and compliance management systems, and on strategic engagement with independent federal regulatory agencies and with Congress.
Mr. Johnson previously served as Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where he oversaw the agency’s rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement activities. He conceived and led the creation of high-profile agency initiatives, including the Office of Innovation, Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, policy symposia series, and Start Small, Save Up emergency savings program. He also served as the CFPB representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council Deputies’ Committee and advised on interagency matters involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
Mr. Johnson held various positions on Capitol Hill, including policy director and chief financial institutions counsel on the House Committee on Financial Services, where his portfolio covered consumer protection and credit, mortgage origination, credit reporting, banking, and data security. His efforts on the committee involved drafting legislation to provide regulatory relief to bank, credit union, and nondepository financial institutions, as well as conducting oversight of the activities of the CFPB, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Financial Research, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, and National Credit Union Administration.
Mr. Johnson received his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law and his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Maimon Schwarzschild is Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, where he has taught
since 1982. He has published extensively on constitutional law, jurisprudence, law and religion,
and civil rights. He is an English barrister and an American lawyer: he was an attorney in the
Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice from 1976 to 1981 and practised as a
barrister in London in the 1980s. He was a visiting professor at the Sorbonne for several years,
and has been a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is a Director of the
Institute of Law and Religion at the University of San Diego and a member of the editorial board
of Law and Philosophy. With Gail Heriot he recently co-edited a volume entitled “A Dubious
Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education”, published by Encounter Books.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Harry Kalven, Jr. Professor of Law & Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Institute, University of Chicago Law School
William Baude is a Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches federal courts, constitutional law, and conflict of laws. His current research interests include different aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment (particularly both Section One and Section Three) and the nature of judicial discretion.
Among his other activities Baude is: the co-editor of two textbooks, The Constitution of the United States and Hart & Wechsler's Federal Courts in the Federal System; an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism; a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance; a member of the American Law Institute; an occasional blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy; and a podcaster on Divided Argument. He also recently served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor Baude received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and his JD from Yale Law School. He then clerked for then-Judge Michael McConnell on the United States Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice John Roberts on the United States Supreme Court. Before joining the Chicago faculty, he was a fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and a lawyer in Washington, DC.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Partner, Keller Postman
Ashley Keller is one of the founding Partners of Keller Postman LLC. An experienced trial and appellate lawyer, Ashley helps set strategic direction across virtually all of the firm’s cases. He represents clients in a wide variety of practice areas and types of claims, including product-liability, antitrust, class action, and arbitration matters.
Ashley is one of the leaders of Keller Postman’s national product-liability practice. He leverages his ability to detangle complex concepts and develop novel legal theories to support individual client matters and as counsel on numerous product-liability multidistrict litigation matters. He chairs the plaintiffs’ Law & Briefing Committee in the Zantac (Ranitidine) Product Liability MDL in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Ashley also litigates complex antitrust and class action matters. Among his notable cases, Ashley represents numerous States in antitrust litigation against Google for monopolizing products and services used by advertisers and publishers in online-display advertising.
Ashley also has played a central role in developing the firm’s pioneering arbitration practice, which includes pursuing individual arbitrations for clients whose claims are subject to arbitration clauses with class-action waivers. In part through managing the complexity of pursuing these individual claims simultaneously, the firm has secured millions in settlements for more than 500,000 employees and consumers.
Before launching Keller Postman, Ashley co-founded the litigation finance firm Gerchen Keller Capital, which grew to more than $1.3 billion in assets under management and was the world’s largest private investment manager focused on legal and regulatory risk prior to being acquired by Burford Capital in 2016.
Previously, Ashley was a partner at Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP, The American Lawyer’s litigation boutique of the year. While there, he handled various trial and appellate matters involving multi-billion-dollar securities and patent cases, contract disputes, mass torts, and class actions.
Ashley also worked as an analyst at Alyeska Investment Group, a Chicago-based market-neutral hedge fund, where he focused on investments in companies facing litigation and other complicated regulatory matters.
Ashley was named a 2021 Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Trailblazer by the National Law Journal. He is also listed on Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America, Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers, Lawdragon’s Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers, National Trial Lawyers’ Top 100, and Illinois Super Lawyers.
Ashley was a law clerk for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge Richard Posner at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, received his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated first in his class.
Professor of Law, Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar, University of Chicago Law School
Genevieve Lakier’s research explores the connections between culture and law. She is currently engaged in a long-term project exploring the cultural history of the First Amendment, and another project exploring the changing role of the state in the regulation of sex.
