Syndicated Columnist
New York political commentor Deroy Murdock is a Fox News Contributor, a Contributing Editor with National Review Online, an emeritus Media Fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University; and a Senior Fellow with the Atlas Network, which supports and connects some 500 free-market think tanks in the USA and some 95 countries world-wide. Mr. Murdock’s weekly column — “This Opinion Just In…” — appears in the New York Post, the Washington Times, the New Hampshire Union-Leader, and other newspapers across America. He has appeared on radio shows across America and presents commentaries on Fox News Radio’s podcast, The Rundown. He is a veteran of the 1980 and 1984 Reagan for President campaigns and Steve Forbes’ 2000 White House bid.
As a popular public speaker, he has lectured or debated at the Cato Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations; Harvard Medical School, the Heritage Foundation; the National Academy of Sciences; Dartmouth, Stanford, and Tulane universities; and various fora, from Bogotá to Buenos Aires to Budapest. He is a native of Los Angeles, a graduate of Georgetown University, and a resident of Manhattan, where he earned an MBA from New York University. His program included a semester of study at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Deroy Murdock hopes that someday the free society will bring him — and every American — more leisure time to experience fine dining, motion pictures, skiing, live music, and the priceless joys of family, friends, and loved ones.
Governor, Florida
Ron DeSantis is the 46th Governor of the State of Florida. Since taking office in January 2019, he has worked hard to expand education opportunities, improve Florida’s water resources and Everglades, champion vocational training, bolster public safety, foster innovation in health care, assist with hurricane recovery, promote infrastructure development and support veterans – all while lowering taxes and being fiscally responsible.
A native Floridian, Governor DeSantis worked his way through Yale University, where he captained the university baseball team and graduated magna cum laude. He also gradated with honors from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, he earned a commission in the U.S. Navy as a JAG Officer. During his active duty service, then- Lieutenant DeSantis deployed to Iraq as an advisor to a U.S. Navy SEAL Commander in support of the SEAL mission in Iraq. His military decorations include the Iraq Campaign Medal of the Bronze Star Medal (meritorious service).
Prior to serving as Governor, DeSantis served as the U.S. Congressman for Florida’s 6th District. As Chairman of the National Security Subcommittee, DeSantis spearheaded efforts to reform the UA, combat terrorism, identify government waste and relocate the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. As a Congressman, DeSantis championed term limits, fiscal responsibility with a strong national defense.
Governor DeSantis is married to First Lady Casey DeSantis, a former Emmy Award winning television host. They are the proud parents of two children, Madison and Mason. They are the youngest family living in the Florida Governor’s Mansion in nearly fifty years.
Former White House Press Secretary
Kayleigh McEnany currently serves as co-host of Outnumbered (weekdays, 12 PM/ET) on FOX News Channel. McEnany also contributes across all of FOX News Media platforms as an on-air commentator. She joined the network in March 2021.
Prior to joining FOX News Channel, McEnany served as White House Press Secretary under former President Donald Trump. She served as White House Press Secretary from April 2020 through the end of former President Trump’s term. Previously, McEnany held the title of national spokesperson for the Republican National Committee before joining the Trump campaign as national press secretary. She got her start in politics as an intern for former Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) and later, in the White House Office of Media Affairs during President George W. Bush’s administration.
Additionally prior to her role at the White House, McEnany worked as a political analyst at CNN. She has also been a contributor at The Hill and a columnist for Above the Law. She began her career in media as an intern at FOX News, where she later became a production assistant.
An alumna of Harvard Law School, McEnany earned her Juris Doctor in 2016. She also holds a degree in international politics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Affairs and studied politics and international relations at Oxford University, St. Edmund Hall. In 2018, McEnany authored her first book, The New American Revolution: The Making of a Populist Movement.
Founder, Consilia Law, PLLC
Phil Gordon is the founder of Consilia Law, PLLC, in Waco, Texas. He practices election and political law and regulatory compliance, and advises businesses in regulated industries.
