Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
John F. Duffy is the Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law and Class of 1966 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he teaches administrative law, torts and intellectual property. Professor Duffy has published articles on a wide range of administrative law and regulatory issues in journals such as University of Chicago Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Texas Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, NYU Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Supreme Court Review. His 1998 article Administrative Common Law in Judicial Review, 77 Tex. L. Rev. 113 (1998), was one of the first articles to criticize the Chevron doctrine as being irreconcilable with § 706 of the APA; it won the American Bar Association’s Scholarship Award in Administrative Law. His 2008 article “Are Administrative Patent Judges Unconstitutional?” was covered on National Public Radio), in the New York Times (Adam Liptak, In One Flaw, Questions on Validity of 46 Judges, May 6, 2008), and in the Wall Street Journal (Dan Slater, Patently Unconstitutional, May 6, 2008). The NYT and WSJ agreed that he was “a different kind of law professor,” “one of the lucky few” whose “writings actually wind up changing the law.”
As an attorney in the courts, Duffy has twice successfully convinced the Supreme Court to overturn lower court doctrines that had been applied in many cases over decades but that were unanimously held to be irreconcilable with Supreme Court precedents. See TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, 581 U.S. 258 (2017); KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
Prior to entering legal academics, Duffy clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Stephen Williams and on the Supreme Court for Antonin Scalia. While clerking, he became known as Justice Scalia’s “hapless law clerk,” who had been tasked with unearthing three-quarters of a century of legislative history that made “no difference” to the outcome in an otherwise forgettable case. See Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U.S. 511, 527-28 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment).
In earlier days, Duffy enjoyed being a professional blackjack player unwelcome in all Atlantic City casinos and a semi-professional road runner (best marathon time 2:24:33). He holds an A.B. in physics from Harvard and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Partner, Jones Day
Ben Ginsberg represents numerous political parties, political campaigns, candidates, members of Congress and state legislatures, governors, corporations, trade associations, vendors, donors, and individuals participating in the political process. He represents a variety of clients on election law issues, particularly those involving federal and state campaign finance laws, ethics and gifts rules, pay-to-play laws, election administration, government investigations, redistricting, communications law, and election recounts and contests.
Prior to joining Jones Day in 2014, Mr. Ginsberg served as national counsel to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns in the 2004 and 2000 election cycles and played a central role in the 2000 Florida recount. In 2012 and 2008, he served as national counsel to the Romney for President campaign. He also has represented the campaigns and leadership PACs of numerous members of the Senate and House as well as the national party committees. He serves as counsel to the Republican Governors Association and has extensive experience on the state legislative level through Republican redistricting efforts.
Before entering law school, Mr. Ginsberg spent five years as a newspaper reporter at The Boston Globe, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, The Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), and The Riverside Press-Enterprise (California). He has been a guest lecturer at the Stanford University Law School, a Fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Ginsberg recently served as co-chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.
Georgetown University Law Center, J.D., 1982
University of Pennsylvania, A.B., 1974
John Adams is a pseudonym. The author is a veteran attorney in the government arms control community. His opinions are purely his own, and do not reflect any official position or policy of the United States, the Conference on Disarmament, or the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
United States Senator, Kentucky
Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader. Elected to that position unanimously by his Republican colleagues first in 2014 and again in 2016, he is only the second Kentuckian to ever serve as Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate. The first, Senator Alben Barkley, led the Democrats from 1937 to 1949.
Senator McConnell has served, again by the unanimous vote of his colleagues, as the Republican Leader since the 110th Congress. He is the longest-serving Senate Republican Leader in the history of the United States. McConnell previously served in leadership as the Majority Whip in the 108th and 109th Congresses and as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles.
McConnell has been called “the most conservative leader of either party in the history of the Senate.” He has also earned a reputation as a “master tactician” for permanently locking in critical tax relief for working families and small businesses, and putting in place the most significant spending reduction legislation in a generation.
