Director, Washington Ofice, Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy
Elise Bean became counsel to U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., on the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in 1985. She worked for him on three subcommittees, under the leadership of Linda Gustitus. In 2003, Levin appointed Bean as staff director and chief counsel of the committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which he chaired. Bean retired from the Senate with Levin at the end of 2014.
During her tenure, Bean handled a variety of investigations, hearings and legislation, including matters involving offshore tax abuses, money laundering, foreign corruption, unfair credit card practices, health care fraud, abuses involving derivatives and structured finance, and shell companies with hidden owners. Investigations headed by her included inquiries into the 2008 financial crisis, HSBC money laundering problems, London whale trades at JPMorgan Chase, collapse of Enron, and offshore tax avoidance by Apple, Microsoft and Caterpillar.
In 2016 and 2015, she was included in the Global Tax 50, a list compiled by International Tax Review of the year's top 50 individuals and organizations influencing tax policy and practice. In 2013 and 2011, the Washingtonian magazine named her one of Washington's 100 most powerful women. In 2010, she was selected by the National Law Journal as one of Washington's most influential women lawyers.
Bean graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University in 1978 and earned her law degree, cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School in 1982. She served as a law clerk to former Chief Judge of the U.S. Claims Court Alex Kozinski, who later served as the chief judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She worked for two years as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Frauds Section. Earlier in her career, she worked for U.S. Rep. John Joseph Moakley, D-Mass.
Senior Counsel, Akin Gump
Stanley M. Brand’s practice covers all levels of state and federal courts, with an emphasis on defending the rights of witnesses involved in government investigations.
Mr. Brand has represented numerous individuals and organizations investigated by and/or called to testify before the U.S. Congress. He has developed particular experience in the application of the separation-of-powers doctrine. His diverse litigation and counseling practice also includes representing corporations, trade associations, labor unions and individuals in major Department of Justice, grand jury, and independent counsel investigations and trial proceedings, including Whitewater, Housing and Urban Development, the savings and loan crisis, and the campaign finance task force investigations. Mr. Brand has also represented individuals and entities involved in contested election proceedings.
From 1976 to 1983, Mr. Brand served as general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives under Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O'Neill, Jr. and was the House's chief legal officer responsible for representing the House, its members, officers and employees in connection with legal procedures and litigation arising from the conduct of their official activities. Since leaving the House, Mr. Brand has had a succession of high-profile, political and public corruption cases and clients, including former White House aide George Stephanopoulos in the Whitewater investigation, former congressman and Gore 2000 campaign manager Tony Coelho, former House Majority Whip Bill Gray, congressmen Dan Rostenkowski and Joe McDade, and former executive agency officials.
Prior to joining Akin Gump, Mr. Brand was the founding partner of Brand Law Group, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm specializing in matters at the intersection of politics and criminal law.
Founder, Quell Strategies
Machalagh Carr is a trusted and strategic counselor with decades of private sector and government experience. She has nimbly navigated the intersection of congressional investigations and oversight, law, geopolitics, and policy, most recently as the top staffer in Article I as Chief of Staff to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
Prior to her role as Chief of Staff, she served as General Counsel for the Speaker and Office of the Republican Leader at the U.S. House of Representatives. Previously, she served as General Counsel & Parliamentarian for the Committee on Ways and Means, where she handled all legal and procedural issues for the Committee. Before that, she was the Oversight Staff Director at the Committee where she led the investigations and oversight of all issues within the Committee’s jurisdiction. Prior to joining Ways and Means, she served as the Director of Oversight and Investigations for the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and as Senior Oversight Counsel at the Committee on Natural Resources.
Previously, Machalagh served in the Office of Global Compliance of an international energy company where she conducted internal anti-corruption investigations, audits, and compliance reviews for the company. Before her in-house experience she practiced in the Litigation, White Collar, and Government Investigations Group at Sonnenschein Nath and Rosenthal LLP (now Dentons). Directly after law school, Machalagh clerked for the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
She taught Trial Practice at Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law and lives in Virginia with her husband and three sons.
Chief Counsel for Oversight (R), Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives
Director of the Congressional Oversight Initiative, The Project On Government Oversight
Justin Rood directs POGO's Congressional Oversight Initiative. The Initiative aims to improve and enhance Congress's ability to do effective oversight by providing information, advice, and other assistance.