Phil began his career as Associate Counsel to the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee. He then spent nearly a decade at a nationally recognized political law firm in Washington, D.C. and built a litigation practice centered on election law, redistricting, and constitutional litigation. He has been author or co-author of nine briefs before the Supreme Court of the United States, including as counsel for parties in Moore v. Harper and Upstate Jobs Party v. Kosinski, and as amicus counsel in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, Trump v. Anderson, Gill v. Whitford, and Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Benson, among others.
Beyond the Supreme Court, Phil has tried redistricting cases before three-judge federal panels in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Louisiana, including as trial counsel for the State of Louisiana in Robinson v. Callais. He has briefed appeals in the D.C., Second, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits, including victories for the NRSC and RGA in the Eleventh Circuit and for New Republican PAC in the D.C. Circuit. His broader practice covers campaign finance compliance, FARA, and regulatory counsel for political committees, officeholders, advocacy organizations, and businesses operating in regulated environments.
Phil holds a J.D. from Baylor Law School, an M.S. in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin, and a B.A. in Philosophy from California State University, Los Angeles. He is licensed in Texas, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, and is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, multiple federal courts of appeals, and several federal district courts.
Professor of Political Science, University of Florida
Dr. Michael P. McDonald is Professor of Political Science at University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of California, San Diego and B.S. in Economics from California Institute of Technology. He held a one-year post-doc fellowship at Harvard University and previously taught at Vanderbilt University; University of Illinois, Springfield; and George Mason University.
His research interests are in the areas of elections and methodology. His voter turnout research shows that turnout is not declining, the ineligible population is rising. He is a co-principle investigator on the Public Mapping Project, a project to encourage public participation in redistricting. He is co-author with Micah Altman of The Public Mapping Project: How Public Participation Can Revolutionize Redistricting; co-author with Micah Altman and Jeff Gill of Numerical Issues in Statistical Computing for the Social Scientist,and is co-editor with John Samples of The Marketplace of Democracy: Electoral Competition and American Politics. His research appears in several edited volumes and in scholarly journals including American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Analysis, Political Geography, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, Sociological Methods and Research, Social Science Computing Review, The Election Law Journal, Política y Gobierno, and the law review journals of New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, Duke J. Constitutional Law and Public Policy, University of Richmond Law Review, Case Western Law Review and the Georgetown Law Review.
On the practical side of politics, Dr. McDonald has worked for the national exit poll organization; consulted to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission; consulted to the Pew Center for the States; served on campaign staff for state legislative campaigns in California and Virginia; has worked for national polling firms; has been an expert witness for election lawsuits in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Washington; and has worked as a redistricting consultant or expert witness in Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia. He has worked as a media consultant to the Associated Press, ABC, and NBC, and is frequently quoted in the media regarding United States elections. His opinion editorials have appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, The Politico, The Hill, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, The American Prospect, and Roll Call.
Sheila M. McDevitt Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Election Law Center, Florida State University College of Law
Professor Morley joined FSU Law in 2018, and teaches and writes in the areas of election law, constitutional law, remedies, and the federal courts. He is best known for his work on election emergencies and post-election litigation, nationwide and other defendant-oriented injunctions, the jurisdiction of the federal courts and their equitable powers more generally. He has testified before congressional committees, made presentations to election officials for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and participated in bipartisan blue-ribbon groups to develop election reforms. The governor of Florida also appointed Professor Morley to the Criminal Punishment Code Task Force, to propose potential revisions to the legislature.
The U.S. Supreme Court has cited several of his articles, and he was counsel of record for the successful Petitioner in a landmark campaign finance case. Professor Morley has appeared on C-SPAN, Court TV, Fox News and numerous local news programs, and has been quoted in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Roll Call, Politico, U.S. News and World Report, and a wide range of other national publications. His work has been published in many of the nation’s top law reviews, including the Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, Boston University Law Review and Emory Law Journal.
