San Diego Councilman, District 5
On June 3, 2008 Carl DeMaio was elected to the San Diego City Council to represent District 5. DeMaio made history as a non-incumbent taking a Council seat by the widest margin in a primary-winning 66% of the vote.
Prior to winning his seat on the City Council, DeMaio was best known in San Diego as the City Hall Watchdog. He helped uncover the city's financial and ethical problems. After years of prodding city leaders to enact reforms, a frustrated DeMaio decided to run for City Council.
DeMaio's pledge to the voters was simple: Clean Up City Hall. His platform includes balancing the budget, reforming the pension system, fixing crumbling infrastructure, and restoring ethics and accountability to every level of city government.
Refusing to shed his watchdog roots, DeMaio pledges "to continue to serve as the eyes and ears of the taxpayers on the City Council."
Outside of his work as a local government watchdog, DeMaio was a businessman who founded two multi-million dollar companies by the age of 30. In 2000, he founded the Performance Institute, a non-partisan, private think tank dedicated to reforming government through the principles of performance, transparency, competition and accountability. DeMaio built the organization into the largest government reform think tank in the nation and the leading authority on performance-based management in government, law enforcement, non-profits and schools.
In 2003, DeMaio founded the American Strategic Management Institute (ASMI), which provides training and education in corporate financial and performance management. DeMaio sold both companies to Thompson Publishing Group in late 2007 so he could focus his efforts on turning the City of San Diego around.
Carl DeMaio is an active member of the community helping with numerous non-profit organizations in San Diego. He serves as Chairman of San Diego Citizens for Accountable Government, helping sponsor ballot initiatives and voter education efforts each election.
DeMaio also serves on the Board of Directors of the SAFENOWProject - a non-profit dedicated to creating, promoting and advocating for community-based strategies and resources to eliminate child sexual abuse. DeMaio also is active in raising money for a number of charitable causes, including Rotary, Mama's Kitchen, and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
DeMaio has put constituent service as a top priority in his Council office and is working to improve the quality of neighborhoods in his District, which include Rancho Bernardo, Carmel Mountain Ranch, Sabre Springs, Mira Mesa, Scripps Ranch, San Pasqual Valley, and Sorrento Mesa.
General Manager, San Diego Municipal Employees Association
Mike joined MEA in 2009 as a negotiations consultant, and became General Manager in October 2009. Mike implements policies as directed by MEA's Officers, Executive Committee and Board of Directors. He also helps develop legal, political and strategic direction for the organization. In addition, Mike oversees staff, works with MEA's legal counsel on legal and negotiation matters and communicates with the City Council and other City officials regarding MEA business.
From 1998-2002, Mike worked as the Government Affairs Director for the San Diego City Fire Fighters Union. Mike then served as the San Diego City Councilmember for the Second District from 2002 to 2005.
Mike graduated from UCSB with degrees in business economics and environmental studies in 1992. He then completed his master's in Environmental Economics at Duke University in 1994.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Justice, Supreme Court of Arizona
Clint Bolick was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey in January 2016 to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court and was retained by the voters in 2018 and 2024.
Prior to joining the Court, Justice Bolick litigated constitutional cases in state and federal courts from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other positions, he served as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and as Co-founder and Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Justice. He has litigated in support of school choice, freedom of enterprise, private property rights, freedom of speech, and federalism, and against racial classifications and government subsidies.
Justice Bolick received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus, and his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Drew University. He serves as a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. Among other honors, he was named one of the 90 Greatest DC Lawyers in the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, received a Bradley Prize in 2006, and was recognized as one of the nation’s three lawyers of the year by American Lawyer in 2002 for his successful defense of school vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.
Justice Bolick is a prolific author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. Among his most recent books are Unshackled: Freeing America’s K-12 Education System: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, co-authored with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Bolick serves as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law and has served as a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
President, R Street Institute
Eli Lehrer is president and co-founder of the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank. He oversees R Street’s central headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as its field offices in Sacramento, Calif.; Tallahassee, Fla.; Columbus, Ohio; and Austin, Texas.
Prior to co-founding R Street, Mr. Lehrer was vice president of the Heartland Institute. He also played a major role in founding SmarterSafer.org, a coalition of taxpayer, environmental, insurance and free-market groups dedicated to risk-based insurance rates, mitigation and environmental protection.
