Bilby Law PLLC
Joe Bilby is a proud veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. A graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Kentucky College of Law, Joe began his legal career working in at a large law firm in Louisville and focusing on workplace law, business litigation, and trust/estate litigation.
Having spent seven years serving as general counsel to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, Joe has extensive experience serving Kentucky’s farmers and agribusinesses.
Joe especially enjoys working with churches and religious organizations.
Joe provides affordable estate planning services for individuals and families across Kentucky.
He also has a specialty practice that serves employers across the nation who rely on the H-2A and H-2B temporary visa programs to meet their workforce needs.
Joe lives in central Kentucky with his wife and two children.
Associate Attorney, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Athie Livas rejoined Cooper & Kirk in 2022. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Livas clerked for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh on the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Livas also previously clerked for Judge Amul R. Thapar on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Dabney L. Friedrich on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Ms. Livas graduated from Yale Law School, where she served as President of the Yale Federalist Society, co-President of the Barristers’ Union trial competition, Student Director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, and Editor on the Yale Law Journal. Ms. Livas is admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Partner, Dinsmore & Shohl LLP
Eric has more than two decades of experience providing strategic counsel to a broad range of industries, organizations, candidates and public officials on law and public policy, including campaign and issue advocacy, government ethics and regulatory compliance. He advises clients how to make their voices heard by policymakers, through engagement in the policymaking process and through direct and grassroots advocacy in support of issues and candidates.
He has extensive experience with complex litigation business disputes and appellate matters. He brought a case on behalf of the Commonwealth that resulted in the largest judgment in Kentucky history, in the amount of $870 million against an unregulated offshore Internet gambling operation. Eric also advises clients in industries such distilled spirits, breweries and energy industry clients on corporate and transactional matters, and before regulatory agencies on licensing, enforcement and compliance matters.
Eric was counsel for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s 2014 reelection effort. He is currently general counsel to the Republican Party of Kentucky and the Kentucky House Republican Leadership. He has advised gubernatorial campaigns in Kentucky, Ohio, and other states, and legislative caucuses across the nation, including Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Eric serves as counsel to multiple campaigns, super PACs, trade associations and non-profit organizations, including one spending over $10 million in support of Senator Ted Cruz in the 2016 Presidential primary.
With his experience and knowledge of how policy is made and regulators make decisions, Eric is effective at counseling businesses and industries how to cut through the red tape and obtain a positive result for their operations.
Chairman and Founder, Institute for Free Speech; Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law, Capital University Law School
Of Counsel, Holtzman Vogel
Lauren LaRue Topping is Of Counsel with Holtzman Vogel and focuses her practice on election law, campaign finance, compliance and ethics.
Prior to joining the firm, Lauren served as General Counsel for the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, where she provided legal advice and analysis to the Bureau's Executive Director and the members of both the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance and the Tennessee Ethics Commission, as well as Tennessee's General Assembly, other state and local public officeholders, and other stakeholders. As General Counsel, Lauren also worked closely with the Tennessee General Assembly regarding various campaign finance and ethics legislation and other matters, took an active role in conducting campaign finance and lobbyist audits, managed contested case proceedings, and assisted the Office of the Attorney General with ongoing chancery court and appellate proceedings involving the Bureau.
Previously, Lauren served as Assistant General Counsel for the Office of Secretary of State Tre Hargett and as a Litigation Attorney (Eligibility Appeals) for the Tennessee Department of Health Care Finance and Administration, Division of TennCare.
Lauren regularly presents at various CLE programs and conferences regarding campaign finance and ethics matters. She is also deeply interested in policy matters surrounding adoption law and serves as a member of The Adoption Project's Policy Committee.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Jordan Lorence is Senior Counsel in FLI’s Washington, D.C. office, where he represents First Liberty in strategic efforts promoting religious liberty, and works on important First Amendment projects and litigation, including those at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lorence has a long career of litigating religious liberty cases since 1984. He has worked for many public interest law firms, including Alliance Defending Freedom, Home School Legal Defense Association, the North Star Legal Center and Concerned Women for America.