Before joining FSU Law, Professor Morley was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. Prior to his experience in academia, he served in government as special assistant to the General Counsel of the Army at the Pentagon, as well as a law clerk for Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. During his tenure with the Army General Counsel’s office, he was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the Army Staff Lapel Pin. He also worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP and the Supreme Court & Appellate group of Winston & Strawn, LLP, both in Washington, D.C.
Professor Morley earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2003, where he was a senior editor on the Yale Law Journal; served on the moot court board; and received the Thurman Arnold Prize for Best Oralist in the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals.
Justice, Florida Supreme Court
On May 23, 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Justice Meredith L. Sasso to be the 93rd justice of the Supreme Court of Florida.
Justice Sasso was raised in Tallahassee. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida in 2005 and her law degree from the University of Florida in 2008, where she was a member of the Justice Campbell Thornal Moot Court Board. She began her career in private practice, representing clients in large loss general liability, auto negligence, and complex commercial claims in state and federal courts at trial and on appeal. She also served as guardian ad litem, representing abused or neglected children.
In August 2016, Justice Sasso joined the Office of the General Counsel to Governor Rick Scott, serving as Chief Deputy General Counsel. In this role, she represented the Governor in litigation before the Florida Supreme Court, the First District Court of Appeal, and state and federal trial courts, among other duties. In January 2019, Governor Rick Scott appointed her to the Fifth District Court of Appeal. Governor Ron DeSantis recommissioned her to the newly created Sixth District Court of Appeal on January 1, 2023, where she was elected by her colleagues to serve as its first Chief Judge.
She is an appointed member of the Florida Bar Appellate Court Rules Committee. She is also a member of the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network and the Federalist Society.
Attorney General, Florida
Attorney General Ashley Moody, a fifth generation Floridian, was born and raised in Plant City, Florida. She attended the University of Florida where she earned her bachelors and masters degrees in accounting and juris doctorate. She later attended Stetson University College of Law earning a masters of law in international law. In 2018, she was elected the 38th Attorney General of Florida.
General Moody joined the United States Attorney’s Office prosecuting drug, firearm, and fraud offenses. While a federal prosecutor, Ashley was commended by the DEA for prosecutorial excellence and outstanding initiative in drug law enforcement. She was also recognized by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for her lead of “Operation Round-Up,” a targeted prosecution of violent and repeat offenders.
In 2006, at the age of 31, General Moody became the youngest judge in Florida when she was elected Circuit Court Judge of the 13th Judicial Circuit in Hillsborough County. As a judge, she founded the Attorney Ad Litem program recruiting volunteer attorneys to stand in the place of parents who did not appear in court with their children. She also developed a mentoring program for at-risk children within the juvenile delinquency system.
Ashley is married to Justin, a federal law enforcement agent. They have two sons, Connor and Brandon. Their eldest son Brandon is serving in the United States Army.
United States Senator, Utah
Elected in 2010 as Utah's 16th Senator, Mike Lee has spent his career defending the basic liberties of Americans and Utahns as a tireless advocate for our founding constitutional principles.
Senator Lee acquired a deep respect for the Constitution early on. His father, Rex Lee, who served as the Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, would often discuss varied aspects of judicial and constitutional doctrine around the kitchen table, from Due Process to the uses of Executive Plenary Power. He attended most of his father's arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, giving him a unique, hands-on experience and understanding of government up close.
Lee graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, and served as BYU's Student Body President in his senior year. He graduated from BYU's Law School in 1997 and went on to serve as law clerk to Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, and then with future Supreme Court Justice Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Lee spent several years as an attorney with the law firm Sidley & Austin specializing in appellate and Supreme Court litigation, and then served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Salt Lake City arguing cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Lee served the state of Utah as Governor Jon Huntsman's General Counsel and was later honored to reunite with Justice Alito, now on the Supreme Court, for a one-year clerkship. He returned to private practice in 2007.
Throughout his career, Lee earned a reputation as an outstanding practitioner of the law based on his sound judgment, abilities in the courtroom, and thorough understanding of the Constitution.
