Former Senator of Kansas and Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom
Samuel Dale Brownback is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as a United States senator from Kansas from 1996 to 2011 and as the 46th governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018. Brownback also served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom during the administration of President Donald Trump and was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2008.
Born in Garnett, Kansas, Brownback grew up on a family farm in Parker, Kansas. He graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in agricultural economics in 1978 and received a J.D. from the University of Kansas in 1982. He worked as an attorney in Manhattan, Kansas, before being appointed Secretary of Agriculture of Kansas in 1986 by Democratic Governor John W. Carlin. Brownback ran for Congress in 1994 and defeated Carlin in the general election in a landslide. He represented Kansas's 2nd congressional district for a single term before running in a 1996 special election for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Bob Dole. He won the election and was reelected by large margins in 1998 and 2004.
Governor, State of Georgia
Under Gov. Nathan Deal’s leadership, Georgia has risen to become the No. 1 place in the nation in which to do business, a goal achieved by creating the Competitiveness Initiative, reforming our tax code, shaping our educational system to support our workforce needs and recruiting businesses to relocate here.
As Georgia’s 82nd governor since January 2011, he has cut state taxes, eliminated state agencies, reduced the state government workforce, saved HOPE from the brink of bankruptcy, championed education innovations and implemented significant cost-saving reforms in our criminal justice system. He fought to increase public safety on our waterways, improved our workforce by aiding veterans and technical college students and enacted stricter rules on lobbying to boost public trust.
Though he has reduced the size of state government, Gov. Deal has prioritized education and child safety funding as state revenues rebound from the Great Recession. In 2014, the governor increased k-12 spending by more than half a billion dollars, the largest increase in education in seven years, and in his 2015 State of the State address he proposed the creation of a new Opportunity School District to rescue failing schools. As concerned about our children’s safety as he is about their education, Gov. Deal has also started a three-year plan to add nearly 500 new child welfare case workers at DFCS.
Gov. Deal’s public service to his state spans four decades. The Sandersville native served in the U.S. Army at Fort Gordon in Augusta after graduating with a law degree from Mercer University, and then began a private law practice in Gainesville, the hometown of his wife, Sandra Dunagan Deal. While his wife taught in Hall County public schools, the governor began a long span of service to his community as prosecutor, judge, state senator and U.S. congressman.
During his 17 years in Congress, Deal rose to chair the Health Subcommittee of Energy and Commerce, where he became a noted expert on entitlement reform and health care policy.
Deal ended his congressional career to campaign for governor, becoming the Republican nominee in August 2010 and then winning the governorship in November of that year. In November 2014, Deal was re-elected to a second term in office. He was sworn in again as governor on Jan. 12, 2015.
The governor and first lady have four adult children and six grandchildren.
Editor, The Weekly Standard
William Kristol is the editor of The Weekly Standard. He is also a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday, a contributor for the Fox News Channel, and a monthly columnist for the Washington Post. Before starting the Weekly Standard in 1995, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory. Prior to that, Mr. Kristol served as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle during the first Bush Administration, and to Education Secretary William Bennett under President Reagan. Before coming to Washington in 1985, Mr. Kristol was on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom. He is president of the Club for Growth, the leading advocate for economic liberty.
Former Congressman David McIntosh represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress from 1995-2001. As a Freshman, David chaired the Subcommittee on Regulatory Relief. He passed the Congressional Review Act and held extensive oversight and field hearings to build a record of public support for regulatory relief initiatives in energy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, transportation and technology sectors. Another issue that he championed was the elimination of the marriage penalty in the Federal Tax Code.
David served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and as special assistant to President Reagan for Domestic Affairs. During the first Bush administration, he served as executive director of the President's Council on Competitiveness and assistant to the Vice President. The Competitiveness Council coordinated the cost/benefit review of major regulations and promoted legal reform measures.
David is a co-founder of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors. He remains active with several free market and conservative think tanks and grassroots organizations. David has also had stints at the Hudson Institute and as a Professor of Economics at Ball State School of Business.