He has worked on important religious liberty cases. Lorence worked on school choice cases at the Supreme Court, such as Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind (1986), and Trinity Lutheran (2016), which laid the foundation for First Liberty’s crucial win in Carson v. Makin (2022), requiring Maine to include religious schools in its school choice program.
Lorence argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Regents of the University of Wisconsin v. Southworth (2000). He represented prolife Christian law students from the University of Wisconsin Law School who objected to the University’s requirement that they pay a mandatory student fee that funded the advocacy of student pro-abortion groups. Other Supreme Court cases Lorence has worked on include NIFLA v. Becerra (2018), protecting prolife pregnancy centers from a California statute requiring them to post signs explaining how pregnant women could obtain state-funded abortions; Masterpiece Cakeshop (2017), involving a Christian cake artist sued by the State of Colorado for declining to design a case celebrating the wedding of a same-sex couple and other cases such as Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2012), Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995), Hurley v. GLIB (1995) and Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Center Moriches School District (1993).
Churches and other religious groups in New York City obtained the right to rent vacant public schools on weekends to conduct worship services after Lorence’s tenacious 20 years of litigation in Bronx Household of Faith. Lorence won protection for churches facing eviction from discriminatory zoning ordinances in Minnesota in Cornerstone Bible Church v. City of Hastings, Minnesota (1991). He also argued at the New Mexico Supreme Court one of the first cases in the nation defending a Christian wedding photographer charged by the State of New Mexico with discrimination for declining to create photos celebrating the commitment ceremony of a lesbian couple in Elane Photography v. Willock (2013).
Lorence defended home schooling families from intrusive school officials during his time working at Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) in the 1980s and 1990s. HSLDA also tasked Lorence with establishing a sister organization in Canada to protect home schooling families there. He traveled extensively in Canada from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island speaking to families how they could protect their right to home school under relevant Canadian law.
Lorence earned his undergraduate degree in journalism from Stanford University and his law degree from the University of Minnesota, his home state. Lorence was born and raised in Minnesota, where he worked one summer building Mighty Dump trucks at Tonka Toys in Mound, Minnesota. For two years immediately after he graduated from law school, Lorence served as the head administrator for a Minnesota Senate committee.
He speaks extensively on First Amendment and other legal issues. Lorence has spoken at least 75 law schools and many legal conferences. Prominent publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and others have printed his opinion pieces on key legal issues involving religious liberty and freedom of speech. He has appeared on such media outlets as Fox News, CNN, National Public Radio, NBC’s Today Show, BBC radio and many others.
Lorence and his wife Marilyn have been married 40 years. They live in the Washington, D.C. area where they raised their seven children.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech
Brett Nolan is a Senior Attorney at the Institute for Free Speech, a public interest law firm that defends the First Amendment rights of those engaged in political speech and advocacy around the country.
Before joining the Institute, Brett served as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General of Kentucky, where he represented the Commonwealth in a wide variety of high-stakes litigation at every level of state and federal court. In that role, Brett led a successful challenge against the Department of Treasury over the constitutionality of a federal law limiting the ability of states to modify their tax codes, and he helped secure a U.S. Supreme Court victory that upheld a state’s constitutional right to defend its interests in federal court.
Prior to that, Brett served as the Deputy General Counsel to the former Governor of Kentucky, where he advised the governor and other executive branch officials on legal and policy issues and represented them in litigation. Brett clerked for Judge John Nalbandian of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Karen K. Caldwell of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Between clerkships, he worked in private practice. Brett received his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated with High Honors and was an editor of The University of Chicago Law Review.
Solicitor General, Ohio
Mathura Sridharan serves as the 12th Solicitor General of Ohio. She previously served as Deputy Solicitor General and as Director of Ohio’s Tenth Amendment Center, where she initiated and directed suits to defend Ohioans against unlawful federal policies and to preserve the separation of powers between the federal and state governments. Across these roles, she has briefed and argued numerous appeals before the Ohio Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth and other Circuits. In 2024, Mathura argued before the Supreme Court of the United States in Ohio v. EPA, representing several States in a challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Good Neighbor Rule regulating the interstate transport of air pollution.