Previously, Rood served under Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) on his Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as director of investigations on Homeland Security matters.
Prior to that, he worked under Senator Coburn as senior investigator on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Minority Staff. There he led a 2012 investigation into domestic intelligence fusion centers, finding them "pools of ineptitude, waste, and civil liberties intrusions," in the words of The Washington Post's front-page coverage of the report.
Before joining Senator Coburn’s staff, Rood was an award-winning investigative producer and reporter with ABC News and other outlets. At ABC, Rood helped uncover the D.C. Madam scandal, which led to a number of resignations including that of Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias. In 2006, while at Talking Points Memo, Rood was part of a two-person reporting/blogging team that broke the story about the Bush administration dismissing seven U.S. Attorneys during a midterm purge. The story earned Talking Points Memo a Polk Award.
Rood is a 2015 non-resident fellow with the Yale Law School's Information Society Project.
A native Washingtonian, Rood is also co-founder of the Funk Parade, a celebration of local music, arts, and culture that brings the diverse communities of the city together.
President and General Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
NCLA’s President and General Counsel, Mark Chenoweth, has observed the administrative state up close and personal from perches in all four branches of the federal government. Mark served as the first chief of staff to Congressman Mike Pompeo, as legal counsel to Commissioner Anne Northup at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a law clerk to the Hon. Danny J. Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Mark has worked in several different roles in the private sector as well. He began his legal career in D.C. as a regulatory associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. He then returned to his home state of Kansas to serve as in-house counsel for Koch Industries. Most recently he spent over four years as general counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation.
Mark is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School, where he co-founded the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship and became a Tony Patiño Fellow. Mark has been widely quoted and/or published in newspapers and websites including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New Hampshire Union Leader, and Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. He has also had recurring op-eds in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and at Forbes.com.
Director, Climate & Clean Air Program, Natural Resources Defense Council
David Doniger has been at the forefront of the battle against air pollution and global climate change since he joined NRDC in 1978. He helped formulate the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement designed to stop the depletion of the earth's ozone layer, as well as several essential amendments to the Clean Air Act. In 1993, he left NRDC to serve on the White House Council on Environmental Quality, followed by key posts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He rejoined NRDC in 2001 and has since been working to defend the Clean Air Act from assaults in Congress. He is based in Washington, D.C.
Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law, Associate Director, Corporate Institute, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is the McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She also has taught at Harvard Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Hickman teaches and writes primarily in the areas of administrative law, tax administration, and statutory interpretation. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and other publications. She also co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise with Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and a casebook on federal administrative law with Pierce and Christopher J. Walker. Her scholarly work has been cited several times in opinions of the United States Supreme Court as well as regularly in lower court judicial opinions and court briefs.
In 2018-19, Professor Hickman served as Special Adviser to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. She presently serves as a Senior Fellow, and previously served as a public member and chair of the judicial review committee, for the Administrative Conference of the United States. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a secondary major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, Professor Hickman earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden Wigmore Prize for her scholarly writings. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for The Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
Trustee Professor of Law, New York Law School
From 1972-79, Schoenbrod served as one of the leaders of the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he campaigned to reduce lead in gasoline, resurrect the then-decrepit New York City subway, and protect the environment of Puerto Rico. Previously, he was Director of Program Development at the community development project that Senator Robert Kennedy established in Bedford Stuyvesant. He has also been a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.
His books include
D.C. Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of Washington (Encounter Books, 2017) with forewords by Governor Howard Dean and Senator Mike Lee;
Breaking the Logjam: Environmental Protection That Will Work (Yale University Press, 2010)(with Richard B. Stewart and Katrina M. Wyman);
Saving Our Environment from Washington: How Congress Grabs Power, Shirks Responsibility, and Shortchanges the People (Yale University Press, 2005);
Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government (Yale University Press, 2003) (with Ross Sandler); and
Power Without Responsibility: How Congress Abuses the People Through Delegation (Yale University Press, 1993).
In addition to writing scholarly articles, he has frequently contributed opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, the New York Times, and other publications.
