Editor at Large, POLITICO
Peter S. Canellos is managing editor for enterprise at POLITICO, overseeing the site’s magazine, investigative journalism and major projects. He has also been POLITICO’s executive editor, overseeing the newsroom during the 2016 presidential coverage, and the editorial page editor of The Boston Globe.
A native of Boston, Peter is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Law School. He spent most of his career at the Globe, where at various points he oversaw the paper’s local news coverage and Washington, D.C., bureau. As the Globe’s editorial page editor, he authored numerous editorials urging Bostonians to overcome their parochial divisions and embrace their status as a world-class city.
He also edited the Globe’s book, “Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy,” which was a top-10 New York Times bestseller in 2009. The book also set the stage for much of the analysis of Kennedy’s career following his death from cancer, and supplied most of the anecdotes for President Barack Obama’s eulogy of Kennedy.
For the past 12 years, Peter has worked with the International Women’s Media Foundation overseeing the Elizabeth Neuffer fellowship, given to a woman journalist from around the world to study human rights at MIT and intern at the Globe and New York Times. He has also traveled overseas on human rights trips with the US Holocaust Museum, International Reporting Project, and Robert Bosch foundation, among other groups.
Peter considers the many young journalists he’s hired and mentored over the years to be his greatest accomplishment. As an editor, he has overseen two Pulitzer Prize-winning projects along with five others that were Pulitzer finalists, among many other awards. As a writer, he was recipient of the American Society of Newspaper Editors award in 2011 for excellence in editorial writing.
Director of Litigation, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Chance Weldon is a Senior Attorney and the Director of Litigation for the Center for the American Future at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Chance was one of the first attorneys hired by former litigation director Rob Henneke in 2015. Since joining the Foundation, Chance has worked on some of its most important cases. From protecting the rights of property owners along the Red River in North Texas (Aderholt v. BLM) to striking down the City of Austin’s onerous short-term rental regulations in Zaatari v. City of Austin, to defending peoples’ ability to maintain their property without suffering ruinous penalties in F.P. Development, LLC v. Canton, to reinvigorating the Commerce Clause in TPPF’s litigation against the Federal Government’s Eviction Moratorium and Vaccine Mandate, Chance has been at the forefront of protecting constitutional rights in Texas and across the country.
Before joining the Foundation, Chance served as a fellow at the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California and the Institute for Justice in Austin, Texas. As a fellow, he worked on wide breadth of litigation involving economic liberty, free speech, school choice, and private property rights.
A Houston native, Chance earned his J.D. from the University of Houston, where he was awarded the Dean’s Merit Scholarship for all three years. Prior to law school, he received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Houston. He is licensed to practice law in Texas, California (inactive status), the United States Supreme Court, and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits.
Trial Attorney, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice (incoming)
Adam Griffin is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law. During law school, he served as a research assistant to Professor Stephen E. Sachs and UNC Law Dean Martin Brinkley. After law school, he spent two years litigating for liberty at the Institute for Justice as an inaugural Law and Liberty Fellow. He served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Richard E. Myers in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and is now a separation-of-powers attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation.
Director of the Center for Judicial Engagement, Institute for Justice
Anthony Sanders is the Director of the Center for Judicial Engagement (CJE) at the Institute for Justice and a senior attorney. He joined IJ in 2010. As CJE’s director, he educates the public about the proper role of judges in enforcing constitutional limits on the size and scope of government. As a senior attorney he litigates cutting-edge constitutional cases protecting economic liberty, private property, freedom of speech and other individual liberties in both federal and state courts across the country.
One area of Anthony’s expertise is on using state constitutions to protect individual rights. He is the author of the book, published by University of Michigan Press, Baby Ninth Amendments: How Americans Embraced Unenumerated Rights and Why It Matters. He has also written several law review articles on state constitutional law, unenumerated rights, judicial review, economic liberty, property rights, international law, and other subjects. His work has appeared in publications such as the Iowa Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, American University Law Review, and Rutgers Law Review, and he has published opinion pieces in leading media outlets across the country. Further, he frequently speaks to various audiences on these matters and others, including judicial engagement, free speech, civil forfeiture, and the continuing importance of Magna Carta. Additionally, he hosts the weekly Short Circuit podcast, which often records live in front of law student audiences.