Genevieve has an AB from Princeton University, a JD from New York University School of Law, and an MA and PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Between 2006 and 2008, she was an Academy Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. After law school, she clerked for Judge Leonard B. Sand of the Southern District of New York and Judge Martha C. Daughtrey of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Before joining the faculty, Genevieve taught at the Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law.
Senior Fellow, Pacific Research Institute
Henry I. Miller, MS, MD, is a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. His research focuses on public policy toward science, technology, and medicine, encompassing a number of areas, including pharmaceutical development, genetic engineering, models for regulatory reform, precision medicine, and the emergence of new viral diseases.
Dr. Miller served for fifteen years at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a number of posts. He was the medical reviewer for the first genetically engineered drugs to be evaluated by the FDA and thus instrumental in the rapid licensing of human insulin and human growth hormone. Thereafter, he was a special assistant to the FDA commissioner and the founding director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology. As a government official, Dr. Miller received numerous awards and citations.
During more than two decades as the Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy & Public Policy at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Dr. Miller became well known for both his contributions to scholarly journals and for articles and books that make science, medicine, and technology accessible. His work has been widely published in many languages. Monographs include Policy Controversy in Biotechnology: An Insider's View; To America's Health: A Model for Reform of the Food and Drug Administration; and The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution. Barron's selected The Frankenfood Myth as one of the 25 Best Books of 2004. In addition, Dr. Miller has published extensively in a wide spectrum of scholarly journals and popular publications worldwide, including The Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, Science, the Nature family of journals, Chronicle of Higher Education, Forbes, National Review, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. He appears regularly on the nationally syndicated radio programs of John Batchelor and Lars Larson.
Dr. Miller was the first recipient of an award named after him from the American Council on Science and Health and was selected by the editors of Nature Biotechnology as one of the people who had made the "most significant contributions" to biotechnology during the previous decade. He serves on several editorial boards.
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
President, Center for Individual Rights
Todd Gaziano is the President of the Center for Individual Rights. Mr. Gaziano received his J.D. in 1988 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics. He received his B.A. from West Virginia University, summa cum laude in 1985. He was selected as a Truman Scholar from West Virginia while an undergraduate.
Mr. Gaziano’s previous legal work includes service as a law clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones, as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, as a chief subcommittee counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a Houston trial attorney, and as a chief corporate legal officer. He also served a six-year term as commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (2008-2013), where he helped conduct oversight and investigations of civil rights agencies.
For most of the last 25 years, Mr. Gaziano was a legal scholar and public interest law leader, promoting individual liberty in the Supreme Court and Congress. From 1997 to 2013, he was the founding director of the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. From 2014 until he joined CIR, he was the Chief of Legal Policy and Strategic Research, and Director of the Center for the Separation of Powers, at Pacific Legal Foundation.
Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Anita L. Allen is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy. A graduate of Harvard Law School with a PhD from the University of Michigan in Philosophy, Allen is internationally renown as an expert on philosophical dimensions of privacy and data protection law, ethics, bioethics, legal philosophy, women’s rights, and diversity in higher education. She was Penn’s Vice Provost for Faculty from 2013-2020, and chaired the Provost's Arts Advisory Council. Allen is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2018-19 she served as President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosiphical Association.
From 2010 to 2017, Allen served on President Obama’s Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in 2015, and chaired its Board, 2019-2022. Allen has served on the faculty of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell, for which she is an advisor. A two-year term as an Associate of the Johns Hopkins Humanities Center concluded in 2018. She has been a visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University, Waseda University, Villanova, the University of Arizona, Harvard and Yale, and a Law and Public Affairs Fellow at Princeton. She was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Tilburg University (Netherlands) in 2019. She has written over a hundred articles and chapters, and her books include Unpopular Privacy: What Must We Hide (Oxford, 2011); Privacy Law and Society (Thomson/West, 2017); The New Ethics: A Guided Tour of the 21st Century Moral Landscape (Miramax/Hyperion, 2004); Why Privacy Isn’t Everything: Feminist Reflections on Personal Accountability (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), and Uneasy Access: Privacy of Women in a Free Society (1988). Allen has given hundreds of talks all over the world and appeared on television, radio and written for major media. She currently serves on the Board of the National Constitution Center, and has served on numerous other boards and professional advisory boards, including the Pennsylvania Board of Continuing Judicial Education, the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the AALS Executive Committee, the Maternity Care Coalition and the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children. She is a member of the Pennsylvania and New York bars, and formerly taught at Georgetown University Law Center for ten years and the University of Pittsburgh, after practicing briefly at Carvath, Swaine & Moore.
Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Carl E. Schneider, '79, the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law and Professor of Internal Medicine, teaches courses on law and medicine, regulating research, property, law and morals, the sociology and ethics of the legal profession, and writing briefs. He holds a joint appointment in U-M’s Medical School.