Before joining the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, Mathura clerked for Judge Steven J. Menashi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge Deborah A. Batts of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She holds a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Bachelor of Science degrees in Economics and in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech
Brett Nolan is a Senior Attorney at the Institute for Free Speech, a public interest law firm that defends the First Amendment rights of those engaged in political speech and advocacy around the country.
Before joining the Institute, Brett served as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General of Kentucky, where he represented the Commonwealth in a wide variety of high-stakes litigation at every level of state and federal court. In that role, Brett led a successful challenge against the Department of Treasury over the constitutionality of a federal law limiting the ability of states to modify their tax codes, and he helped secure a U.S. Supreme Court victory that upheld a state’s constitutional right to defend its interests in federal court.
Prior to that, Brett served as the Deputy General Counsel to the former Governor of Kentucky, where he advised the governor and other executive branch officials on legal and policy issues and represented them in litigation. Brett clerked for Judge John Nalbandian of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Karen K. Caldwell of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Between clerkships, he worked in private practice. Brett received his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated with High Honors and was an editor of The University of Chicago Law Review.
Solicitor General, Ohio
Mathura Sridharan serves as the 12th Solicitor General of Ohio. She previously served as Deputy Solicitor General and as Director of Ohio’s Tenth Amendment Center, where she initiated and directed suits to defend Ohioans against unlawful federal policies and to preserve the separation of powers between the federal and state governments. Across these roles, she has briefed and argued numerous appeals before the Ohio Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth and other Circuits. In 2024, Mathura argued before the Supreme Court of the United States in Ohio v. EPA, representing several States in a challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Good Neighbor Rule regulating the interstate transport of air pollution.
Before joining the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, Mathura clerked for Judge Steven J. Menashi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge Deborah A. Batts of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She holds a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Bachelor of Science degrees in Economics and in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Partner, Barr & Klein PLLC
Steve Klein, a partner at Barr & Klein PLLC, is an experienced free speech attorney who has successfully fought for the First Amendment rights of his clients against local, state and federal regulators. As a lobbyist, Steve’s advocacy has led to the successful amendment of state laws to respect political engagement and prevented the enactment of laws that burden it. Steve has published articles in several legal journals, and his commentary has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The Detroit News, and other outlets. Steve earned a bachelors degree in politics at Hillsdale College and a law degree from Ave Maria School of Law, where he served as Managing Editor of the Ave Maria Law Review. He is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Illinois and Michigan.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech
Charles “Chip” Miller joined the Institute for Free Speech as a Senior Attorney in May 2023, where he has handled cases in the 1st, 5th, and 10th Circuits, District Courts in Maine, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Texas and Utah, and State Supreme Courts in Alaska and Connecticut, as well as amicus briefs in SCOTUS and the First Circuit. At IFS, Miller's work focuses on Campaign Finance, Donor Privacy, Political Speech and Freedom of the Press. Miller previously served as Ohio’s Deputy Attorney General, where he directed major litigation. Before joining the state AG’s office as General Counsel, he served as a judge for the First Appellate District of Ohio and had also served as a “visiting judge” on the Ohio Supreme Court. Prior to entering public service, Miller spent over 10 years at Keating, Muething & Klekamp, PLL as a litigation partner arguing cases before the Sixth Circuit and the Ohio Supreme Court.
Miller has extensive litigation and appellate experience and has spearheaded important regulatory matters. His previous work includes advancing innovative protections of free expression and competition in the digital sphere.
Miller is a graduate of Boston University College of Law and clerked for Justice Maureen O’Connor at the Ohio Supreme Court. Among other honors, Miller was selected to represent Boston University at the National First Amendment Moot Court.
General Counsel, xAI and X
Partner, Hacker Stephens LLP
Heather Gebelin Hacker is a partner at Hacker Stephens LLP. Before her time in the private sector, Heather served as an Assistant Solicitor General in the Texas Attorney General’s office, representing the State in its most critical appellate litigation and advising senior officials and state agencies on important legal issues. She has extensive appellate experience, including before the U.S. Supreme Court, Federal Appeals Courts, and the Texas Supreme Court. Her clients have included the Governor of Texas, the Attorney General of Texas, the University of Texas System, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Texas Legislature, among others.
