Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, Department of Justice
GianCarlo Canaparo serves as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice. There, he oversees the Office's regulatory work and is the Department's liaison to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He also assists the White House in the process of selecting nominees for federal judgeships and advises Department leadership on policy and legal matters.
Before joining the Department, Canaparo was a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies where he researched constitutional law, administrative law, and civil rights.
Canaparo’s scholarship has appeared in various law reviews including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Notre Dame Law Review, the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Texas Review of Law and Politics, and the Administrative Law Review. His research has been cited by Justice Neil Gorsuch and featured in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. His analysis has appeared in Law & Liberty, Civitas, Fox News, The National Review, Law 360, FedSoc Blog, and other outlets.
Canaparo co-hosted The Heritage Foundation’s SCOTUS 101 podcast, which follows the Supreme Court’s arguments and opinions and features interviews with judges, advocates, and scholars.
After graduating Georgetown law, Canaparo spent three years at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and two years as a federal law clerk. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California at Davis.
Canaparo is a classical pianist and organist.
Charles Yates is an attorney in Pacific Legal Foundation’s environmental practice group, where he litigates to defend private property rights and uphold the structural protections guaranteed by the Constitution’s separation of powers.
His inspiration to focus on environmental law comes from the special case of government overreach it presents, where individual rights too often give way to collectivist notions and where misguided government policies create a cure worse than the disease. Charles has a particularly strong belief in the important role that the productive use of natural resources plays for human flourishing. To these ends, his practice at PLF focuses primarily on the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and related regulatory issues.
Charles credits his strong belief in the principles of individual liberty and limited, constitutional government to his family. His personal philosophy developed further while studying the works of Adam Smith, John Locke, James Madison, and other classical liberals. Born and raised in Australia, Charles has always admired the U.S. Constitution as the purest and most enduring application of the ideals of individual liberty and limited government. It was these influences that impressed upon him the desire to pursue a career in public interest litigation.
After obtaining a B.A. in political science and international relations from the University of Western Australia, Charles moved to the U.S., where he earned his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Baltimore School of Law. During law school, he served as president of his school’s chapter of The Federalist Society and was an editor of the University of Baltimore Law Review. Other highlights from his law school days include an internship at the Cato Institute and a clerkship at the Institute for Justice.
Charles lives in Sacramento with his wife Maxine. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and playing the bass guitar.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel
Joe Burns is a partner with Holtzman Vogel and focuses his practice on representing candidates and party committees in election cases throughout New York State.
Prior to joining the firm, Joe served as Deputy Director of Election Operations at the New York State Board of Elections. In this role, he worked with county Boards of Elections, candidates, and party committees, and was involved in New York State's transition from lever to optical scan voting. He also conducted hearings for the NYSBOE and represented it in court proceedings.
Additionally, Joe has served as an attorney for the Erie County and New York State Republican Committees, and has also represented candidates for a variety of public offices throughout New York State, including candidates for U.S. Congress and New York State Supreme Court.
From 2018 to 2024, Joe was the Deputy Administrative Director for the Erie County Water Authority; and from 2015 to 2018, he was the Secretary to the Erie County Water Authority.
A life-long resident of Upstate New York and active member of the Western New York community, Joe served as vice chair of the Erie County Charter Revision Commission in 2016 and was a member of the Erie County Advisory Commission on Reapportionment in 2021. City and State named Joe to its Upstate Power 100 list in 2024, and in 2025, Joe was named as one of New York State’s Law Power 100 by City and State.
Joe is a frequent commentator and author on New York State and national politics, and election law.
Stephen Cranney has a dual PhD in sociology and demography from the University of Pennsylvania and is a freelance data scientist in the Washington, DC, area.
Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, Independence Institute
Professor Robert G. Natelson is a constitutional scholar and author.
Rob’s constitutional scholarship has been cited repeatedly by justices and parties at the U.S. Supreme Court—as well as by federal appeals courts, and at least 18 state supreme courts.
Rob’s research into the Constitution’s original meaning has carried him to libraries throughout the United States and in Britain, including four months at Oxford University. His books and articles span many different parts of the Constitution, including groundbreaking studies of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Indian Commerce Clause, federalism, Founding-Era interpretation, regulation of elections, and the amendment process of Article V. He created the first-ever online bibliography for 18th century materials used in constitutional research. He is a contributing author to the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (on Magna Carta). He contributed eight essays to the third edition of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution: five on the amendment procedure and one each on the Guarantee Clause, the Postal Clause, and the Recess Appointments Clause.
U.S. Supreme Court justices have relied explicitly on Rob’s research in 41 citations in 13 separate cases.
Attorney, Institute for Justice
Keith Neely is an attorney with the Institute for Justice. He joined IJ in 2019 and works on cases involving each of IJ’s Four Pillars.
Before joining IJ, Keith worked as an associate in the Tax Controversy practice of the D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. While employed at Skadden, he also spent six months seconded to the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, where he specialized in eviction defense. Prior to joining Skadden, Keith clerked for Judge Danny Boggs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Keith received his law degree in 2016 from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he also served as an editorial board member of the Virginia Law Review. He has an undergraduate degree in History from Vanderbilt University.
State Court Docket Watch: Matthews v. Industrial Commission of Arizona
GianCarlo Canaparo
How does originalism work with state constitutions? Justice Clint Bolick, writing for the Arizona Supreme...
Tennessee’s Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause
Nashville Lawyers Chapter
Nashville, TNTopics
William S. Consovoy, 1974-2023
To commemorate the repose of Will Consovoy, we will be posting reflections and expressions of...
Topics
Book Review: NOT Accountable, by Philip Howard (Part One)
Many of the grave and chronic maladies of modern American governance, including a loss of...
State Court Docket Watch: Mills v. Arizona Board of Technical Registration
In Mills v. Arizona Board of Technical Registration,[1] the Arizona Supreme Court considered whether...
State Court Docket Watch: Ritter v. Oklahoma
Charles Yates
The drafters of the Oklahoma Constitution—“[f]earing excessive power in the hands of one individual”—strictly...
State Court Docket Watch: Harkenrider v. Hochul
Joseph Thomas Burns
On April 27, 2022, the New York State Court of Appeals invalidated the Congressional and...
Topics
December Is a Good Time to Celebrate the American Revolution
This month includes the anniversary of a historic action taken by the British Crown that...
Measuring and Evaluating Public Responses to Religious Rights Rulings
Creighton Roland Meland, Stephen Cranney
The story of Jack Phillips and his cake shop—Masterpiece Cakeshop—is by now familiar. Jack Phillips...
The Meaning of "Regulate Commerce" to the Constitution's Ratifiers
Robert G. Natelson
I. Previous Scholarship[1] A. Views of “Commerce”: Traditional and “Mega” The Constitution grants Congress power...