Prior to the Club for Growth, David was a partner at Mayer Brown, LLP in Washington, DC.
David graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and Yale University, BA, cum laude, in 1980. He and his wife, Ruthie, are the proud parents of Ellie age 17 and Davey age 13.
Governor, State of Nebraska
Governor Pete Ricketts was sworn in as Nebraska’s 40th Governor on January 8, 2015. Governor Ricketts was first elected to office upon winning the Nebraska gubernatorial election on November 4, 2014. Prior to his election as governor, he worked to support Nebraska entrepreneurs and startup companies.
Born in Nebraska City and raised in Omaha, Ricketts is the son of an entrepreneur and a public school teacher. Governor Ricketts and his wife, First Lady Susanne Shore, have been married for 18 years and live in Omaha with their three children, juniors Roscoe and Margot and freshman Eleanor.
Ricketts graduated from Westside High School before attending the University of Chicago where he earned his bachelor’s degree in biology and an MBA in marketing and finance. After graduate school, Ricketts returned to Omaha and worked for Union Pacific before working as a customer services representative in his family’s business, a company that would eventually become known as Ameritrade. He went on to hold leadership roles in the company including Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Senior Vice President of Product Development, Senior Vice President of Marketing, President, and Chief Operating Officer (COO). He is also a past board member of TD Ameritrade’s Board of Directors.
Ricketts is the founder of Drakon, LLC that supports local entrepreneurs and startup companies. He also serves as a director for the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
Driven by a desire to give back to his community and create education and job opportunities, Governor Ricketts has taken on leadership roles in local and state associations and organizations. Currently, he serves on the boards of the Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts and the Christian Urban Education Service (CUES). Additionally, he serves as a director for the Children’s Scholarship Fund Foundation, a director of the Nebraska Game and Parks Foundation, a member of the Board of Advisors of Opportunity Education Foundation, a member of the Archbishop’s Committee for Development, a member of the Knights of Columbus, and a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. Governor Ricketts and his family attend St. Margaret Mary’s church.
Governor, State of Wisconsin
Born on November 2, 1967 to Llew and Pat Walker in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Scott spent his early years in Plainfield, Iowa, where Llew served as pastor of a local church.
The family moved to Delavan, Wisconsin, in 1977 when Scott’s father was called to pastor a church there. Scott was involved in sports, band, church, and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, remaining active in the Boy Scouts of America to this day.
In 1986, Scott moved to Milwaukee to attend Marquette University. While still in school, he worked for IBM before leaving to work full-time in financial development for the American Red Cross.
Scott was elected to the State Assembly in 1993. While there, he chaired several committees and authored important pieces of legislation. He was re-elected four times.
In 2002, Scott was elected as Milwaukee County Executive and went to work reforming the scandal-ridden county government. For the next eight years, Scott faithfully kept his promise to spend taxpayer money as if it were his own. He cut the county’s debt by 30 percent, reduced the county workforce by more than 25 percent, and authored nine consecutive budgets without increasing the property tax levy from the previous year.
Walker was first inaugurated as Governor on January 3, 2011, and immediately set our state on a path toward government reform and fiscal order. When he took office, Wisconsin faced a projected $3.6 billion deficit, more than $800 million in unpaid bills, and the loss of nearly 134,000 jobs over the previous four years. Governor Walker made tough, but prudent, decisions to ensure our children and grandchildren were not buried under a mountain of economically crippling debt; he paid the bills, balanced the budget, cut taxes, and put in place reforms that are growing jobs in Wisconsin.
Governor Walker was sworn in to his second term on January 5, 2015. He is focused on continuing to move Wisconsin forward with his vision of freedom and prosperity for all who live in this great state. He will continue to reform education to ensure accountability for all schools receiving public funds, as well as make sure no school district in the state is required to adopt the Common Core standards. He will also continue cutting bureaucratic red tape so government is more effective, more efficient, and more accountable.
Scott is married to Tonette, and they have two sons in college. They are active in the community and their church.