He is the author of several academic book chapters on emergency management and insurance topics; and was editor of Heartland’s “Seven Big Ideas for Congress.” His research has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today.
Mr. Lehrer worked as speechwriter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. He previously worked as a manager in Unisys Corp.’s Homeland Security Practice, was senior editor of The American Enterprise magazine, and a fellow of the Heritage Foundation.
Mr. Lehrer earned a bachelor of arts, cum laude, from Cornell University and a master’s with honors from Johns Hopkins University, where his master’s thesis focused on the Federal Emergency Management Agency. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Washington Times, Weekly Standard, National Review, Public Interest, Salon and dozens of other publications. He is an associate editor of National Affairs and is a member of the board of the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization representing gay and lesbian conservatives and their allies.
Mr. Lehrer lives in Virginia with his wife, Kari, and son, Andrew.
Chief Policy Counsel, Council on Criminal Justice and Senior Advisor, Right on Crime
Marc A. Levin is the Chief Policy Counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice (counciloncj.org) and Senior Advisor for Right on Crime.
An attorney and accomplished author on legal and public policy issues, Marc began the Foundation’s criminal justice program in 2005. This work contributed to nationally praised policy changes that have been followed by dramatic declines in crime and incarceration in Texas. Building on this success, in 2010, Levin developed the concept for the Right on Crime initiative, a TPPF project in partnership with Prison Fellowship and the American Conservative Union Foundation. Right on Crime has become the national clearinghouse for conservative criminal justice reforms and has contributed to the adoption of policies in dozens of states that fight crime, support victims, and protect taxpayers.
In 2014, Levin was named one of the “Politico 50” in the magazine’s annual “list of thinkers, doers, and dreamers who really matter in this age of gridlock and dysfunction.”
Marc has testified on criminal justice policy on four occasions before Congress and has testified before legislatures in states including Texas, Nevada, Kansas, Wisconsin, and California. He also has met personally with leaders such as U.S. Presidents, Speakers of the House, and the Justice Commtitee of the United Kingdom Parliament to share his ideas on criminal justice reform. In 2007, he was honored in a resolution unanimously passed by the Texas House of Representatives that stated, “Mr. Levin’s intellect is unparalleled and his research is impeccable.”
Since 2005, Marc has published dozens of policy papers on topics such as sentencing, probation, parole, reentry, and overcriminalization which are available on the TPPF website. Levin’s articles on law and public policy have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Texas Review of Law & Politics, National Law Journal, New York Daily News, Jerusalem Post, Toronto Star, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Times, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Charlotte Observer, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express-News and Reason Magazine.
In 1999, Marc graduated with honors from the University of Texas with a B.A. in Plan II Honors and Government. In 2002, Marc received his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law. Marc was a Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow in 1996. He served as a law clerk to Judge Will Garwood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Staff Attorney at the Texas Supreme Court.
Stoneleigh Fellow and Director, Center on Youth Registration Ref, Impact Justice
Nicole Pittman has worked exclusively on questioning the wisdom of placing children on sex offender registries since 2005, becoming a leading national expert on policy, litigation, legislation, and research in this area. In 2011, Ms. Pittman published, "A Snapshot of Juvenile Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws: A Survey of the United States", a comprehensive reference guide on sex offender registration and notification laws applied to children adjudicated delinquent in the U.S. juvenile justice system.
As a 2011 Soros Senior Justice Advocacy Fellow at Human Rights Watch, Ms. Pittman interviewed hundreds of individuals raised on registries across the country to document the abuses that stem from subjecting children to sex offender registration laws. In 2013, Human Rights Watch published the results of her work in Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US. The report became the first comprehensive examination of the harm of placing children on sex offender registries and features first-person narratives illustrating the harrowing treatment of children, as young as 8, 10, and 12 years old, subjected to lifetime sex offender registration and public notification.
Ms. Pittman has been invited to testify on this issue before 37 state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. She has cultivated and maintained long-term partnerships with several key stakeholders, including juvenile defender organizations; criminal defense policy groups; members of Congress; state officials and legislators; the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention (OJJDP) and various state chapters of organizations for individuals on registries.