A central theme in his scholarship criticizes some dominant regulatory ideas, particularly those in the law of medicine. For example, his book The Censor's Hand: The Misregulation of Human Subject Research (MIT Press, 2015), examines a regulatory system whose usefulness is widely assumed but quite unproved and argues that that system is so perversely constructed that it cannot help doing more harm than good. Another example is More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure (Princeton University Press, 2014), coauthored with Omri Ben-Shahar. It explains why government-mandated disclosure may be the most adored, most used, and least successful regulatory method in our time. His The Practice of Autonomy: Patients, Doctors, and Medical Decisions (Oxford University Press, 1998), which analyzes the malign effects of making patient autonomy the regulatory summum bonum, is another example of the project.
Professor Schneider is also the coauthor of two innovative casebooks: With Marsha Garrison, he wrote The Law of Bioethics: Individual Autonomy and Social Regulation (West, 2015, 3rd edition), a pioneering casebook in what was then a new field. With Margaret F. Brinig, he wrote An Invitation to Family Law (West, 2007, 3rd edition). This casebook approaches family law conceptually: Each chapter discusses an area of family law, and each chapter introduces students to a systematic discussion of a recurring jurisprudential issue (like the problem of rules and discretion, or the legal principle of autonomy).
Professor Schneider served two terms on the President's Bioethics Council. He has been a visiting professor at Cambridge University, the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, and the United States Air Force Academy (twice).
Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
Peter H. Schuck is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law and Professor (Adjunct) of Law at Yale Law School where he has held the chair since 1984. He has also served as Deputy Dean. His major fields of teaching and research are tort law; immigration, citizenship, and refugee law; groups, diversity, and law; and administrative law. His most recent books include Targeting in Social Programs: Avoiding Bad Bets, Removing Bad Apples; Meditations of a Militant Moderate: Cool Views on Hot Topics; Immigration Stories; Foundations of Administrative Law; Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance; and The Limits of Law: Essays on Democratic Governance. He is also co-editor, with James Q. Wilson, of Understanding America. He is a member of the American Law Institute's advisory committee for the Restatement of Torts (Third), Basic Principles, and a contributing editor to The American Lawyer. Prior to joining Yale, he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Professor Schuck holds a B.A. from Cornell, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LL.M. in International Law from N.Y.U., and an M.A. in Government from Harvard.
Senior Litigation Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice
Walter M. Weber is Senior Counsel for the ACLJ in the Washington, D.C. office. A highly regarded legal writer, Weber received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his law degree from Yale Law School.
Weber emphasizes First Amendment law and has written briefs in many landmark cases at the Supreme Court including NOW v. Scheidler, Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches School District and Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic.
Weber has argued more than a dozen times in appeals before federal and state courts. Prior to joining the ACLJ, Weber served as a staff attorney with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
Professor of Law, Dean Emerita, and Co-Director, Sports Law Track - Graduate Program in Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law LL.M., University of Miami School of Law
Patricia D. White is a Professor of Law and was the University of Miami School of Law's eleventh dean from 2009-2019. Her legal career spans over four decades as an attorney and educator. She was the first woman law school dean in Arizona and the longest serving one in the history of Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Her prominence in the field of legal education has led to her being recognized as one of the most influential and innovative people in legal education by National Jurist magazine in 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and in the 2012 ranking she was named the top woman on the list.
White chairs the ABA's Commission on the Future of Legal Education, which aims to influence dramatic changes in the legal profession over the next decade. Under White’s leadership, Miami Law has also been recognized by Pre-Law Magazine as one the “20 Most Innovative Law Schools” in 2017. Similarly, Innovation 800, published in 2017 by Cambridge University, included Miami Law as a "Leader in Learning" and one of the most innovative law schools. The London-based Financial Times, considered one of the premiere international daily newspapers with a special emphasis on business and economic news, has also tipped its hat to Miami Law’s innovation. In its “FT Special Report on Innovative Law Schools”, it ranked Miami Law as one of the most innovative law schools in the world in 2015 and 2016. Innovation accolades also came for Miami Law's specialty areas, such as the Billboard Magazine 2017 ranking of Miami Law as a top school for music law in the U.S. The Legal Services Innovation Index ranked the University of Miami Law in the top four for law schools delivering innovation and technology programs in 2017.
After becoming the dean of Miami Law in 2009, White continued her longstanding commitment to students, the transformation of legal education and public service. She transformed Miami Law’s student services program, including adding the unique Student Development Program, the AskUs Fellows initiative, Academic Achievement Program and the Office of Professionalism to name a few. She established the LawWithoutWalls program, linking students and faculty from over 30 academic institutions around the world to examine issues and develop new solutions in legal education and practice; and Legal Corps a novel fellowship program that placed new law school graduates in not for profit and public sector organizations across the nations and the globe.
