President and CEO, The Buckeye Institute
Robert Alt is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Buckeye Institute where he has catalyzed exponential growth since he took the organization’s helm in 2012. He has since founded Buckeye’s renowned Economic Research Center and established its impactful Legal Center.
Alt is a distinguished scholar and attorney with particular expertise in legal policy, criminal justice, national security, and constitutional law. He previously worked for former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, regularly provides commentary on television and radio programs, and his writings have appeared in countless outlets.
In 2004, Alt spent five months in Iraq as an embedded war correspondent.
Alt has testified before Congress multiple times—including at the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan—the Federal Election Commission regarding matters of constitutional and administrative law, and numerous state legislatures.
Alt serves as an officer on the boards of The Philadelphia Society and the Federalist Society’s Columbus Lawyers Chapter. He taught national security law, criminal law, and legislation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, as well as constitutional law and political parties and interest groups at Ashland University.
Alt earned his Doctor of Law degree from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was Symposium Editor and the winner of the Mulroy Prize for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy as well as research assistant to Professor Richard Epstein. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Alice Batchelder on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Alt graduated with his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and political science magna cum laude from Azusa Pacific University where he also won the Outstanding Senior Award in Political Science.
Alt is an accomplished high-altitude alpinist and endurance athlete who has successfully climbed 6.75 of the famed Seven Summits of the World including Mount Everest. He is the creator of PROFOUND CLIMBING™ and a frequent speaker across the country and around the world on legal and public policy topics as well as effective leadership, management, decision-making, and teamwork in contexts ranging from extraordinary life/death situations to ordinary professional/business settings.
President and General Counsel, Public Interest Legal Foundation
J. Christian Adams is the President and General Counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. He served from 2005 to 2010 in the Voting Section at the United States Department of Justice Voting Section. President Trump appointed Adams to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. President Trump also appointed Adams as a Commissioner to the United States Commission on Civil Rights where he also now serves with a term through 2025. He has been involved in election law lawsuits in 33 states and the territory of Guam. He has represented multiple presidential campaigns in election litigation. He has a law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law. He is a member of the South Carolina and Virginia Bars.
Attorney, Law Offices of Linda A. Kerns, LLC
Amber McReynolds is one of the country’s leading experts on election administration and policy, and co-author of the book “When Women Vote”. Amber is the CEO for the National Vote At Home Institute and Coalition and is the former Director of Elections for Denver, Colorado. During her time there, she transformed the elections division into a national and international award-winning office.
Amber serves on the National Election Task Force on Election Crises, as an advisory board member for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Election and Data Science Lab, a board member for Lift Colorado, a board member for Represent Women, and serves on various advisory boards for other national organizations focused on improving election administration. Among other accolades, Amber was also named by Governing Magazine as a 2018 Top Public Official of the Year for her work. Amber holds a Masters of Science degree in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Communications from the University of Illinois.
Charles Stewart III is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, where he has taught since 1985, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research and teaching areas include congressional politics, elections, and American political development.
His current research about Congress touches on the historical development of committees, origins of partisan polarization, and Senate elections. His recent books of congressional research include Electing the Senate (2014, with Wendy J. Schiller), Fighting for the Speakership (2012, with Jeffery A. Jenkins), and Analyzing Congress (2nd ed., 2011).
Since 2001, Professor Stewart has been a member of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, a leading research effort that applies scientific analysis to questions about election technology, election administration, and election reform. He is currently the MIT director of the project. Professor Stewart is an established leader in the analysis of the performance of election systems and the quantitative assessment of election performance. Working with the Pew Charitable Trusts, he helped with the development of Pew’s Elections Performance Index. Professor Stewart also provided advice to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. His research on measuring the performance of elections and polling place operations is funded by Pew, the Democracy Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation. He recently published The Measure of American Elections (2014, with Barry C. Burden).
With the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Democracy Fund, and the Joyce Foundation, in 2017 Professor Stewart established the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, which applies scientific principles to how elections are studied and administered. In 2020, he partnered with Professor Nate Persily of the Stanford Law School to establish the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.
Professor Stewart has been recognized at MIT for his undergraduate teaching, being named to the second class of MacVicar Fellows in 1994, awarded the Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the recipient of the Class of 1960 Fellowship. From 1992 to 2015, he served as Head of House of McCormick Hall, along with his spouse, Kathryn M. Hess.
R. B. Price and Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Missouri School of Law
Carl H. Esbeck is R.B. Price Professor and Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law emeritus at the University of Missouri. After attending Cornell University School of Law where he served as an editor on the Cornell Law Review, he held a judicial clerkship with the Honorable Howard C. Bratton, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in New Mexico.