Partner, Wiley
Lee served as Chairman and Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), where he successfully led the rulemaking to conform the agency's regulations to the Supreme Court's Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions and championed free speech on the Internet and free press rights. He previously had served as legal counsel and policy advisor to the Governor of Virginia and Attorney General of Virginia, associate general counsel of the University of Virginia, and general counsel to numerous political organizations. His experience covers a broad range of policy-oriented subjects, including federal and state campaign finance and ethics laws, First Amendment rights of political speech and association, political action on the Internet, taxation of the Internet, interstate regulation, and academic freedom. He has extensive experience in all aspects of election administration, having litigated state, local and congressional recounts, election contests, ballot access, voting rights, late poll openings, and delegate credentials.
He has been named a "Top Campaign & Elections Lawyer" by Washingtonian magazine. The Washington Examiner called Lee “a leading voice among conservative regulators in Washington” (2016) and “a tireless voice for First Amendment rights on the Internet” (2018); the Richmond Times-Dispatch dubbed him a “free-speech champion” (2018); The Hill labeled him “a happy warrior for the First Amendment” (2018); and the Washington Post called him a “sharp policy wonk” (1999). He is a frequent lecturer at law schools, universities, civic organizations, and continuing legal education programs. He has authored numerous articles on election law and a chapter on regulation of political speech on the Internet in Law and Election Politics: The Rules of the Game (Routledge 2013), and his writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Politico and other publications. He has served on the boards of several educational, cultural, and political non-profit organizations.
Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
Professor Derek Muller is a nationally-recognized scholar in the field of election law. His research focuses on the role of states in the administration of federal elections, the constitutional contours of voting rights and election administration, the limits of judicial power in the domain of elections, and the Electoral College.
He has published more than two dozen academic works, and his op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He has testified before Congress, and he is a contributor at the Election Law Blog. He is a co-author on a Federal Courts casebook published by Carolina Academic Press. He is also the co-reporter on a new Restatement of the Law, Election Litigation, an effort led by the American Law Institute.
Professor Muller teaches Election Law, Civil Procedure, and Evidence.
Partner, Lex Politico
Audrey Perry Martin is a national and California political law expert with nearly 20 years of experience. Her practice is focused on advising corporations, candidates, political action committees (PACs), political parties, and major campaign donors in the areas of political and election law.
Prior to joining The Gober Group, Audrey gained extensive knowledge and experience working at the Federal Election Commission, for Congress, a think tank, and at private law firms in Washington, D.C. and California. Audrey had previously worked as Deputy Campaign Manager and General Counsel for Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner’s 2010 California Gubernatorial race. She has extensive presidential election experience, serving as FEC counsel for McCain-Palin 2008, Deputy General Counsel for Romney for President in 2008, and as a consultant for Romney’s 2012 campaign. Audrey also worked as Legal Counsel to the Committee on House Administration of the U.S. House of Representatives, where she focused on issues such as HAVA implementation, election integrity, congressional ethics, and campaign finance.
Audrey has taught election law at Brigham Young University law school and serves as the Vice President of Judicial Affairs for the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA). Audrey has appeared on numerous media outlets, including Fox News and NPR. Audrey is very active on social media and frequently posts about current political law issues on her blog, www.legallypolitical.com. She received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism from Brigham Young University.
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. The Law of Democracy systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory.
Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 Presidential election litigation.
His work has been translated and published in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Pildes plays an active role litigating in these areas. He has won two cases before the United States Supreme Court, including a 2015 victory in Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, a case involving race and redistricting. He served as counsel to a group of former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission in litigation defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; as counsel in election litigation to the Puerto Rico Electoral Commission; as counsel to the government of Puerto Rico; as a federal court-appointed independent expert on voting rights litigation; and as counsel in successful Supreme Court litigation that challenged the way the United States Tax Court operated. He was also a senior legal advisor to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns of President Obama.
Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit
Judge Tymkovich, of Denver, Colorado, was nominated to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush, and confirmed in April 2003. On October 1, 2015 he became Chief Circuit Judge and held this position until October 2022. He was Chair of the US Judicial Conference’s Committee on Judicial Resources from 2011 to 2015. Since 2008 he has been an adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado School of Law, teaching Election Law. He is a member of the Doyle Inn of Court, the American Law Institute, and the International Society of Barristers. Since he joined the Circuit, Judge Tymkovich has hosted judicial delegations from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan, and has also represented the United States in programs at Kiev and Yalta in Ukraine.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Patrick J. Bumatay was confirmed as a U.S. Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in December 2019. He is based in San Diego, California.