He has an undergraduate degree from Yale College, a graduate degree in economics from Oxford University, which he attended as a Marshall Scholar, and a law degree from Yale Law School.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Associate, Wiley Rein LLP
Joel S. Nolette is an associate at Wiley Rein LLP, where he advocates on behalf of corporate and individual clients in a broad spectrum of complex litigation matters. In 2017, Joel graduated cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as the Editor in Chief of Volume 15 of the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. From 2019 to 2021, Joel clerked for the Honorable Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; and from 2021 to 2022, he clerked for the Honorable Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Before attending law school, Joel graduated summa cum laude from Gordon College in Wenham, MA, with his Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies and worked as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service.
President, Hoppe Strategies
After serving 29 years on Capitol Hill, Dave Hoppe returned to the private sector as president of Hoppe Strategies, a strategic planning, lobbying and political consulting firm.
Hoppe brings a wealth of experience to this job, having dealt with legislative development and strategy at the highest levels on Capitol Hill. He directed Whip offices in both the House and Senate, and led the Senate Majority Leader’s office during the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations. Both positions oversaw and coordinated the flow of legislation through Congress, and both required working with political personalities on both sides of the aisle as well as the White House, to achieve passage for each bill. Hoppe recently reprised this role for Sen. Jon Kyl in the Senate Whip Office.
Additionally, Hoppe was the lead staff member on such historic Constitutional and structural events as the power shift in the Senate (when one Senator changed his party affiliation, throwing into chaos the entire Senate committee structure and requiring extensive negotiations between both parties), and the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton. These events give him a unique perspective on the interaction of political agendas with legislative outcomes.
Other Hill positions held by Hoppe include Chief of Staff to Rep. Jack Kemp during his presidential bid, and Chief of Staff to Sen. Dan Coats who was appointed to replace former Senator Dan Quayle. Sen. Coats was required to conduct two statewide campaigns in a 4-year period in order to confirm his Senate appointment and then to retain the seat, unusual demands which impacted the work of his Senate office. Early in his Hill career, Hoppe served as energy and environmental policy analyst for the Republican Study Committee.
Among the highlights of Hoppe’s years on House leadership staff were the passage of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, both key elements of the first Reagan administration. During his tenure with Rep. Jack Kemp, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 was passed and signed into law. He was also involved with the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997, and numerous other issues including welfare reform, tax policies and education reform.
In 2003, Hoppe left the Hill to work for the public affairs firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates, serving as President of QGA 2007-2011, when he returned briefly to the Senate to direct the Whip office for Sen. Kyl. Currently Hoppe is a Senior Policy Advisor at Squire Patton Boggs, he also serves as a Senior Advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Center, and is an advisor to the Jack Kemp Foundation. He is an emeritus member of the Board for Easter Seals of DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia, was Chairman of the Government Affairs Committee for the National Down Syndrome Society, and serves on the national board of SourceAmerica and of the Coalition to Promote Self Determination, a group of organizations working to empower disabled individuals to achieve greater independence.
He holds a B.A. in Government from the University of Notre Dame, and an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is married and has three children.
Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence; Co-Director of the Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic, New York University School of Law
Sally Katzen served in the Clinton administration as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as deputy assistant to the president for economic policy and deputy director of the National Economic Council in the White House, and then as the deputy director for management at OMB. She served as the head of the Agency Review Group for the Obama/Biden transition with responsibility for the Executive Office of the President and all government-wide agencies. She has taught both undergraduates and at various law schools. She is a member of the American Law Institute and the National Academy of Public Administration, has served on multiple panels for the National Academy of Sciences, testified frequently before Congress, and is on the board of several non-profit organizations. Before joining the Clinton administration, Katzen was a partner in the Washington, DC, law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, specializing in regulatory and legislative matters, while serving in leadership roles in the American Bar Association (including chair of the Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and as DC delegate to the ABA’s House of Delegates), as president of the Federal Communications Bar Association and as president of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund. She graduated from Smith College and the University of Michigan Law School, where she was the first woman editor-in-chief of the Law Review. She clerked for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and served in the Carter administration as the general counsel of the Council on Wage and Price Stability in the Executive Office of the President.
Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Philip Wallach is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies America’s separation of powers, with a focus on regulatory policy issues and the relationship between Congress and the administrative state.
In his latest book Why Congress (Oxford University Press, 2023), Dr. Wallach defends the centrality of Congress in America’s constitutional system, traces the roots of current dysfunction, and suggests how the institution might be restored.