He has received praise from numerous media outlets for his work as Senate Majority Leader, and in 2015 TIME Magazine named McConnell one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
First elected to the Senate in 1984, McConnell is Kentucky’s longest-serving senator. He made history that year as the only Republican challenger in the country to defeat an incumbent Democrat and as the first Republican to win a statewide Kentucky race since 1968. On November 4, 2014, he was elected to a record sixth term by receiving broad support across Kentucky, winning 110 of the Commonwealth’s 120 counties.
McConnell graduated with honors from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences, where he served as student body president. He also is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association.
McConnell worked as an intern on Capitol Hill for Senator John Sherman Cooper before serving as chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General to President Gerald Ford.
Before his election to the Senate, he served as judge-executive of Jefferson County, Kentucky, from 1978 until he commenced his Senate term on January 3, 1985.
McConnell currently serves as a senior member of the Appropriations, Agriculture and Rules Committees. He is the proud father of three daughters.
McConnell is married to Secretary Elaine L. Chao, the 18th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Previously, Secretary Chao served for eight years as President George W. Bush’s U.S. Secretary of Labor. She is also a former president of the United Way of America and director of the Peace Corps.
Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP
Staff Attorney, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation
Experience: Staff Attorney, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Springfield, VA, 1989-Present; Associate, Borland & Borland, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 1989; Intern, Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Atlanta, GA, U.S. Justice Department, 1988-89; Martindale-Hubbell® AV® Peer Review Rated.
Bar Admissions: Pennsylvania, 1989; District of Columbia, 1991; U.S. Supreme Court, 1992 (admitted only in PA & DC).
Law School: Emory University, J.D., 1989.
College: Hampden-Sydney College, B.A., with Honors in Political Science and History, magna cum laude, 1986.
Member: Federalist Society.
Publications: “Casting an Overdue Skeptical Eye: Knox v. SEIU,” CATO SUPREME COURT REVIEW, September 2012, at 333; “Making Windows into Litigants’ Souls: The Pernicious Potential of Gilpin v. AFSCME,” Engage, Apr. 2004, at 90; Co-author, “Big Labor’s Tyranny of the Minority: Forced Union Dues in Politics,” Federalist Society Free Speech & Election Law Newsletter, Fall 1996.
Reported Decisions (partial listing): Knox v. SEIU Local 1000, 132 S.Ct. 2277 (2012); Locke v. Karass, 555 U.S. 207 (2009); Cummings v. Connell, 402 F. 3d 935 (9th Cir. 2005); Prescott v. County of El Dorado, 177 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir. 1999), vacated, 528 U.S. 1111, reinstated in part, 204 F.3d 984 (9th Cir. 2000); Knight v. Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, 131 F.3d 807 (9th Cir. 1997); Johnson v. Lafayette Firefighters Ass’n, 51 F.3d 726 (7th Cir. 1995); Weaver v. University of Cincinnati, 942 F.2d 1039 (1991), further proceedings, 970 F.2d 1523 (6th Cir. 1992); Dixon v. City of Chicago, 948 F.2d 355 (7th Cir. 1991); Orr v. National Football League Players Ass’n, 147 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2845 (Va. Cir. Ct. 1994), aff’d, 150 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2191 (Va. 1995).
Blind to Text, Unfaithful to Principle
John F. Duffy
The most significant decision involving federalism that was handed down during the October 1995 Term--indeed,...
Roger Clegg reviews The Demise of Environmentalism in American Law by Michael S. Greve
Roger B. Clegg
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United States v. Winstar: The Government Takes a Hit
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Winstar is an enormously important Supreme Court decision. It threatens to impose huge liabilities on...
Campaign Finance: What Role for the Parties?
Benjamin L. Ginsberg
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The Chemical Weapons Convention: Legal and Juridical Observations
John Adams
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Campaign Finance "Reform": A View from Capitol Hill
Mitch McConnell
The campaign finance "reform" movement is intellectually bankrupt. It has not had an original idea...
A Practitioner's View of Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. Federal Election Commission
Charles H. Bell
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The Supreme Court Closes in on Racial Gerrymandering but Questions Remain
Joseph E. Broadus
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Big Labor's Tyranny of the Minority: Forced Union Dues in Politics
Edith Hakola, W. James Young
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Department of Education Chafes under Court Restrictions on Racial Preferences
Michael F. Williams
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