Today, Lee fights to preserve America's proud founding document in the United States Senate. He advocates efforts to support constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and economic prosperity.
Lee is a member of the Judiciary Committee, and serves as Chairman of the Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee protecting business competition and personal freedom.
He also oversees issues critical to Utah as the Chairman of the Water and Power Subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He serves on the Commerce Committee and the Joint Economic Committee, as well.
In the 114th Congress, Lee also began his tenure as Chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, where he works with his Republican colleagues in the Senate to introduce bold and innovative solutions to issues facing the American people.
Lee and his wife Sharon live in Alpine, Utah, with their three children. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two-year mission for the Church in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Senior Counsel, Cleary Gottlieb
Michael H. Krimminger is Senior Counsel at Cleary Gottlieb where his practice focuses on U.S. and international banking and financial institutions.
In particular, he advises on the challenges and opportunities stemming from statutory and regulatory reforms in the United States and internationally. He recently served as lead counsel to itBit Trust Company, a commercial Bitcoin exchange, in becoming the first U.S.-chartered and regulated virtual currency exchange.
Michael joined Cleary Gottlieb in 2012 as partner after serving for more than two decades in numerous leadership positions with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), including most recently as its general counsel. As general counsel, he served as the principal legal and policy advisor to the chairman and board of directors regarding the legislative development and later implementation of regulatory and policy components of the Dodd-Frank Act, including its SIFI resolution, living wills, capital markets and capital, and structured finance requirements. Michael played a major role in the FDIC and U.S. efforts to enhance resolution planning and cross-border cooperation among G-20 countries. He was also responsible for all legal policy, litigation, corporate issues and operations for the 730 attorney and non-attorney members of the Legal Division.
Prior to serving as general counsel, Michael served as Special Advisor for Policy to the Chairman and deputy to the chairman for policy. He played a central role in the FDIC’s response to the financial crisis and the development of Dodd-Frank Act provisions addressing capital markets, capital requirements, creation of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, living wills, enhanced prudential supervision, risk retention, resolution authority, and other provisions of the act.
Michael’s international experience includes serving as the co-chair of the Basel Committee’s Cross Border Resolutions Group and representing the FDIC on the Financial Stability Board’s Resolution Steering Group and other bodies. He has played a central role in bilateral and multilateral discussions with regulators around the world on legal reform, resolution planning, capital and liquidity requirements, and strategies for implementation of financial market reforms for derivatives and other financial market contracts.
Michael became senior counsel in 2020.
Executive Director, The Financial Technology and Cybersecurity Center
Thomas P. Vartanian is the Executive Director of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center, an author, financial services advisor, expert witness, and board mentor. He is the former Executive Director of the Program on Financial Regulation & Technology at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he was also a Professor of Law. Between 1983 and 2018, he chaired the Financial Institution’s practices at two international law firms, Dechert LLP and Fried Frank LLP, through four financial crises. Both as a regulator and private practitioner, he has represented parties in a majority of the 50 largest financial institution failures in American history.
Mr. Vartanian served in the Reagan Administration during the S&L crisis as General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the FSLIC. Prior to that, he served in the Carter Administration in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as Special Assistant to the Chief Counsel. Since departing government service, he has advised many subsequent presidential administrations on financial institution issues.
Mr. Vartanian is a futurist and expert in financial technology who has been described by clients in Chambers as “one of the best financial services lawyers in America.” Mr. Vartanian was Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Cyberspace Law Committee between 1998 and 2002, where he chaired an international task force of lawyers from twenty countries which released a seminal report in London in 2000 on the novel issues created by doing business in Cyberspace. He is currently a member of the American Association of Bank Directors’ Task Force on Bank Director Personal Liability Mitigation.
Mr. Vartanian has authored more than four hundred articles and eight books, including his new book, 200 Years of American Financial Panics: Crashes, Recessions, Depressions, and the Technology That Will Change It All chronicling the country’s tumultuous financial history and the impact that technology will have on its future.