Under White's leadership, the number of clinics at Miami Law more than doubled, bringing the total to 10. In 2011 Miami Law was honored by the American Bar Association Law Student Division with the Judy M. Weightman Memorial Public Interest Award, in recognition of the law school's strong commitment to public interest through the HOPE Public Interest Resource Center. She has won many awards, including the 2012 Equal Justice Leadership Award, given by Legal Services of Greater Miami for her commitment to public service, and the Judge Learned Hand Award for distinguished public service, from the Arizona chapter of the American Jewish Committee.
White received degrees in philosophy and law (B.A. 1971, J.D. 1974, M.A. 1974) from the University of Michigan. While attending law school, she was also a graduate student in philosophy and an associate editor of the law review. She began her legal practice in Washington, D.C., at Steptoe & Johnson and then moved to Caplin & Drysdale. Georgetown University Law hired White onto the faculty in 1979, and in 1988 she joined her alma mater, the University of Michigan. While at Michigan, she was of counsel to the Detroit firm Bodman, Longley & Dahling, and served for a year as tax advisor to the Economic Study Committee of Major League Baseball. In 1994, she joined the law faculty at the University of Utah, and was of counsel to Parsons, Behle & Latimer. She is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia, Michigan, and Utah, and is an elected Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
During her career, White has worked in the areas of tax law, torts, bioethics, philosophy of law, and trusts and estates, and has published in prominent law and bioethics journals.
Partner, Capitol Counsel LLC
Martin B. Gold is a partner with Capitol Counsel LLC. In service to our clients, he brings over 40 years of experience, both on Senate staff and in private practice. He is a recognized authority on matters of congressional rules and parliamentary strategies.
Gold is the author of “Senate Procedure and Practice,” a widely consulted primer on Senate Floor procedure, now in its third edition (2013). He frequently advises in offices of Senators and serves on the adjunct faculty at George Washington University. Before domestic business, professional and academic audiences, he often speaks about Congress as well as political and public policy developments.
Gold has been a guest lecturer at Tsinghua University and the Beijing Foreign Studies University, Moscow State University, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the State Parliament of Ukraine, and the Federation Council of the Russian Federal Assembly. He published in China “The Grand Institution: A Profile of the United States Senate.” (2011)
Between 1972 to 1982, Gold worked in senior staff positions at the Senate, culminating as counsel to Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-TN). Gold began his career as a legal assistant to Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR) and later served as republican staff director and counsel to the Senate Rules Committee and as a professional staff member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In 2003, Gold was floor adviser and counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).
Gold was president of the lobbying firm Gold and Liebengood, which he co-founded in 1984. He joined the government relations firm, Johnson, Smith, Dover, Kitzmiller & Stewart, Inc. in 1995. Later, Gold co-founded The Legislative Strategies Group, a leading government affairs practice.
In 2004, Gold became a partner at Covington & Burling LLC, one of the nation’s most prominent law firms. While co-chair of Covington’s government affairs practice, Gold was instrumental in securing adoption of congressional resolutions expressing regret for the Chinese exclusion laws. For this pro bono project, he was awarded the Champion of Justice Award by the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. In 2012, he authored “Forbidden Citizens: Chinese Exclusion and the U.S. Congress: A Legislative History.” His book was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal by the Independent Book Publishers of America and was named an Honor Book by the Asian and Pacific American Librarians Association. At the end of 2016, Gold published “A Legislative History of the Taiwan Relations Act; Bridging the Strait.”
In 2006, President George W. Bush appointed Gold to serve as a member of the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. On the commission, Gold commemorated the work of D. Ho Feng Shan, a Chinese diplomat who, while serving as a consular officer in Austria, issued visas to Shanghai to save several thousand Jews from Nazi persecution. In 2008, the Senate adopted a resolution honoring Dr. Ho’s selfless heroism.
Gold is a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. He was elected in 2000 in recognition for excellence in the field of political science.
Gold is a graduate of the Washington College of Law at The American University and serves on the Board of the Friends of the Law Library of the Library of Congress.
Senior Advisor, Covington & Burling
Senator Jon Kyl advises companies on domestic and international policies that influence U.S. and multi-national businesses and assists corporate clients on tax, health care, national security, and intellectual property matters, among others.
Jon served in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2013, retiring as the second-highest ranking Republican senator. He returned to the Senate in September 2018 after being appointed to succeed the late John McCain, and retired again at the end of 2018.
