Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
Thomas Berry is the director in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor in chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Before joining Cato, he was an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation and clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. His academic work has appeared in NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, Washington and Lee Law Review Online, and Federalist Society Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Law Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, National Review Online, and The Hill Online. He has testified before the U.S. Senate, and his work has been cited by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Berry holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was a senior editor on the Stanford Law and Policy Review and a Bradley Student Fellow in the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe.
Director of Policy Studies & Senior Fellow, The Free State Foundation
Seth L. Cooper is Director of Policy Studies & Senior Fellow at The Free State Foundation. His work on federal communications and technology policy at the Free State Foundation began in 2009.
With Randolph May, Mr. Cooper is the co-author of Modernizing Copyright Law for the Digital Age: Constitutional Foundations for Reform (2020) and Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property: A Natural Rights Perspective (2015), both published by Carolina Academic Press. Along with Mr. May, Mr. Cooper also co-authored A Reader on Net Neutrality and Restoring Internet Freedom (2018) and #CommActUpdate: A Communications Law Fit for the Digital Age (2017), both published by Free State Foundation Press. He previously contributed to two chapters in Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age (2012), published by Carolina Academic Press. Mr. Cooper's work has also appeared in such publications as CommLaw Conspectus, the San Jose Mercury News, Forbes.com, the Des Moines Register, the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Examiner, and the Washington Times.
Mr. Cooper previously served as Director to the Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Mr. Cooper served as judicial clerk to the Honorable James Johnson at the Washington State Supreme Court. His co-writings about the Washington Supreme Court have appeared in the Gonzaga Law Review and in Federalist Society publications. He has worked in law and policy staff positions at the Washington State Senate and at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. Mr. Cooper is a 2009 Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He also has worked in private practice in the State of Washington, handling civil legal matters involving personal injuries, small business, contracts, and wills, trusts, and estates.
Mr. Cooper earned his B.A. degree in Political Science from Pacific Lutheran University and received his J.D. from Seattle University School of Law.
President, The Free State Foundation
Randolph J. May is Founder and President of The Free State Foundation. The Free State Foundation is an independent, non-profit free market-oriented think tank founded in 2006.
From October 1999-May 2006, May was a Senior Fellow and Director of Communications Policy Studies at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank. Prior to joining PFF, he practiced communications, administrative, and regulatory law as a partner at major national law firms. From 1978 to 1981, May served as Assistant General Counsel and Associate General Counsel at the Federal Communication Commission.
May has held numerous leadership positions in bar associations. He is a past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Mr. May also has served as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and currently is a Senior Fellow at ACUS.
Mr. May has published more than two hundred articles and essays on communications, administrative and constitutional law topics. He is author of A Call for a Radical New Communications Policy: Proposals for Free Market Reform, and co-author of #CommActUpdate: A Communications Law Fit for the Digital Age and The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property. Mr. May is editor of two books, Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age: The Next Five Years and New Directions in Communications Policy. In addition, he is the co-editor of two other books, Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated? and Communications Deregulation and FCC Reform. In the past, Mr. May has written regular columns on legal and regulatory affairs for Legal Times and the National Law Journal, leading national legal periodicals.
He received his A.B. from Duke University and his J.D. from Duke Law School, where he serves as a member of the Board of Visitors.
Director, GW Regulatory Studies Center & Distinguished Professor of Practice, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration, The George Washington University
Susan Dudley is the Founder and Director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, established in 2009 to raise awareness of regulations’ effects and improve regulatory policy through research, education, and outreach. She is also a distinguished professor of practice in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. She is past-president of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis, a senior fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and on the Regulatory Transparency Project Regulatory Practice Working Group. Her book, Regulation: A Primer, with Jerry Brito, is available on Amazon.com.
From April 2007 through January 2009, Professor Dudley served as the Presidentially-appointed Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and was responsible for the review of draft executive branch regulations under Executive Order 12866, the collection of federal-government-wide information under the Paperwork Reduction Act, the development and implementation of government-wide policies in the areas of information policy, privacy, and statistical policy, and international regulatory cooperation efforts.
Prior to OIRA, she directed the Regulatory Studies Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and taught courses on regulation at the George Mason University School of Law. Earlier in her career, Professor Dudley served as an economist at OIRA, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She was also a consultant to government and private clients at Economists Incorporated. She holds a Master of Science degree from the Sloan School of Management at MIT and a Bachelor of Science degree (summa cum laude) in Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Senior Counsel and Head of Regulatory Advocacy, General Electric Company
Michael A. Fitzpatrick currently serves as Senior Counsel and Head of Regulatory Advocacy for General Electric Company. He previously served as the Associate Administrator of the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where he helped lead the development of regulatory policy and White House review of significant Executive Branch regulatory actions. He served as the Executive Branch liaison to the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and has led several U.S. delegations abroad for meetings with the European Union and Canada.
During the Presidential Transition, Fitzpatrick served as deputy lead of the Executive Office of the President and Government Operations Agency Review Teams. From 2001 to 2009, Fitzpatrick was in the Washington, D.C. office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where he was a partner in the Litigation Practice Group, specializing in white collar, complex civil, and regulatory matters. Before joining Akin Gump, Fitzpatrick served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington, D.C., and as a Senior Advisor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget.
Fitzpatrick clerked for Judge William Norris on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after graduating from Stanford Law School.