Prior to his appointment, Judge Bumatay served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, where he was a member of the Appellate and Narcotics Sections. He also served as a Counselor to the Attorney General on criminal law issues, including on national opioid strategy and combating transnational organized crime.
Judge Bumatay has also worked in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Office of the Associate Attorney General, and the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Bumatay has twice received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award.
Judge Bumatay previously worked as an associate at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, and Bohrer in New York, New York. Judge Bumatay clerked for the Honorable Timothy M. Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the Honorable Sandra L. Townes of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge Bumatay earned his B.A., cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Former Attorney General, Arizona
During 8 years as Arizona Attorney General (2003-2011), Terry Goddard focused on protecting consumers and fighting trans-national organized crime. In 2010, he received the Kelly-Wyman Award, the highest recognition given by his fellow state Attorneys General.
As Mayor of Phoenix from 1984 to 1990, Terry increased citizen participation in government culminating in the Phoenix Futures Forum and the Billion Dollar Bond Issue in 1988. He was elected president of the National League of Cities in 1988 and recognized as Municipal Leader of the Year.
Recently, Terry’s political activity has been focused on getting a nonpartisan initiative to stop dark money from purchasing political ads in Arizona on the November ballot and approved by 72% of Arizona voters.
Terry retired as a commander after 27 years in the Naval Reserve. He practices law, works to revitalize and return to public use an historic church and teaches at the ASU College of Law. He is President of the Central Arizona Project board, the elected administrators of the canal system bringing water from the Colorado River to central Arizona. He lives in downtown Phoenix with his wife Monica, a tortoise, many cats and (occasionally) their recent ASU graduate son.
Of Counsel, Cashion Gilmore & Lindemuth
In addition to his experience as a litigator and appellate advocate, Scott Kendall offers a depth of expertise as a strategic consultant. He is well known for his work across all levels of government, across jurisdictions, and across political parties to design approaches that bring his clients positive results and disrupt negative outcomes.
Scott’s practice also includes providing guidance in matters related to strategic communications, as well as campaign and election law. He has represented organizations and individuals in proceedings before the Alaska Public Offices Commission and the Federal Elections Commission.
Scott’s campaign and election clients have included candidates for local, statewide, and national office as well as industry coalitions, non-profits, ballot measure groups, and independent campaign expenditure organizations (known as “superPACs”). In 2010, Scott was counsel to U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski’s historic, and successful, write-in campaign for reelection. In 2014, Scott drafted a successful statewide ballot measure aimed at protecting the world famous Bristol Bay salmon fishery.
From 2015 to 2016, Scott left the practice of law to serve as Campaign Coordinator for Senator Murkowski’s successful 2016 reelection campaign. And from 2016 to 2018 Scott served as Chief of Staff to Alaska Governor Bill Walker, providing him with a keen understanding of state government operations, as well as the complex relationships between state, federal, and local jurisdictions. During that time, Scott helped execute Governor Walker’s legislative strategy including the passage of landmark legislation transforming the way Alaska finances state government into an endowment or “POMV” model to protect the Alaska Permanent Fund in perpetuity.
More recently Scott authored, litigated, and advised the successful ballot measure campaign to improve Alaska’s statewide election system. The new system—which features a Top 4 open primary election along with Ranked Choice Voting in the general—has become a national model for election reform.
Early in his career, from 2003 to 2005, Scott served as law clerk to the Hon. Chief Judge of the Alaska Court of Appeals, Robert G. Coats.
Managing Partner, Statecraft
Kory Langhofer is the Managing Attorney at Statecraft PLLC, a law firm focusing on government and political law. His practice is concentrated in campaign finance, constitutional litigation, and political matters. He has previously worked as a federal prosecutor, as litigation counsel to the presidential campaigns for Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, and as general counsel for the 2016-2017 presidential transition team.