Anthony has litigated several cases in various state courts on state constitutional protections, as well as in federal courts on matters such as economic liberty, free speech, administrative law, and fines and fees abuse. Prior to joining IJ, Anthony served as a law clerk to Justice W. William Leaphart on the Montana Supreme Court. Anthony also worked for several years in private practice in Chicago where he was an active member of the Chicago Bar Association and chaired its Civil Rights Committee.
Anthony received his law degree cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School in 2004, where he served as an articles submission editor for the Minnesota Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and his master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A dual U.S. and U.K. citizen, Anthony grew up on the islands of Vashon in Washington State, and Alderney in the British Channel Islands.
Vice President, Practice Groups, The Federalist Society
President, Cass & Associates, PC
Ronald A. Cass is Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law (where he was Dean from 1990-2004), President of Cass & Associates, PC, former Vice-Chairman and Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission, former faculty member at Boston University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Dean Cass also sits as an arbitrator for commercial, international, and intellectual property rights disputes, and is a former United States member of the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He is a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States and has received seven presidential appointments, spanning Presidents Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump.
As a law professor, lecturer, and scholar, Dean Cass has been teaching and writing about a wide array of legal issues on topics such as administrative law and regulation, antitrust, constitutional law, communications, intellectual property, international trade, separation of powers, and legal process. He has published more than 160 scholarly books, chapters, articles, and papers, including a leading casebook on administrative law. Dean Cass has taught judges as well as students in schools of law, economics, business, and public policy and has held academic appointments in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
In addition to his academic work, Dean Cass has participated in numerous important legal cases as an amicus, consultant, or expert, and has advised businesses, law firms, investment funds, and government agencies on a range of trade, antitrust, intellectual property, and regulatory issues. He has a broad range of affiliations with professional groups, and has received numerous honors, fellowships and awards.
Dean Cass is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago Law School.
Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute
Matthew Cavedon is the Director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. He focuses on reforming plea-driven mass adjudication, ensuring police accountability, and defending constitutional criminal originalism. Cavedon’s scholarship has been published (or is forthcoming in) publications including the Arizona State Law Journal, Cato Supreme Court Review, Seattle University Law Review, and Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. Formerly a Georgia public defender and fellow at the Institute for Justice, Cavedon has taught law school courses on criminal law and procedure, as well as the First Amendment. Cavedon clerked for a U.S. district court and the Supreme Court of Georgia. He came to Cato following a fellowship at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion.
Attorney General of Tennessee
Jonathan Skrmetti was sworn in to an eight-year term as Tennessee’s Attorney General and Reporter on September 1, 2022.
Prior to his current role, General Skrmetti served as Chief Counsel to Governor Bill Lee and as Chief Deputy Attorney General to his predecessor, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery.
Before working for the State of Tennessee, General Skrmetti was a partner at Butler Snow LLP in Memphis. His legal career began with nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor. He worked at the Civil Rights Division at Main Justice and then at the Memphis U.S. Attorney’s Office and prosecuted sex traffickers, corrupt government officials, and violent white supremacists. In addition, General Skrmetti taught cyberlaw as an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis.
General Skrmetti earned honors degrees from George Washington University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jonathan clerked for Judge Steven Colloton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife and four children.
Book Talk—The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan
Austin Lawyers Chapter
Austin, TXProtecting Economic Liberty in the Federal Courts: Theory, Precedent, Practice
Adam F. Griffin
The 14th Amendment meaningfully protects economic liberty. While this protection was originally housed in the...
Topics
Mediating Rights: Anthony Sanders reviews Jamal Greene’s new book, How Rights Went Wrong
In a new Federalist Society Review article, Which Rights Are We Mediating? Anthony Sanders,...
Which Rights Are We Mediating?
Anthony Sanders
A review of How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America...
Civility, Courage, Humility: Lessons in Life and Law From a Justice
Elizabeth Slattery
A review of A Republic, If You Can Keep It, by Neil Gorsuch, https://www.amazon.com/Republic-If-You-Can-Keep/dp/0525576789/. ...
Deference to Agency Rule Interpretations: Problems of Expanding Constitutionally Questionable Authority in the Administrative State
Ronald A. Cass
Note from the Editor: This article argues that, while judicial deference to agency decisions is...
Party Like It’s 1935?: Gundy v. United States and the Future of the Non-Delegation Doctrine
Matthew P. Cavedon, Jonathan Skrmetti
Note from the Editor: This article discusses Gundy v. United States, a case involving the...
The CFPB, Justice Scalia, and Lone Dissents
This past Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit—in arguably its...