During Jon’s 26 years in Congress, he built a reputation for mastering the complexities of legislative policy and coalition building, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate. In 2010, Time magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, noting his "encyclopedic knowledge of domestic and foreign policy, and his hard work and leadership" and his "power to persuade."
Jon sat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee and was the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. A member of the Republican Leadership for well over a decade, Jon chaired the Senate Republican Policy Committee and the Senate Republican Conference, before becoming Senate Republican Whip. In filling Senator McCain’s seat, he served on the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees.
Partner, Sidley Austin
Peter Roskam, a former six-term U.S. Representative from Illinois, provides strategic counsel and guidance to clients whose business needs involve law, government, media and public policy. He also serves on the firm’s COVID-19 Task Force. Peter held some of the most significant positions in the U.S. House of Representatives during his tenure (2007–2019). In addition to serving in the House Leadership as the Chief Deputy Whip, he chaired three major subcommittees of the House Ways and Means Committee. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Tax Policy, he was a chief architect of the historic 2017 overhaul of the nation’s tax code. As Chairman of Subcommittee on Health, he began the “Medicare Red Tape Relief Project,” led a series of hearings addressing the opioid crisis and authored several bills to make opioid addiction treatment more accessible. In addition, as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, he spearheaded efforts to increase supervision of the Internal Revenue Service and championed efforts to overhaul the IRS’s civil asset forfeiture program.
Peter also served on the House Financial Services Committee, including the Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee and the Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology Subcommittee. He was a member of the Select Committee on Events surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Libya.
He chaired the U.S. House Democracy Partnership, a bipartisan commission supporting emerging democracies abroad and co-chaired the Korea Caucus, the India Caucus, the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism and the Republican Israel Caucus.
Before his work on Capitol Hill in Washington, Peter represented Chicago’s western suburbs for 13 years in the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois State Senate where he developed a close working relationship with then-state Sen. Barack Obama. During his tenure in the state legislature he also was in the private practice of law in Illinois.
Family Law and Individual Responsibility [Archive Collection]
William Kristol, Phyllis Schlafly, Karl Zinsmeister, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Jane E. Larson
1991 Annual Lawyers Convention
On September 13-14, 1991, the Federalist Society hosted its fifth annual National Lawyers Convention at...
Panel 1: What is the CFPB's Legacy?
Thomas B. Pahl, David Silberman, Brian C. Johnson
The CFPB Turns 10: Evaluating America’s Youngest Federal Financial Regulator
On July 19, 2021, the Federalist Society's Financial Services and E-Commerce Practice Group sponsored an...
Panel 2: What Does the CFPB's Future Hold?
Christopher L. Peterson, Nanci L. Weissgold, Todd J. Zywicki, Brian C. Johnson
The CFPB Turns 10: Evaluating America’s Youngest Federal Financial Regulator
On July 19, 2021, the Federalist Society's Financial Services and E-Commerce Practice Group sponsored an...
Hon. Kathy Kraninger Keynote Address
Kathy Kraninger, Brian C. Johnson
The CFPB Turns 10: Evaluating America’s Youngest Federal Financial Regulator
On July 19, 2021, the Federalist Society's Financial Services and E-Regulation Practice Group sponsored an...
Talks with Authors: A Dubious Expediency
Gail L. Heriot, Maimon Schwarzschild
Civil Rights Practice Group Teleforum
A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education is a collection of eight essays written...
Private Entities and Public Concern
Randy E. Barnett, William Baude, Gregory G. Katsas, Ashley Keller, Genevieve Lakier
Freedom of Thought Six-Part Series: Part 6
Aside from the purely legal questions already addressed in this programming series, how should we...
Government Funding of Medical Innovations: High Tech or Low Tech?
Henry I. Miller
A Regulatory Transparency Project Fourth Branch Video
What drives the costs of healthcare in the United States? Every year sees new and...
The Implications of the Latest Congressional Review Act Disapprovals
Jonathan H. Adler, Todd F. Gaziano
Administrative Law & Regulation Practice Group Teleforum
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) was used in 2017 to overturn 15 rules issued near...
Panel V: Ownership of Life
Anita L. Allen, Carl E. Schneider, Peter H. Schuck, Walter M. Weber, Patricia D. White
1989 National Student Symposium
On March 10-11, 1989, the Federalist Society's University of Michigan student chapter hosted the eighth...
The U.S. Senate Filibuster: A Feature of or Impediment to Democracy?
Martin B. Gold, Jon Kyl, Peter Roskam
Chicago Lawyers Chapter - Online Event
Then-Senator Biden said in 2005 that “American citizens have benefited from the Senate’s check on...