Professor Esbeck publishes widely in the area of religious liberty and church-state relations. He is recognized as the progenitor of "Charitable Choice," an integral part of the 1996 Federal Welfare Reform Act, later made a part of the faith-based initiative and equal-treatment regulations under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In addition, he has taken the lead in recognizing that the modern Supreme Court has applied the Establishment Clause not as a personal right, but as a structural limit on the government's authority in disputes involving church governance. While on leave from 1999 to 2002, Professor Esbeck directed the Center for Law & Religious Freedom (CLRF) and later served as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. While directing the CLRF, Professor Esbeck was a central part of the congressional advocacy behind the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). While at the Department of Justice one of his duties was to direct a task force to remove barriers to the equal-treatment of faith-based organizations applying for social service grants. He is the author of Disestablishment and Religious Dissent: Church-State Relations in the New American States, 1776 - 1833 (U. of MO Press, 2019).
Distinguished University Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
University Professor Nelson Lund is the author of Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy: A New Introduction. He has also written widely in the field of constitutional law, including articles on constitutional interpretation, federalism, separation of powers, the Second Amendment, the Commerce Clause, the Speech or Debate Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Uniformity Clause. In addition, he has published articles in the fields of employment discrimination and civil rights, the legal regulation of medical ethics, and the application of economic analysis to legal institutions and legal ethics.
Professor Lund graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, after which he received an MA in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and a PhD in political science from Harvard University. He left the faculty of the University of Chicago to attend its law school, where he served as executive editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and chapter chairman of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. After law school, he held positions at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Solicitor General and the Office of Legal Counsel. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and to the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor of the United States Supreme Court. Following his clerkship with Justice O'Connor, Professor Lund served in the White House as associate counsel to the president from 1989 to 1992.
Since joining the faculty at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Lund has taught Constitutional Law, Legislation, Federal Election Law, Employment Discrimination, State and Local Government, and seminars on the Second Amendment and on a variety of topics in Jurisprudence.
Founder, President, and General Counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
Rick Esenberg is the founder and current President and General Counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a rapidly expanding law and policy organization headquartered in Milwaukee. Under Rick’s leadership, WILL has grown into one of the more active state-based think tanks and litigation centers in the country. Rick is a frequent litigator in state and federal courts and nationally recognized scholar and commentator on constitutional law, particularly the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and religion. He is one of the leading experts on the Wisconsin Constitution and a frequent advocate before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Rick’s work seeks to advance the rule of law and individual liberty, formed by a robust civil society that forms individual and community character, preserving the wisdom of the past and an openness to the future.
Rick’s commentary has been featured in such outlets as the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Weekly Standard, Real Clear Politics, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Washington Examiner. Formerly on the faculty of Marquette University Law School, his scholarship has appeared in such publications as the Harvard Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Wake Forest Law Review and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. Back when they were a thing, he operated a blog called Shark and Shepherd where he tried to suggest something about the duality of man – “the Jungian thing.”
Rick holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In addition to service on the Marquette Faculty, he was formerly a litigation partner at Foley & Lardner and General Counsel of an international manufacturing firm headquartered in Wisconsin. He lives in Mequon Wisconsin with his wife Karen, golden retrievers Cooper and Riley and more books than he can find places for.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC
Jason Torchinsky is a partner at Holtzman Vogel Josefiak PLLC, specializing in campaign finance, election law, lobbying disclosure and issue advocacy groups. Politico recently named him one of the “50 Politicos to Watch,” and in 2007, Campaigns and Elections Magazine named him a “Rising Star of Politics.”
In addition to his practice counseling clients on compliance with campaign finance, ethics laws, lobbying disclosure and election laws, Mr. Torchinsky has served as lead counsel in a number of litigation matters. Representative matters in the redistricting area include Louisiana House of Representatives v. Holder (D.D.C.) (Section 5 pre-clearance action), City of Sandy Springs v. Holder (D.D.C.) (Section 5 bailout action), and Fletcher v. Lamone (D. Md.) (challenging Maryland’s Congressional Districting map). In the campaign finance context, he is currently representing clients in Alliance for America’s Future v. State (Nevada Supreme Court) and Van Hollen v. Federal Election Commission (D.D.C.) (Representing intervenor defendants). He has also represented Virginia candidates in recounts and voter registration challenges before various Virginia Circuit Courts.
Mr. Torchinsky frequently lectures on campaign finance redistricting and ethics related subjects and provides commentary to the media on election related matters.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Torchinsky was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice. During the 2004 election cycle, he served as Deputy General Counsel to Bush-Cheney ’04 and Deputy General Counsel to the 2005 Presidential Inaugural Committee.
He holds a B.A. in Government and Public Policy from the College of William and Mary and a J.D. from the College of William and Mary School of Law. He is a member of the Virginia Bar, the District of Columbia Bar, the Republican National Lawyers Association and the Federalist Society.
Senior Associate, Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC
Drew Watkins is a senior associate with Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC, providing counsel in the areas of campaign finance and election law, lobbying and ethics compliance, and tax-exempt organizations.
Prior to joining the firm, Drew served as a law clerk to the Honorable Joseph R. Goeke, Senior Judge of the United States Tax Court in Washington, D.C., and worked in the Office of General Counsel for the Governor of Kentucky, Matthew G. Bevin. While in law school, Drew served as a law clerk for the Kentucky Executive Branch Ethics Commission and interned for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in his office in Washington, D.C.