He is a frequent lecturer and media commentator on the financial services industry, having appeared on Bloomberg TV, CNN, Fox News, Newsmax, PBS and various local and national radio shows. He has also taught financial services and digital commerce law at Georgetown Law School, George Washington Law School, and Boston University School of Law, and has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School.
In 2008, Mr. Vartanian was named “Washingtonian of the Year” based on his use of music and sports to raise money for charities in the D.C. metropolitan area. As a musician, he appeared in the first production in the United States in 1970 of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. His classic rock band, The Johnny Esquire Band, has helped raise approximately $5,000,000 for charities in the Washington D.C. area over the last twenty-five years. Mr. Vartanian also founded and plays for the Washington All Stars, a senior baseball team that has raised more than $500,000 for Special Olympics.
His next book, The Unhackable Internet, will be published in early 2023.
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.
Entrepreneur and Author of WOKE, INC.
Conservative leaders have called Vivek Ramaswamy one of “the most compelling conservative voices in the country” and “one of the towering intellects” in America.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a New York Times bestselling author and a successful entrepreneur who has founded multiple successful enterprises. A first-generation American, he is the founder and executive chairman of Roivant Sciences, a new type of biopharmaceutical company focused on the application of technology to drug development. He founded Roivant in 2014 and led the largest biotech IPOs of 2015 and 2016, eventually culminating in successful clinical trials in multiple disease areas that led to FDA-approved products.
Mr. Ramaswamy was born and raised in southwest Ohio. He graduated summa cum laude in Biology from Harvard in 2007 and began his career as a successful biotech investor at a prominent hedge fund. Mr. Ramaswamy continued to work as an investor while earning his law degree at Yale.
Mr. Ramaswamy was featured on the cover of Forbes magazine in 2015 for his work in drug development. In 2020 he emerged as a prominent commentator on stakeholder capitalism, free speech, and woke culture. He has authored numerous articles and op-eds, which have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, National Review, Newsweek, and Harvard Business Review.
Mr. Ramaswamy serves on the board of directors of the Philanthropy Roundtable, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, and St. Xavier High School.
Entrepreneur and Author of WOKE, INC.
Conservative leaders have called Vivek Ramaswamy one of “the most compelling conservative voices in the country” and “one of the towering intellects” in America.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a New York Times bestselling author and a successful entrepreneur who has founded multiple successful enterprises. A first-generation American, he is the founder and executive chairman of Roivant Sciences, a new type of biopharmaceutical company focused on the application of technology to drug development. He founded Roivant in 2014 and led the largest biotech IPOs of 2015 and 2016, eventually culminating in successful clinical trials in multiple disease areas that led to FDA-approved products.
Mr. Ramaswamy was born and raised in southwest Ohio. He graduated summa cum laude in Biology from Harvard in 2007 and began his career as a successful biotech investor at a prominent hedge fund. Mr. Ramaswamy continued to work as an investor while earning his law degree at Yale.
Mr. Ramaswamy was featured on the cover of Forbes magazine in 2015 for his work in drug development. In 2020 he emerged as a prominent commentator on stakeholder capitalism, free speech, and woke culture. He has authored numerous articles and op-eds, which have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, National Review, Newsweek, and Harvard Business Review.
Mr. Ramaswamy serves on the board of directors of the Philanthropy Roundtable, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, and St. Xavier High School.
