How Political Speech Law Benefits Politicians and the Rich
Montana Student Chapter
23 Campus Dr.
Missoula, MT 59812
Additional Speakers: Bryce Bennet
Additional Speakers: Bryce Bennet
Constitutional, Appellate, and Political Speech Lawyer
Randy Elf, a Jamestown, New York, native, attended Jamestown Public Schools and Southwestern Central School.
After graduating as valedictorian from Southwestern, he graduated with honors from Duke University and was Duke’s first guest teacher at Landheim Schondorf, a German-language boarding school in Schondorf am Ammersee, Germany.
Thereafter, he held a one-year position as a German teacher at Southwestern, was an assistant to authors and lecturers Drs. Russell Kirk and Annette Kirk, and covered education and federal and state affairs for The Post-Journal in Jamestown, where his reporting was instrumental in completing Interstate 86 in Chautauqua County.
He graduated as president of his law-school class at Syracuse University—where he co-founded a chapter of the Federalist Society—and clerked for two federal judges: Brevard Hand of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama in Mobile, and Alice Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Medina, Ohio.
He twice ran for the New York state Assembly against a long-term incumbent in Chautauqua County.
Dr. Elf has practiced law, both at the Federal Election Commission and privately. Since 2010, no one in the country has had more experience briefing and conducting hearings on the constitutionality of political-speech law. Much of his experience is reflected in his 2016 Regent University Law Review article, at https://ssrn.com/abstract=5283417, and his 2020 Advocates for Balance at Chautauqua presentation, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ebymA7xOo .
He explored seeking the Republican and Conservative parties’ nominations for New York attorney general in 2018, has written a regular newspaper column since 2020, and was his Mom’s caregiver for eight years.
He has been active in several organizations and enjoys swimming, snowmobiling, traveling, golf, tennis, and rooting for the Buffalo Bills and Sabres.
A 13th great-grandson of King Gustav Eriksson Vasa of Sweden, he and the former Hilary Anne Kurtz, who he later learned is his ninth cousin twice removed, were married (#KurtzElfWedding) on December 28, 2019. Mrs. Elf and their two children, Ryan and Margaret, are in Heaven.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Anthony Johnstone serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Judge Johnstone previously served as the Helen and David Mason Professor of Law and an affiliated Professor of Public Administration at the University of Montana, Alexander Blewett III School of Law in Missoula since 2011. As a professor he taught federal and state constitutional law and legislation, as well as a federal judicial clinic. Johnstone also has served as trial and appellate counsel in federal and state courts, including the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States, most recently with Johnstone PLLC. He served the Montana Department of Justice as state solicitor from 2008 to 2011 and assistant attorney general from 2004 to 2008. Johnstone entered practice as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York from 2000 to 2003. Born to Montanans in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Johnstone received his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1995 and his Juris Doctor, with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following law school, he clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Sidney R. Thomas in Billings, Montana from 1999 to 2000.