Former Senator of Kansas and Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom
Samuel Dale Brownback is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as a United States senator from Kansas from 1996 to 2011 and as the 46th governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018. Brownback also served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom during the administration of President Donald Trump and was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2008.
Born in Garnett, Kansas, Brownback grew up on a family farm in Parker, Kansas. He graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in agricultural economics in 1978 and received a J.D. from the University of Kansas in 1982. He worked as an attorney in Manhattan, Kansas, before being appointed Secretary of Agriculture of Kansas in 1986 by Democratic Governor John W. Carlin. Brownback ran for Congress in 1994 and defeated Carlin in the general election in a landslide. He represented Kansas's 2nd congressional district for a single term before running in a 1996 special election for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Bob Dole. He won the election and was reelected by large margins in 1998 and 2004.
Governor, State of Georgia
Under Gov. Nathan Deal’s leadership, Georgia has risen to become the No. 1 place in the nation in which to do business, a goal achieved by creating the Competitiveness Initiative, reforming our tax code, shaping our educational system to support our workforce needs and recruiting businesses to relocate here.
As Georgia’s 82nd governor since January 2011, he has cut state taxes, eliminated state agencies, reduced the state government workforce, saved HOPE from the brink of bankruptcy, championed education innovations and implemented significant cost-saving reforms in our criminal justice system. He fought to increase public safety on our waterways, improved our workforce by aiding veterans and technical college students and enacted stricter rules on lobbying to boost public trust.
Though he has reduced the size of state government, Gov. Deal has prioritized education and child safety funding as state revenues rebound from the Great Recession. In 2014, the governor increased k-12 spending by more than half a billion dollars, the largest increase in education in seven years, and in his 2015 State of the State address he proposed the creation of a new Opportunity School District to rescue failing schools. As concerned about our children’s safety as he is about their education, Gov. Deal has also started a three-year plan to add nearly 500 new child welfare case workers at DFCS.
Gov. Deal’s public service to his state spans four decades. The Sandersville native served in the U.S. Army at Fort Gordon in Augusta after graduating with a law degree from Mercer University, and then began a private law practice in Gainesville, the hometown of his wife, Sandra Dunagan Deal. While his wife taught in Hall County public schools, the governor began a long span of service to his community as prosecutor, judge, state senator and U.S. congressman.
During his 17 years in Congress, Deal rose to chair the Health Subcommittee of Energy and Commerce, where he became a noted expert on entitlement reform and health care policy.
Deal ended his congressional career to campaign for governor, becoming the Republican nominee in August 2010 and then winning the governorship in November of that year. In November 2014, Deal was re-elected to a second term in office. He was sworn in again as governor on Jan. 12, 2015.
The governor and first lady have four adult children and six grandchildren.
Editor, The Weekly Standard
William Kristol is the editor of The Weekly Standard. He is also a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday, a contributor for the Fox News Channel, and a monthly columnist for the Washington Post. Before starting the Weekly Standard in 1995, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory. Prior to that, Mr. Kristol served as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle during the first Bush Administration, and to Education Secretary William Bennett under President Reagan. Before coming to Washington in 1985, Mr. Kristol was on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom. He is president of the Club for Growth, the leading advocate for economic liberty.
Former Congressman David McIntosh represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress from 1995-2001. As a Freshman, David chaired the Subcommittee on Regulatory Relief. He passed the Congressional Review Act and held extensive oversight and field hearings to build a record of public support for regulatory relief initiatives in energy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, transportation and technology sectors. Another issue that he championed was the elimination of the marriage penalty in the Federal Tax Code.
David served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and as special assistant to President Reagan for Domestic Affairs. During the first Bush administration, he served as executive director of the President's Council on Competitiveness and assistant to the Vice President. The Competitiveness Council coordinated the cost/benefit review of major regulations and promoted legal reform measures.
David is a co-founder of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors. He remains active with several free market and conservative think tanks and grassroots organizations. David has also had stints at the Hudson Institute and as a Professor of Economics at Ball State School of Business.