Professor of Philosophy, St. Louis University
Reverend Michael Barber, S.J., Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, has been a member of the Society of Jesus for fifty-five years. He completed a B.A. and M.A. Saint Louis University, attended the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago from 1976-1979, and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1979. He then pursued his doctorate in philosophy at Yale University from 1979-1985, and, after graduating, was hired in the Philosophy Department at Saint Louis University, where he has served for thirty-seven years. From 2009-2011, he was the Dean of the College of Philosophy and Letters and from 2010-2015, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He held the Hotfelder Distinguished Chair in the Humanities at Saint Louis University from 2004-2010 and the LeRoux Visiting Chair in the Humanities at Seattle University in 2017. His academic expertise has to do with the phenomenology of the social world, in particular the work of Alfred Schutz, a twentieth century philosopher who escaped Austria under Hitler’s Anschluss and took up residence in New York, teaching for nineteen years at the New School for Social Research. Barber has also written extensively on the work of Edmund Husserl, Emmanuel Levinas, Max Scheler, Karl-Otto Apel, Jürgen Habermas, and Enrique Dussel. He has published seven solo-authored books, most recently Religion and Humor as Emancipating Provinces of Meaning (Springer, 2017), and his book The Participating Citizen: A Biography of Alfred Schutz (SUNY, 2004) won the Ballard Prize for the best book in phenomenology in 2007. He has edited nineteen books and published over one hundred articles in volumes from Springer, Routledge, and Oxford University Press and in journals such as Husserl Studies and Human Studies. He has held leadership roles in several international phenomenological organizations. At present he is working on a project exploring the relationship between imposed relevances (interests) and what Schutz calls "finite provinces of meaning," in particular the provinces of religious experience, music, play, and humor (especially African-American folklore). He regularly teaches courses in ethics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy and race (including philosophical texts classified by authors as part of a generalized critical race theory). He celebrates Mass weekly in Spanish for the Hispanic community of Holy Rosary Church in Fairmont City, Illinois, and belongs to the Sacred Heart Jesuit Community in St. Louis. He can be contacted at michael.barber@slu.edu.
Partner, Shands, Elbert, Gianoulakis & Giljum, LLP
Mark Bremer has more than forty years civil litigation experience in federal and state trial and appellate courts, with an emphasis on business litigation, involving general commercial, antitrust, securities, bankruptcy, employment, education, civil rights and class action law and procedure. By way of illustration, Mr. Bremer served in a lead counsel capacity on behalf of two dozen suburban school districts in trying and ultimately settling the St. Louis School Desegregation Case, the longest-standing and most complex case in the St. Louis federal court. Mr. Bremer provides litigation representation and consultation to Fortune 500 businesses, educational institutions, employers of all types and other entities in a variety of specialized areas of law and practice.
Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large, Syndicated Columnist, Host of "The Josh Hammer Show," Article III Project Senior Counsel, Newsweek, Salem Media, Article III Project, David Horowitz Freedom Center
Josh Hammer is the senior editor-at-large of Newsweek and host of "The Josh Hammer Show," a podcast, a syndicated radio show, and TV program on Salem News Channel. A syndicated columnist through Creators Syndicate, Josh is a frequent pundit and essayist on political, legal, and cultural issues. He is also senior counsel for the Article III Project and Internet Accountability Project, as well as a Shillman Fellow with the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a fellow with the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
An outspoken conservative, Josh opines on conservative intellectual trends, contemporary domestic and foreign policy debates, constitutional and legal issues, and the intersection of law, politics and culture. He has been published by many leading outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, Daily Mail, Newsweek, the Claremont Review of Books, National Affairs, American Affairs, The New Criterion, The National Interest, National Review, RealClearPolitics, First Things, City Journal, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, Tablet Magazine, Deseret Magazine, Compact Magazine, Chronicles Magazine, The Spectator, The American Mind, The American Conservative, The European Conservative, American Greatness, American Compass, The Federalist, Blaze Media, TomKlingenstein.com, Townhall, The Daily Wire, The Daily Signal, The Daily Caller, The Epoch Times, Anchoring Truths, Fortune, Fox Business, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, The Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Jewish Journal. He has also had legal scholarship published by the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and the University of St. Thomas Law Journal.
Josh is a college campus speaker through Young America's Foundation and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and a law school campus speaker through the Federalist Society. Prior to Newsweek and The Daily Wire, where he was an editor, Josh worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and clerked for the Hon. James C. Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Josh has also served as a John Marshall Fellow with the Claremont Institute and as a Fellow with the James Wilson Institute. He is the former host of "America on Trial with Josh Hammer," a one-season daily podcast with The First that covered the unique legal issues surrounding the 2024 presidential election.