Before joining AEI, Dr. Wallach was a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, where he authored To the Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis (Brookings Institution Press, 2015). He was later affiliated with the R Street Institute and served as a fellow with the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress in 2019.
Dr. Wallach’s scholarly and popular work has been published widely, including in the publications of the Brookings Center on Regulation and Markets, Studies in American Political Development, Fortune, National Affairs, National Review, Law & Liberty, Los Angeles Times, RealClearPolicy, the Bulwark, the Hill, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. A frequent conference participant, he has lectured at William & Mary, the University of Oregon, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, among others.
Dr. Wallach received a master’s and doctorate in politics from Princeton University and a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University’s College of Social Studies.
Senior Fellow, Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies and is co-director of AEI’s program on Financial Policy Studies. Prior to joining AEI, he practiced banking, corporate and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. Mr. Wallison has held a number of government positions. From June 1981 to January 1985, he was General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, and between 1972 and 1976, he served first as Special Assistant to New York's Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller as vice president of the United States.
Mr. Wallison was admitted to practice before the courts of New York and the District of Columbia, and is retired from practice in New York. He continues to be a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1963 and law degree from Harvard Law School in 1966.
Mr. Wallison is the author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency, published in December 2002 by Westview Press. On campaign finance, he is the author (with Joel Gora) of Better Parties, Better Government, (AEI Press 2009). On financial or regulatory matters, he is the author of Back From the Brink, a proposal for a private deposit insurance system, and co-author of Nationalizing Mortgage Risk: The Growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age; Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds; Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act (AEI Press 2013); and Hidden In Plain Sight: What Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why it Could Happen Again (Encounter Books 2015). His most recent book is Judicial Fortitude: The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State, published by Encounter Books in October 2018.
He testifies frequently before committees of Congress, and is a frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and other print and online journals. He has also been a speaker at many conferences on financial services, housing, the causes of the financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act, accounting, and corporate governance, and was a member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee between 1995 and 2015. He was a member of the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (2008), co-Chair of the Pew Financial Reform Task Force (2009), and a member of the congressionally- appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009-2011). In May 2011, for his work in financial policy, Mr. Wallison received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Colorado.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Thomas G. Hungar is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn. His practice focuses on appellate litigation, and he assists clients with congressional investigations and complex trial court litigation matters as well. He has presented oral argument before the Supreme Court of the United States in 28 cases, including some of the Court’s most important patent, antitrust, securities, and environmental law decisions, and he has also appeared before numerous lower federal and state courts.
Thomas served as General Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives from July 2016 until January 2019. As General Counsel, he provided legal advice and litigation representation on a non-partisan basis to the House and its leadership, members, officers, and staff, and he worked closely with numerous House committees in connection with their oversight and investigative activities. Previously, he served as a Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. In that position, he supervised business-related appellate litigation for the federal government, with particular emphasis on patent, antitrust, securities, and environmental appellate cases, and he also oversaw appellate litigation in banking, bankruptcy, tax, government contracts, communications, copyright, labor, trademark, and international trade matters. In private practice, Thomas’s appellate experience has encompassed those areas as well as class actions, constitutional law, employment law, product liability, administrative procedure, insurance coverage and bad faith, and general commercial litigation. He has handled scores of business-related appeals in the Supreme Court and lower appellate courts, and has briefed and argued many high-profile matters.
Thomas is a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and is a frequent lecturer in his areas of expertise. While at the Department of Justice, he served as Appellate Counsel to the Intellectual Property Task Force Executive Staff, and he was awarded the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement, the Department’s highest award presented to attorneys for contributions and excellence in legal performance, in recognition of his handling of patent-law matters before the Supreme Court.
Most recently, Thomas has garnered national recognition for his Appellate Practice in The Legal 500 – United States, Best Lawyers in America, and in Chambers USA, which has repeatedly highlighted Thomas for his “expertise in appellate litigation” and experience with employment and antitrust disputes, as well as Congressional Investigations. Thomas was also recently named a “Litigation Star” by Benchmark Litigation.
Thomas served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States from 1992-1994. He also served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court and to Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his law degree from Yale Law School in 1987, where he was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review. He received his Bachelor of Science degree magna cum laude in mathematics/computer science and economics from Willamette University in 1984.