Through her Stoneleigh Fellowship, Ms. Pittman is serving as the Director of the Center on Youth Registration Reform at Impact Justice. This national Center supports federal and state lawmakers and leaders working to make communities safer and eliminate the placement of youth on registries through technical, legal, and programmatic assistance. To advance this work, Ms. Pittman is actively collaborating with numerous stakeholders and thought leaders in the fields of sexual violence prevention, reentry, alternative sentencing, and restorative justice.
For seven years, Ms. Pittman worked as a specialist attorney with the Defender Association of Philadelphia. She is the recipient of the 2013 Distinguished Service Award, Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) and the 2010 National Juvenile Defender Center Robert Shepherd Jr. Leadership Award of Excellence in Juvenile Defense. In 2015, she was named a “Rising Star” by Ozy.com for her work to remove youth from sex offender registries. Ms. Pittman received her JD from Tulane Law School and her undergraduate degree from Duke University.
President, Stop Child Predators
Stacie D. Rumenap is President of Stop Child Predators (SCP). Ms. Rumenap previously served as SCP's Executive Director and brings with her extensive insight and experience into legislative affairs, non-profit management and a dedication to ending the sexual exploitation of children. As president, Ms. Rumenap manages the day-to-day operations of SCP and is responsible for developing partnerships and coalitions with similarly motivated organizations; provides guidance and assistance to state and federal lawmakers to bring about legislative change; and leads Internet safety training programs.
Prior to joining SCP, Ms. Rumenap served as the Deputy Director for the American Conservative Union (ACU), the nation's oldest and largest conservative grassroots issue-advocacy organization, where she directed the ACU's annual Conservative Political Action Conference and served as one of the group's principle lobbyists. Ms. Rumenap has also served as the Executive Director for both U.S. Term Limits and the National Center for Growth, worked on Capitol Hill, and worked on three successful congressional campaigns. Ms. Rumenap currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the America's Future Foundation and the Safe Internet Alliance. She is a former board member of the Initiative and Referendum Institute and the Georgia State Society. Ms. Rumenap received her M.A. in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University and her B.A. in Journalism from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.
Clinical Professor, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Steven T. Collis researches and teaches on religion and law and other First Amendment topics. He is the founding faculty director of the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center and of Texas's Law & Religion Clinic. On the topic of religious freedom law, he is a sought-after speaker to academic and lay audiences across the United States, including foreign diplomats from countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and South America on behalf of the United States State Department. He has been interviewed by and quoted in various news and media outlets, including The Deseret News, Bloomberg, The Washington Times, Law360, The Salt Lake Tribune, PBS, The Denver Business Journal, Law Week Colorado, CBN News, and numerous podcasts and television shows. His scholarly work has appeared in The Michigan Law Review, The Nebraska Law Review, The University of Denver Law Review Online, and in his book Deep Conviction, which brings to life the history of free exercise law in the United States for lay audiences.
Prior to joining Texas, Steven was the Olin-Darling Research Fellow in the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School.
Earlier in his career, he was an equity partner at Holland & Hart LLP, where he chaired the firm’s nationwide religious institutions and First Amendment practice group and was a member of the firm's complex civil litigation and employment practice groups. He also taught religious liberty law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and clerked for Chief Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Steven graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as an editor on The Michigan Law Review and The Michigan Journal of Race and Law. He also holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he served as the associate editor of the literary journal Blackbird. He completed his undergraduate studies, with university honors, at Brigham Young University.
Carl DeMaio vs. Michael Zucchet on California Pension Reform
San Diego, CaliforniaThe Scalia Legacy and the Future of the US Supreme Court
Albuquerque, New MexicoOur Republican Constitution: Securing the Sovereignty of the People
Building the Bench
Phoenix, ArizonaScarlet Letters and Federal Mandates: Reconsidering Juvenile Sex Offender Registration and the Adam Walsh Act
TeleforumStormans v. Wiesman: Paths to Strict Scrutiny in Religious Free Exercise Cases
Steven T. Collis
Note from the Editor: This article is about Stormans v. Wiesman, a case from the 9th...
Topics
Adam Walsh Act Teleforum Preview, Continued
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 established a national sex offender...
State Court Docket Watch News Clips: 5/9/2016
The Las Vegas Review-Journal posted a summary of the ongoing litigation over Nevada's school choice law....
Topics
How will President Obama's judicial appointees affect the federal courts?
How will President Obama's judicial appointees affect the federal courts? Earlier this week, the Federalist Society...
Lawless: The Obama Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law
Indianapolis, Indiana