Prior to the Club for Growth, David was a partner at Mayer Brown, LLP in Washington, DC.
David graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and Yale University, BA, cum laude, in 1980. He and his wife, Ruthie, are the proud parents of Ellie age 17 and Davey age 13.
Governor, State of Nebraska
Governor Pete Ricketts was sworn in as Nebraska’s 40th Governor on January 8, 2015. Governor Ricketts was first elected to office upon winning the Nebraska gubernatorial election on November 4, 2014. Prior to his election as governor, he worked to support Nebraska entrepreneurs and startup companies.
Born in Nebraska City and raised in Omaha, Ricketts is the son of an entrepreneur and a public school teacher. Governor Ricketts and his wife, First Lady Susanne Shore, have been married for 18 years and live in Omaha with their three children, juniors Roscoe and Margot and freshman Eleanor.
Ricketts graduated from Westside High School before attending the University of Chicago where he earned his bachelor’s degree in biology and an MBA in marketing and finance. After graduate school, Ricketts returned to Omaha and worked for Union Pacific before working as a customer services representative in his family’s business, a company that would eventually become known as Ameritrade. He went on to hold leadership roles in the company including Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Senior Vice President of Product Development, Senior Vice President of Marketing, President, and Chief Operating Officer (COO). He is also a past board member of TD Ameritrade’s Board of Directors.
Ricketts is the founder of Drakon, LLC that supports local entrepreneurs and startup companies. He also serves as a director for the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
Driven by a desire to give back to his community and create education and job opportunities, Governor Ricketts has taken on leadership roles in local and state associations and organizations. Currently, he serves on the boards of the Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts and the Christian Urban Education Service (CUES). Additionally, he serves as a director for the Children’s Scholarship Fund Foundation, a director of the Nebraska Game and Parks Foundation, a member of the Board of Advisors of Opportunity Education Foundation, a member of the Archbishop’s Committee for Development, a member of the Knights of Columbus, and a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. Governor Ricketts and his family attend St. Margaret Mary’s church.
Governor, State of Wisconsin
Born on November 2, 1967 to Llew and Pat Walker in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Scott spent his early years in Plainfield, Iowa, where Llew served as pastor of a local church.
The family moved to Delavan, Wisconsin, in 1977 when Scott’s father was called to pastor a church there. Scott was involved in sports, band, church, and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, remaining active in the Boy Scouts of America to this day.
In 1986, Scott moved to Milwaukee to attend Marquette University. While still in school, he worked for IBM before leaving to work full-time in financial development for the American Red Cross.
Scott was elected to the State Assembly in 1993. While there, he chaired several committees and authored important pieces of legislation. He was re-elected four times.
In 2002, Scott was elected as Milwaukee County Executive and went to work reforming the scandal-ridden county government. For the next eight years, Scott faithfully kept his promise to spend taxpayer money as if it were his own. He cut the county’s debt by 30 percent, reduced the county workforce by more than 25 percent, and authored nine consecutive budgets without increasing the property tax levy from the previous year.
Walker was first inaugurated as Governor on January 3, 2011, and immediately set our state on a path toward government reform and fiscal order. When he took office, Wisconsin faced a projected $3.6 billion deficit, more than $800 million in unpaid bills, and the loss of nearly 134,000 jobs over the previous four years. Governor Walker made tough, but prudent, decisions to ensure our children and grandchildren were not buried under a mountain of economically crippling debt; he paid the bills, balanced the budget, cut taxes, and put in place reforms that are growing jobs in Wisconsin.
Governor Walker was sworn in to his second term on January 5, 2015. He is focused on continuing to move Wisconsin forward with his vision of freedom and prosperity for all who live in this great state. He will continue to reform education to ensure accountability for all schools receiving public funds, as well as make sure no school district in the state is required to adopt the Common Core standards. He will also continue cutting bureaucratic red tape so government is more effective, more efficient, and more accountable.
Scott is married to Tonette, and they have two sons in college. They are active in the community and their church.
Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
Professor Derek Muller is a nationally-recognized scholar in the field of election law. His research focuses on the role of states in the administration of federal elections, the constitutional contours of voting rights and election administration, the limits of judicial power in the domain of elections, and the Electoral College.
He has published more than two dozen academic works, and his op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He has testified before Congress, and he is a contributor at the Election Law Blog. He is a co-author on a Federal Courts casebook published by Carolina Academic Press. He is also the co-reporter on a new Restatement of the Law, Election Litigation, an effort led by the American Law Institute.
Professor Muller teaches Election Law, Civil Procedure, and Evidence.
Author of "The Nixon Conspiracy" (2021) and "The Real Watergate Scandal" (2015)
Geoff Shepard worked on President Nixon’s White House staff for five years, including serving as deputy counsel on his Watergate defense team. He testified as a government chain-of-custody witness in the Plumbers Trial and was subpoenaed for the same purpose in the Cover-up Trial. He possesses a “clearance letter” from the special prosecutor, stating he was never the object of an investigation by that office. Geoff has spent much of the past fifteen year researching and writing about the Watergate scandal. He has published three books, authored dozens of essays and made over fifty presentations challenging Watergate’s conventional narrative. Much of his work is based on recently uncovered internal files of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, including their infamous “Road Map” that was the basis for the grand jury naming Nixon a cover-up co-conspirator and for the House Judiciary Committee urging his impeachment.
Roger Williams University School of Law
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”
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.
President, The Ethics and Public Policy Center
Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. In May 2025, Anderson was appointed by President Trump to the Religious Liberty Commission.
He is the author or co-author of five books, including the just-released Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing. Previous books include When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, and Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination. He is the co-editor of A Liberalism Safe for Catholicism? Perspectives from “The Review of Politics.”
Anderson’s research has been cited by two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, in two Supreme Court cases.
He received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, and he received his doctoral degree in political philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. His dissertation was titled: “Neither Liberal Nor Libertarian: A Natural Law Approach to Social Justice and Economic Rights.”
Anderson has made appearances on ABC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and Fox News. His work has been published by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Harvard Health Policy Review, the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, First Things, the Claremont Review of Books, and National Review.
He is the John Paul II Teaching Fellow in Social Thought at the University of Dallas, a member of the James Madison Society at Princeton University, and a Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, as well as the Founding Editor of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey.
For 9 years he was the William E. Simon senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and has served as an adjunct professor of philosophy and political science at Christendom College, and a Visiting Fellow at the Veritas Center at Franciscan University. He has also served as an assistant editor of First Things.
Founder, Americans in Support of Law Enforcement
Scott G. Erickson is a conservative writer, policy analyst, and law enforcement professional with over 18 years of experience in police work. He holds a Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice Studies from the University of Cincinnati.
In 2015, Scott founded Americans in Support of Law Enforcement, a pro-law enforcement nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the issues most relevant to the broader law enforcement community. He currently serves as the organization's President and Executive Director.
In addition to his law enforcement duties, Scott has collaborated extensively with the nation’s foremost conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation. Frequently contributing to Heritage’s blog, The Daily Signal, Scott has focused on myriad issues of national security including foreign terrorist organizations, law enforcement, and missile defense.
He has co-authored several reports at Heritage: A Comprehensive Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) System Requires Action; Changing Today’s Law Enforcement Culture to Face 21st-Century Threats; and Lessons from Benghazi: Investigation Leaves Important Questions Unanswered.
Additionally, Scott’s writing has been featured in The Washington Times, FoxNews.com, The Orange County Register, and other publications. He has also been quoted in major media outlets, including theNew York Times, on national security and law enforcement issues.
A frequent guest on various television and radio programs, Scott has appeared on Fox News, One America News Network, the Dana Loesch Show, and others.
In 2013, Scott was named as one of the Republican National Committee'sRising Stars and his profile was recently featured in USA Today.
Scott continues to work toward advancing conservative solutions to the issues facing our nation while maintaining fidelity to America’s founding documents.
