Senator, 24th District, Tennessee State Senate
Senator Stevens was elected to the State Senate in 2012 and represents Obion, Weakley, Henry, Gibson, Carroll and Benton Counties in Northwest Tennessee. Sen. Stevens is the first Republican to ever represent Obion and Weakley counties in the State Senate. Sen. Stevens is 45 years old and lives in Huntingdon, Tennessee, with his wife, Elicia, and his two daughters, Lexie and Mary Kendall. Mr. Stevens and his family are members of the First Baptist Church Huntingdon where John teaches Sunday school and coaches his daughters’ Upward basketball teams, He enjoys running, is an avid sports fan, is a lifetime learner, and occasionally spoiling a good walk by trying to golf.
Comptroller Emeritus, Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury
Justin P. Wilson serves as Comptroller Emeritus within the Office of the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury. He previously served six terms as Tennessee’s 34th Comptroller from January 15, 2009 until January 13, 2021.
Comptroller Emeritus Wilson has a long history of public service. He served as Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and as Deputy to the Governor for Policy under former Governor Don Sundquist. He was a member of the Financial Advisory Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and he served as Chairman of the Nashville Electric Board, the Davidson County Metropolitan Health Board, and the Community Health Agency of Nashville and Davidson County. He was Foreman of the Davidson County Grand Jury, and he has served in leadership positions for numerous Nashville business as well as civic and charitable organizations.
Comptroller Emeritus Wilson was also a partner in the law firm of Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis where he served on its Executive Committee. He is a graduate of Stanford University, Vanderbilt University School of Law, and New York University.
Comptroller Emeritus Wilson was named Conservationist of the Year in 1997, and the Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park is named in recognition of his “conservation and environmental contributions to the State of Tennessee.”
Comptroller Emeritus Wilson is married to Dr. Barbara Engelhardt, and he is the father of four sons.
Legal Director & General Counsel, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
Kent S. Scheidegger has been the Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation since December 1986. He also served as Chairman of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society 2003 to 2005. His articles on criminal and constitutional law have been published in law reviews, national legal publications, and congressional reports. Legal arguments authored by Mr. Scheidegger have been cited and incorporated in several precedent-setting United States Supreme Court decisions.
After receiving a degree in physics with honors from New Mexico State University in 1976, Mr. Scheidegger served for six years in the United States Air Force as a Nuclear Research Officer. He took his law degree with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1982 and practiced civil law in Northern California. He was general counsel of California Cooler, Inc. from 1984 until 1986, when he joined the Foundation.
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County
George R. La Noue is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He has served as a trial expert in twenty cases involving public procurement preferences. For thirty years, he was Director of the Project on Civil Rights and Public Contracts at UMBC which recently contributed 289 public contracting disparity studies to the Library of Congress. He has been a consultant to nine governments and trial expert in thirty cases where the validity of disparity studies was at issue.
Prof. La Noue can be reached by email at glanoue@umbc.edu.
Director, Digital Media, Communications and Fellow, R Street Institute
Shoshana Weissmann manages R Street’s social media, email marketing and other digital assets. She also works on occupational licensing reform, social media regulatory policy, Section 230 and other issues, and has written for various publications, including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Shoshana most recently managed digital communications for Opportunity Lives, a group that highlighted positive stories and policy solutions. Before that, she managed social media and wrote for The Weekly Standard. Earlier in her career, she managed digital communications for the America Rising PAC, where her strategy was highlighted in a piece that appeared in The New York Times.
She is on the board of The Conservation Coalition and a member of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project’s state and local and emerging technology working groups.
She lives in Washington, D.C. and has a stuffed sloth named James Madisloth, and she enjoys the Snapchat hot dog.
United States Representative, Tennessee
A native East Tennessean, Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger was born in Bloomingdale, a small community right outside of Kingsport, and was the first in her immediate family to graduate from high school and college. She attended East Tennessee State University and graduated from Mercer University College of Pharmacy with a Doctor of Pharmacy degree. After graduation, she returned home to start a business and raise her family.
Diana has been a licensed pharmacist and a business owner for over three decades. She currently serves on the House Education and Labor, and House Homeland Security Committees.
Diana and her husband, Robert, currently reside in Kingsport when they are not at their farm in Unicoi. Diana has one son and two grandsons.
Constitutional Scholarship Director and Senior Legal Analyst, Pacific Legal Foundation
Anastasia Boden is Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she leads the organization’s Supreme Court commentary and directs scholarly analysis in support of the firm’s litigation. She has represented entrepreneurs and small businesses nationwide in challenges to onerous licensing regimes, anti-competitive titling restrictions, Certificate of Need (“competitor’s veto”) laws, and other forms of unnecessary red tape that block economic opportunity.
Prior to this role, Anastasia developed nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to Certificate of Need laws across the country, helping spur legislative reform in Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Her victories include a ruling invalidating Houston’s busking restrictions, multiple appellate decisions expanding access to the courts for civil rights plaintiffs, and the legislative repeal of Virginia’s happy-hour advertising ban.
Her writings on law and liberty have been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and more, and she has appeared on Headline News, CBS News, Fox News, ReasonTV, Newsmax, and John Stossel. In 2020, she was featured on Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen’s Supreme Court shortlist.
Anastasia earned her BA with dean’s honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was research assistant to Professor Randy E. Barnett—the “intellectual godfather” of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. She is the co-creator of the podcast Dissed, about infamous Supreme Court dissents. She authors the biweekly newsletter SCOTUS Scoop and the column, “In Dissent” for SCOTUSblog.
Legal Director & General Counsel, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
Kent S. Scheidegger has been the Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation since December 1986. He also served as Chairman of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society 2003 to 2005. His articles on criminal and constitutional law have been published in law reviews, national legal publications, and congressional reports. Legal arguments authored by Mr. Scheidegger have been cited and incorporated in several precedent-setting United States Supreme Court decisions.
After receiving a degree in physics with honors from New Mexico State University in 1976, Mr. Scheidegger served for six years in the United States Air Force as a Nuclear Research Officer. He took his law degree with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1982 and practiced civil law in Northern California. He was general counsel of California Cooler, Inc. from 1984 until 1986, when he joined the Foundation.
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