United States Senate, North Dakota
U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp is the first female Senator elected from North Dakota. She took the oath of office on January 3, 2013.
Already in her short time in the Senate, Senator Heitkamp has quickly become a proven Senator who works across the aisle to fight for North Dakotans. Senator Heitkamp has personally shown that if Senators work together, it can lead to real solutions.
As a former director of the one-of-a-kind Dakota Gasification synfuels plant, Senator Heitkamp has a long record of serving as a champion for North Dakota’s energy jobs and industry. She is continuing those efforts in the Senate, working to responsibly harness North Dakota’s energy resources, promoting the state’s all-of-the-above energy plan which she believes should serve as a model for the entire country, and fighting to lift the 40-year old ban on exporting U.S. crude oil.
Senator Heitkamp sits on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, where she has been fighting for North Dakota’s farmers and ranchers, and to make sure they get the resources and support they need to continue to feed North Dakota, the country, and the world. Starting on day one in the Senate, she helped write, negotiate, and pass a long-term, comprehensive Farm Bill which Congress passed in 2014.
As a member on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Senator Heitkamp is continuing her pledge -- from her time as North Dakota’s Attorney General -- to stand up for Native American families and make sure the U.S. government lives up to its treaty and trust responsibilities. The first bill she introduced in the Senate would better protect Native children and make sure they have the economic and educational tools to thrive.
Through her leadership on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Senator Heitkamp has worked to reform the nation’s housing finance system, make housing more affordable, address North Dakota’s housing shortage, and provide relief to small financial institutions.
Senator Heitkamp also serves on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Senator Heitkamp previously served as North Dakota’s Attorney General, battling drug dealers, protecting senior citizens from scams, and working to keep sexual predators off streets and away from kids, even after their prison terms were up.
During her time as North Dakota’s Attorney General, Senator Heitkamp brokered an agreement between 46 states and the tobacco industry, which forced the tobacco industry to tell the truth about smoking and health. The settlement resulted in the award of about $336 million to North Dakota taxpayers to date. It was one of the largest civil settlements in U.S. history. When very little of this funding was being sent to anti-tobacco programs as intended, Senator Heitkamp led a successful ballot initiative in 2008 that mandated significant increases.
Previously, Senator Heitkamp served as North Dakota’s Tax Commissioner. Under her tenure, the State of North Dakota attempted to make catalog retailers collect the sales tax the state and municipalities were already owed on sales. The debate went all the way to the Supreme Court in the caseQuill v. North Dakota.
Senator Heitkamp received a B.A. from the University of North Dakota and a law degree from Lewis and Clark Law School. She lives in Mandan, North Dakota with her husband, Dr. Darwin Lange, a family practitioner. They have two children, Ali and Nathan.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Former Acting Attorney General
Jeffrey A. Rosen is a member of the Investigations and Regulatory Enforcement Practice of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. He previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as Acting Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, as well as Deputy Secretary and General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
With decades of both public and private sector executive leadership experience, including past service on the global management committee of one of the world’s leading law firms, he has built a career specializing in the management of complex, sensitive, and consequential matters.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance, American Enterprise Institute; Executive Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. He also directs the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
He writes on regulation and constitutional government for a variety of publications. He practiced law in Washington, D.C., after clerking for the D.C. Circuit's Judge David Sentelle. He also has been chairman of the ABA's Administrative Law Section.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court.
Evenwel v. Abbott: The Court Shanks Its Punt on “One Person, One Vote”
Ilya Shapiro, Thomas Berry
Federalist Society Review, Volume 17, Issue 2
Note from the Editor: This article criticizes the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Evenwel v....
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Chalices, Jack-o'-Lanterns and Other State Court Tiebreakers
Justice Don Willett writes for the Wall Street Journal: Antonin Scalia’s untimely death in February...
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How Your Smart Gun May be Used to Compel You to Incriminate Yourself
President Obama’s recent smart gun push has brought renewed attention to one of the only...
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"Delegation Reconsidered" Paper Review
Ron Cass, former dean of Boston University School of Law and President of Cass &...
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FCC Enforcement and Merger Review Actions Violate Rule of Law Principles
The rule of law depends upon adherence to a system of binding rules of certain...
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Restoring Public Trust: In Foster v. Chatman, Supreme Court Strikes Blow Against Prosecutorial Misconduct
Prosecutors are entrusted with truly awesome power. They can have citizens investigated, arrested, indicted and...
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Bank of America Penalty Thrown Out in Crisis-Era 'Hustle' Case
Yesterday, the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit threw out major penalties levied against...
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Bank settlements include 'donations' to 'community development' organizations
Nicholas Rosenkranz writes for the Volokh Conspiracy: The Justice Department has celebrated its settlements with...
The FCC Threatens the Rule of Law: A Focus on Agency Enforcement and Merger Review Abuses
Seth L. Cooper, Randolph May
Federalist Society Review, Volume 17, Issue 2
Note from the Editor: This article discusses enforcement and merger review activities of the Federal...
Congressional Regulatory Reform Proposals
Susan E. Dudley, Michael Fitzpatrick, Heidi Heitkamp, Dean Reuter, Jeffrey A. Rosen, Adam White
Fourth Annual Executive Branch Review Conference
Modern statutes and executive orders are intended to ensure that new regulations do more good...