Josh graduated from Duke University, where he majored in economics, and from the University of Chicago Law School. He lives in Florida, but remains an active member of the State Bar of Texas.
Executive Director, Southeastern Legal Foundation
Kimberly Hermann serves as Executive Director for Southeastern Legal Foundation.
Kim has worked with Southeastern Legal Foundation since 2009. Her belief in liberty and desire to serve started at a young age – instilled by her parents’ dedication to hard work, family values, and love for America.
After earning her undergraduate degree in Analytical Finance and graduate degree in Accounting from Wake Forest University, Kim worked as a licensed CPA with an international accounting firm. But her strong belief in individual liberty, the rule of law, and accountability in government led her to pursue a career in law. While in law school at Georgia State University College of Law, Kim served as a law clerk at SLF. After graduating, Kim worked at a private law firm in Atlanta where she specialized in financial and business litigation but continued to serve SLF in a pro bono capacity. In 2013, Kim returned to SLF full-time and is proud to dedicate her career to the freedom-based law movement.
Kim advances liberty through litigation in federal and state trial and appellate courts on issues ranging from government overreach, free speech, property rights, and economic liberty. In addition to representing clients, Kim testifies before state legislatures, drafts model legislation, and regularly publishes legal articles. Through SLF’s legal initiatives, she informs Americans about their constitutional rights, equipping them with the tools they need to stand up to government overreach. Her work and that of Southeastern Legal Foundation is regularly covered by national media and you will frequently hear or see her on radio, podcasts, and television.
Kim is an active member of the Federalist Society where she serves as an expert on the Federalist Society’s Civil Rights Executive Committee. She is also an active member of her community and when she isn’t fighting for liberty, you can find her at her children’s school or on the sports fields cheering them on. She lives in the Atlanta area with her husband and two children.
Dave Roland is the Director of Litigation and co-founder of the Freedom Center of Missouri; he also serves as the Secretary for the Freedom Center’s Board of Directors. Dave earned undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Biblical Studies at Abilene Christian University before studying law and religion at Vanderbilt University, where he received his law degree and a Master’s in Theology in 2004. While at Vanderbilt, Dave wrote a series of essays for the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center about the First Amendment and public education, and he clerked for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in Washington, DC. Following law school, Dave spent more than three years in the nation’s capital as an attorney with the Institute for Justice, where he litigated school choice, economic liberty, and property rights cases in state and federal courts. His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, USAToday, the Huffington Post, on Fox News and MSNBC, and other major media outlets nationwide. Since moving to Missouri in 2007, Dave has become a familiar presence on television news broadcasts, radio shows, and in newspapers across the state. He travels widely throughout the state, speaking to elected officials, student groups at colleges and law schools, Federalist Society chapters, and community groups about education, property rights, health care reform, constitutional protections for liberty, and the American Founders’ conception of virtue. Dave has also established himself as one of the preeminent election attorneys in Missouri, having won groundbreaking, precedent-setting victories in Wright-Jones v. Nasheed, Vowell v. Kander, and Franks v. Hubbard. Prior to founding the Freedom Center, he spent three years working as an attorney and policy analyst for the Show-Me Institute. Dave also previously served as the Director of the Theodore L. Stiles Center for Liberty at the Freedom Foundation in Olympia, Washington. He has been admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Missouri, Tennessee, and Washington, as well as before the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern District of Missouri, the Western District of Missouri, the Western District of Washington, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He lives in Mexico, Missouri, with his wife, Jenifer, and their three children. Dave can be reached at dave@mofreedom.org.
I, Juror
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The 2022 Missouri Chapters Conference took place on January 24, 2022, at the Missouri State...
Keynote Address by Vivek Ramaswamy
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The 2022 Missouri Chapters Conference took place on January 24, 2022, at the Missouri State...
Panel Three: Critical Race Theory in K-12 Public Schools
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The 2022 Missouri Chapters Conference took place on January 24, 2022, at the Missouri State...