Scott is a senior policy executive, based in Washington DC. Scott has testified before both U.S. House and Senate Committees on financial technology policy, small dollar lending regulation, consumer financial protection law and policy, and retirement security. Scott has provided commentary for national media outlets such as American Banker, CBS, Politico, the Atlantic, NPR, and on-camera breaking news interviews. Scott also is an adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Scott has previously worked as an economic policy advisor for the U.S. Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Center under former Minority Leader Senator Harry Reid and previous Chairman Senator Chuck Schumer. Prior to the Senate, Scott was an attorney in the Obama Administration at the White House Office of Management and Budget, Office of General Counsel. Before joining OMB, Scott was a legislative fellow, completing his placements on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, and then at the National Council of La Raza.

Scott has also published academic and peer reviewed articles on race, law & society, and political economy in journals such as the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law & Social Change, University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender & Class, and the Georgetown Public Policy Review. Scott has also been a panelist or presenter at conferences hosted by Netroots Nation, The United States Chamber of Commerce, the Financial Times and the Atlantic Magazine. Scott has been awarded previous fellowships by New Leaders Council, The Bryce Harlow Foundation, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

Scott received his BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his JD and MBA from Marquette University, and his LLM from the Georgetown University Law Center.

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Contributor Information

Jackson Mueller

Associate Director, Center for Financial Markets, Milken Institute

Biography

Jackson Mueller is an associate director at the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets. He focuses on FinTech, capital formation policy, and financial markets education initiatives. Prior to joining the Institute, Mueller was an assistant vice president at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), where he focused on a broad range of financial services-related policies, provided legislative and regulatory updates to executive-level government relations staff, and conducted analysis of key issues relevant to SIFMA’s members. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Richmond and a master’s degree in public policy from American University. He works at the Institute’s Washington office.

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Contributor Information

Kate Larson Prochaska

U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, Vice President and Regulatory Counsel

Biography

Kate Prochaska is Senior Counsel and Director, Regulatory Policy at Discover Financial Services. Prior to joining Discover, she served as Vice President & Regulatory Counsel, Center for Capital Market Competitiveness at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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Contributor Information

Ilya Somin

Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

Biography

ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.

Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.

Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.

Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.

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Speaker Information

Lisa Branch

Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit

Biography

On March 20, 2018, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch (Lisa) was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.

Judge Branch attended and graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina (B.A., cum laude, 1990), and Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1994).

After graduating from law school, Judge Branch served as a federal law clerk to The Honorable J. Owen Forrester of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia from 1994 to 1996. Following her clerkship, Judge Branch joined the litigation department of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta as an associate and then a partner.

From 2004 to 2008, Judge Branch was a senior official in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. She served first as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget.

She returned to Smith Gambrell in 2008 as a litigation partner. Judge Branch then was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal, taking office on September 4, 2012, where she served until March 19, 2018.

Judge Branch is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.

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Speaker Information

Josh Blackman

Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston

Biography

Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.

Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.

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