Professor of Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
Joshua Kleinfeld teaches and writes about political, legal, and moral philosophy, criminal law, and criminal procedure. He also practices law in Northwestern's Juvenile Criminal Defense Clinic. He is a full professor with tenure at the Northwestern Pritzker School of the Law and (by courtesy) in Northwestern’s philosophy department. In 2017-18, he was a visiting professor at Harvard and Stanford Law Schools. He is the recipient of the Bator Award, given annually to one American law professor under the age of 40 who has demonstrated "excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact."
In philosophy, Kleinfeld's research focuses on the idea of "embodied ethical life," as developed in the socio-theoretic tradition of Hegel, Weber, and Durkheim. This tradition aims to understand and critique social life by bringing to light the normative ideas implicit in social practices and institutions. In law, this means that the most interesting philosophical concepts are often those reflected or actualized in legal practice – in the law as judges and lawyers think of it and wield it.
In criminal law and procedure, Kleinfeld has developed a theory known as "reconstructivism," which holds that the chief office of criminal law is not to dole out retributive justice, nor to optimize crime and cost control, but to reconstruct a violated normative order in the wake of a crime. This work, which draws on the thought of Hegel, Durkheim, Jean Hampton, and Antony Duff, develops an alternative to retributive and utilitarian theories of criminal law by focusing on the distinctive social function and sense of justice at work in the criminal system.
Kleinfeld is also involved in practical criminal justice reform. In this vein, he defends children accused of homicide in the Northwestern Juvenile Criminal Defense clinic and assists in litigation efforts meant to reform American criminal law through the courts. He has also developed a view of criminal justice reform known as "democratization," which holds that the root of the American criminal justice crisis is a set of bureaucratic attitudes, structures, and incentives divorced from the American public’s concerns and sense of justice, and that the primary solution is to make criminal justice more community-focused and responsive to lay influences. Working with others, he has developed a number of policy proposals meant to reform American criminal justice in a democratic direction.
Kleinfeld holds a JD from Yale Law School, a PhD in philosophy from the Goethe University of Frankfurt (supervised by Axel Honneth, Klaus Günther, and Rainer Forst), and a BA in philosophy from Yale College. He clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; Judge Janice Rogers Brown on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; and President (chief justice) Aharon Barak of the Supreme Court of Israel. He worked as an Associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in Frankfurt, Germany, in the area of corporate criminal law. Before law school, he worked as a Senior Research Analyst at the White House’s Council on Bioethics.
Chairman, Center for Equal Opportunity
Linda Chavez is Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She has published opinions and columns in newspapers across the country and appears regularly on cable news. Chavez is the author of the three books: Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal, and Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics. She has been honored by the Library of Congress as a "Living Legend" and as nominee for Secretary of Labor by President George W. Bush.
Chavez has held many appointed positions and has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. Among her appointed positions has been Chairman, National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992); White House Director of Public Liaison (1985); Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1985); and member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984-1986). Chavez was also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland in 1986 and was elected by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
Chavez earned her BA from the University of Colorado.
The Role of Congress and the State: A Governor's Perspective
Sam Brownback, Nathan Deal, William Kristol, David M. McIntosh, Pete Ricketts, Scott Walker
This panel was held during the 2015 National Lawyers Convention Annual Dinner on Thursday, November...
The Role of Congress and the State: A Governor's Perspective
Sam Brownback, Nathan Deal, William Kristol, David M. McIntosh, Pete Ricketts, Scott Walker
This panel was held during the 2015 National Lawyers Convention Annual Dinner on Thursday, November...
THE DALLAS FEDERALIST SOCIETY PRESENTS: THREE TEXAS-SIZED ELECTION LAW CASES
Dallas, TexasThe Real Watergate Scandal
Religious Liberty after Obergefell: A Discussion
The Sweet Mystery of Anthony Kennedy
Conservative Social Justice
Police Tactics after Ferguson, Part II
Pot or Not? High-minded Federalism vs. Homegrown Policy
Paradise Valley, ArizonaImmigration: A Conservative Approach to Reform
Philadelphia