Thomas is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
Vice President, Networks, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Nathan Kaczmarek is Vice President for Networks at the Federalist Society. He began his legal career in Detroit representing nationwide clients in all phases of healthcare litigation and complex medical malpractice claims. He has since served as a Senior Legal and Policy Advisor in the U.S. House of Representatives and as Counsel for the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management in the U.S. Senate. Prior to overseeing the Networks, he was Director of the Practice Groups, the Regulatory Transparency Project, and the Article I Initiative for the Federalist Society.
Nathan holds degrees from Hillsdale College and Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He is a Liaison Representative for The Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves as Vice President of the Associates of St. John Bosco, a Virginia based non-profit dedicated to Catholic high school and college students.
Vice President of Law & Policy, Property and Environment Research Center
Jonathan Wood is vice president of law and policy at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). An attorney, Jonathan has litigated environmental and property-rights cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, federal and state appellate courts, and trial courts across the country. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Reason, and other outlets. And his research has been published in journals such as Environmental Law Reporter, Yale Journal on Regulation Notice & Comment, Pace Environmental Law Review, and California Western Law Review.
Prior to coming to PERC, Jonathan was a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he litigated cases concerning the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and other federal environmental laws. He was co-counsel for forest landowners in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in which the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that private land could not be arbitrarily regulated as critical habitat under the ESA. He also led a successful effort to reform regulation of threatened species to better align the incentives of private landowners with the interests of rare species.
Jonathan has testified before several congressional committees on wildlife conservation and endangered species topics. He has also appeared on national television and radio, including NPR’s All Things Considered, C-Span’s Washington Journal, Stossel, Fox News, and Hill.TV.
Jonathan has a law degree from the New York University School of Law, a masters degree in economic policy from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Texas. He is on the executive committee for the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group and a steering committee member for the Environmental Law Institute’s Emerging Leaders Initiative.
Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington University Law School
Theodore C. (Ted) Hirt was an attorney in the Department of Justice's Civil Division from August 1979 to March 2016. He was in its Federal Programs Branch from 1979 to 2008 (trial attorney, senior trial counsel, assistant director), and then in its Office of Immigration Litigation from 2008 to 2016 (trial attorney and senior litigation counsel). Among his responsibilities (September 2001 to March 2016) was being an advisor to the Assistant Attorneys General for the Civil Division, who serve ex officio on the Civil Rules Advisory Committee. Mr. Hirt’s areas of specialization include First Amendment issues, internet and telecommunications law, and electronic discovery. From 1976 to 1979, he was an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Kampelman. From 1975 to 1976 he was an attorney in the Prehearing Division of the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Necessary & Proper Episode 39: Bipartisanship and High Profile Congressional Oversight
Elise Bean, Stanley M. Brand, Machalagh Carr, Jon Skladany, Justin Rood
Welcome again to Necessary & Proper. Today we bring you the great discussion we had...
Necessary & Proper Episode 38: A World Without Chevron?
Mark Chenoweth, David D. Doniger, Kristin E. Hickman, David S. Schoenbrod, Jenn L. Mascott, Joel S. Nolette
Welcome again to Necessary & Proper. Today we bring you the great discussion we had...
Necessary & Proper Episode 37: Can the Other Branches Help Restore Congress?
David Hoppe, Sally Katzen, Philip A. Wallach, Peter J. Wallison, Thomas G. Hungar, Nathan Kaczmarek
In this episode we bring you the great discussion we had from the opening panel of the...
Topics
Congress's Regulatory Mess
Do you watch The Office? One of my favorite episodes is "Golden Ticket," in which...
Topics
Government Shutdown and Deregulation
According to my George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center colleague, Bridget Dooling, a lengthy federal...
Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service [SCOTUSbrief]
Jonathan Wood
St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana is home to Lake Pontchartrain, more than 6,000 businesses, and forests...
Topics
Trends in Government Priorities, 1960 - 2019
A new report - by Susan Dudley of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and Melinda Warren of...
Topics
The Haspel Nomination - What Does it Take to Lead the CIA?
Federalist Society International & National Security Law Practice Group member Matthew Heiman has written a...
Privatization: Boon to Efficiency or Slow Motion Revolution?
Ted Hirt
A review of: Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the American Republic, by Jon D. Michaels...
Topics
The Need for Civil Service Reform
Did you know that data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) indicates that federal...