Drew graduated from the University of Louisville with a B.S. in Justice Administration. He earned his Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from the University of Kentucky College of Law and was a member of the Order of the Coif. During law school, he served as a senior staff editor on the Kentucky Law Journal and authored a published student note on the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. He is a member of the Kentucky, D.C. and Virginia bars and the Federalist Society.
Executive Director, Alliance For Consumers
O.H. leads Alliance For Consumers, which fights to ensure that consumer protection efforts, class action lawsuits, and attorney general enforcement actions are consistent with the rule of law and benefit everyday consumers, not just class action lawyers and career bureaucrats.
His work with AFC builds off his time with the Arizona Attorney General's Office under Attorney General Mark Brnovich, where he not only defended constitutional questions and served as the State's lead counsel in the U.S. Supreme Court, but also had the privilege of leading Arizona's consumer protection lawsuit against Google over the tracking of consumers' location, and the successful case against Volkswagen over well-publicized diesel-related consumer deception.
O.H. is a 2010 graduate of Harvard Law School. Before joining Attorney General Brnovich in 2016, O.H. practiced at WilmerHale and Ropes & Gray in Boston and clerked for the Hon. J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
President and General Counsel, Public Interest Legal Foundation
J. Christian Adams is the President and General Counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. He served from 2005 to 2010 in the Voting Section at the United States Department of Justice Voting Section. President Trump appointed Adams to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. President Trump also appointed Adams as a Commissioner to the United States Commission on Civil Rights where he also now serves with a term through 2025. He has been involved in election law lawsuits in 33 states and the territory of Guam. He has represented multiple presidential campaigns in election litigation. He has a law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law. He is a member of the South Carolina and Virginia Bars.
Attorney, Law Offices of Linda A. Kerns, LLC
Amber McReynolds is one of the country’s leading experts on election administration and policy, and co-author of the book “When Women Vote”. Amber is the CEO for the National Vote At Home Institute and Coalition and is the former Director of Elections for Denver, Colorado. During her time there, she transformed the elections division into a national and international award-winning office.
Amber serves on the National Election Task Force on Election Crises, as an advisory board member for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Election and Data Science Lab, a board member for Lift Colorado, a board member for Represent Women, and serves on various advisory boards for other national organizations focused on improving election administration. Among other accolades, Amber was also named by Governing Magazine as a 2018 Top Public Official of the Year for her work. Amber holds a Masters of Science degree in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Communications from the University of Illinois.
Charles Stewart III is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, where he has taught since 1985, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research and teaching areas include congressional politics, elections, and American political development.
His current research about Congress touches on the historical development of committees, origins of partisan polarization, and Senate elections. His recent books of congressional research include Electing the Senate (2014, with Wendy J. Schiller), Fighting for the Speakership (2012, with Jeffery A. Jenkins), and Analyzing Congress (2nd ed., 2011).
Since 2001, Professor Stewart has been a member of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, a leading research effort that applies scientific analysis to questions about election technology, election administration, and election reform. He is currently the MIT director of the project. Professor Stewart is an established leader in the analysis of the performance of election systems and the quantitative assessment of election performance. Working with the Pew Charitable Trusts, he helped with the development of Pew’s Elections Performance Index. Professor Stewart also provided advice to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. His research on measuring the performance of elections and polling place operations is funded by Pew, the Democracy Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation. He recently published The Measure of American Elections (2014, with Barry C. Burden).
With the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Democracy Fund, and the Joyce Foundation, in 2017 Professor Stewart established the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, which applies scientific principles to how elections are studied and administered. In 2020, he partnered with Professor Nate Persily of the Stanford Law School to establish the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.
Professor Stewart has been recognized at MIT for his undergraduate teaching, being named to the second class of MacVicar Fellows in 1994, awarded the Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the recipient of the Class of 1960 Fellowship. From 1992 to 2015, he served as Head of House of McCormick Hall, along with his spouse, Kathryn M. Hess.
Criminal Law Update: A Survey of State Law Changes in 2019
Robert Alt
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Voter Fraud and Voter Registration
J. Christian Adams, Linda A. Kerns, Amber McReynolds, Charles Stewart
Congress enacted the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (“NVRA”) to reform elections. Among other...
After Espinoza, What’s Left of the Establishment Clause?
Carl H. Esbeck
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Unleashed and Unbound: Living Textualism in Bostock v. Clayton County
Nelson Lund
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
State Court Docket Watch: Wisconsin Legislature v. Palm
Rick M. Esenberg
In May, Wisconsin became the only state to emerge from a gubernatorial “stay-at-home” order by...
Voter Fraud and Voter Registration
Election Law Teleforum Series
TeleforumState Court Docket Watch: Bailey v. South Carolina State Election Commission
Jason Torchinsky, Andrew Watkins
In Bailey v. South Carolina State Election Commission, the Supreme Court of South Carolina, accepting...
Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Oramel H. Skinner
On June 25, in a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court issued the opinion, penned by...
The Resolution of Too Big to Fail
Wayne A. Abernathy
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Ensuring Due Process at the Surface Transportation Board
Lawrence J. Spiwak
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...