Kory received his A.B. in political science, summa cum laude, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as an Editor of The Yale Law Journal.
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. The Law of Democracy systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory.
Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 Presidential election litigation.
His work has been translated and published in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Pildes plays an active role litigating in these areas. He has won two cases before the United States Supreme Court, including a 2015 victory in Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, a case involving race and redistricting. He served as counsel to a group of former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission in litigation defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; as counsel in election litigation to the Puerto Rico Electoral Commission; as counsel to the government of Puerto Rico; as a federal court-appointed independent expert on voting rights litigation; and as counsel in successful Supreme Court litigation that challenged the way the United States Tax Court operated. He was also a senior legal advisor to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns of President Obama.
Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001.
Chairman and Founder, Institute for Free Speech; Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law, Capital University Law School
President, Center for American Rights
Daniel Suhr serves as president of the Center for American Rights, where he spends every day on the front lines of the fight to preserve our rights and liberties. The Center's mission is to advance free speech, free enterprise, and parental freedom in education through strategic, precedent-setting litigation.
Daniel formerly worked as policy director for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, as chief of staff for Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, and as a law clerk for Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He holds a B.A. and J.D. from Marquette University, and master’s degrees from Georgetown and the University of Missouri.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Justice
Harmeet K. Dhillon is the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. She was nominated by President Donald Trump in December 2024. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 3, 2025, and sworn in as AAG by Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 7, 2025.
Prior to joining the Division, Ms. Dhillon founded both the Dhillon Law Group, Inc., a successful legal practice with offices in California, Florida, Virginia, and New Jersey; and the Center for American Liberty, a nonprofit organization dedicated to pursuing civil liberties legal claims. Her law practice focused on First Amendment / free speech, civil rights, and campaign and election law issues. Among her many notable cases, Ms. Dhillon brought legal challenges against the University of California, Berkeley over its free speech policy, against an Antifa organization for an assault on a conservative journalist, against several states for their restrictive responses to Covid-19, and against various large tech companies for a host of civil rights issues.
Assistant Attorney General Dhillon was born in Chandigarh, India, and lived in London before moving to The Bronx, New York. Her family ultimately settled in rural Smithfield, North Carolina. After graduating high school at age 16, Ms. Dhillon attended Dartmouth College where she became editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth Review. After earning her bachelor’s degree in Classical Studies, she attended the University of Virginia School of Law and served on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review. She later clerked for the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Baltimore, Maryland.
Chairman and Founder, Institute for Free Speech; Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law, Capital University Law School
Panel II: Election Law in the Courts: Voting, Redistricting, and Election Administration
2026 Kentucky Chapters Conference
Lexington, KYSecond Annual Alaska Federalist Society Summer Social and SCOTUS Roundup
Alaska Lawyer Chapter
Anchorage, AKFrom the Courthouse Steps: National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission
Brett Nolan, Mathura Sridharan
In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court held 6-3 that...
From the Courthouse Steps: National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission
Litigation Update: Dinner Table Action v. Schneider
Stephen R. Klein, Charles M. Miller
In Dinner Table Action v. Schneider, pending in the First Circuit, Maine is appealing a...
Work Different: The Path to Impact Litigation
James M. Burnham, Heather Gebelin Hacker, Kate Comerford Todd
For the past several years, the Freedom of Thought Project has been showcasing those who’ve...
Panel II: The Democratic Election Process: What is Fair and Who Decides Fairness?
Lee E. Goodman, Derek T. Muller, Audrey Martin, Richard H. Pildes, Timothy M. Tymkovich
Democracy begins with elections. But the process for voting in our elections has been increasingly...
Panel 2: Recent Developments in Election Law
Patrick J. Bumatay, Terry Goddard, Scott Kendall, Kory Langhofer, Richard H. Pildes, Bradley A. Smith, Daniel Suhr
Many western states are making significant structural changes to their campaign and election laws. Innovations...
Litigation Update: FEC v. Cruz for Senate
Harmeet K. Dhillon
On January 19, 2022, the United States Supreme Court will hear an appeal by the Federal...
H.R. 1, the For the People Act, Explained
Bradley A. Smith
The For the People Act was introduced in the House of Representatives in 2019 as H.R. 1,...