Justice, Florida Supreme Court
On May 23, 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Justice Meredith L. Sasso to be the 93rd justice of the Supreme Court of Florida.
Justice Sasso was raised in Tallahassee. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida in 2005 and her law degree from the University of Florida in 2008, where she was a member of the Justice Campbell Thornal Moot Court Board. She began her career in private practice, representing clients in large loss general liability, auto negligence, and complex commercial claims in state and federal courts at trial and on appeal. She also served as guardian ad litem, representing abused or neglected children.
In August 2016, Justice Sasso joined the Office of the General Counsel to Governor Rick Scott, serving as Chief Deputy General Counsel. In this role, she represented the Governor in litigation before the Florida Supreme Court, the First District Court of Appeal, and state and federal trial courts, among other duties. In January 2019, Governor Rick Scott appointed her to the Fifth District Court of Appeal. Governor Ron DeSantis recommissioned her to the newly created Sixth District Court of Appeal on January 1, 2023, where she was elected by her colleagues to serve as its first Chief Judge.
She is an appointed member of the Florida Bar Appellate Court Rules Committee. She is also a member of the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network and the Federalist Society.
United States Senator, Florida
Rick Scott was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018 and is currently serving his first term representing the state of Florida. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Rick Scott served two terms as the 45th Governor of Florida, working every day to turn around Florida’s economy and secure the state’s future as the best place for families and businesses to succeed. Rick Scott grew up in public housing in the Midwest as his adoptive father, a World War II veteran and truck driver, and his mother, a store clerk, struggled to financially support their family. After marrying his high school sweetheart, Ann, Rick Scott joined the Navy, where he served active duty as a radar man aboard the USS Glover. He used the G.I. Bill to attend the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and eventually opened his first business – a donut shop. Rick Scott went on to run the world’s largest healthcare company and continues to fight every day so families across the state can have the same opportunities he had to live the American dream.
Rick Scott knows firsthand that a good paying job is one of the most important things for a family, and following Florida’s economic collapse ten years ago, he made the decision to run for governor as a businessman with no political experience. During his term as Governor, he successfully championed more than $10 billion in tax cuts and cut thousands of burdensome regulations that led Florida businesses to create nearly 1.7 million new jobs. Under his leadership, the unemployment rate dropped from 11 percent to 3.3 percent, Florida paid down $10 billion in state debt, and record investments were made in what matters most to Floridians – education, the environment, and public safety.
Rick Scott and his wife, Ann, have been married for 49 years and have two daughters, Allison and Jordan, six grandsons, Auguste, Quinton, Sebastian, Eli, Louie and Jude, and one granddaughter, Zelda Ann.
United States Senator, Utah
Elected in 2010 as Utah's 16th Senator, Mike Lee has spent his career defending the basic liberties of Americans and Utahns as a tireless advocate for our founding constitutional principles.
Senator Lee acquired a deep respect for the Constitution early on. His father, Rex Lee, who served as the Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, would often discuss varied aspects of judicial and constitutional doctrine around the kitchen table, from Due Process to the uses of Executive Plenary Power. He attended most of his father's arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, giving him a unique, hands-on experience and understanding of government up close.
Lee graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, and served as BYU's Student Body President in his senior year. He graduated from BYU's Law School in 1997 and went on to serve as law clerk to Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, and then with future Supreme Court Justice Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Lee spent several years as an attorney with the law firm Sidley & Austin specializing in appellate and Supreme Court litigation, and then served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Salt Lake City arguing cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Lee served the state of Utah as Governor Jon Huntsman's General Counsel and was later honored to reunite with Justice Alito, now on the Supreme Court, for a one-year clerkship. He returned to private practice in 2007.
Throughout his career, Lee earned a reputation as an outstanding practitioner of the law based on his sound judgment, abilities in the courtroom, and thorough understanding of the Constitution.
Today, Lee fights to preserve America's proud founding document in the United States Senate. He advocates efforts to support constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and economic prosperity.
Lee is a member of the Judiciary Committee, and serves as Chairman of the Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee protecting business competition and personal freedom.
He also oversees issues critical to Utah as the Chairman of the Water and Power Subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He serves on the Commerce Committee and the Joint Economic Committee, as well.
In the 114th Congress, Lee also began his tenure as Chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, where he works with his Republican colleagues in the Senate to introduce bold and innovative solutions to issues facing the American people.
Lee and his wife Sharon live in Alpine, Utah, with their three children. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two-year mission for the Church in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.
VP and Senior Counsel, Becket Fund
Eric Baxter joined The Becket Fund as Senior Counsel in 2011. Since then he has represented religious organizations and individuals in a wide array of religious liberty disputes at both the trial and appellate level. Recent victories including a Ninth Circuit ruling upholding the “Big Mountain Jesus” statue that has stood on Forest Service land near Kalispell, Montana, for more than sixty years, and a rare Pentagon decision allowing a Sikh soldier to maintain his full beard and turban while serving in the Army. Mr. Baxter has extensive experience fighting efforts under state Blaine amendments to exclude religious organizations and individuals from participating on equal terms in the public square. He also regularly advises religious institutions of higher education in defending their religious missions against government encroachment.
Mr. Baxter has frequently appeared in the national media to discuss religious liberty issues, including appearances on Fox News (Kelly File, Fox & Friends), WSJ Live, CBS New York, Christian Broadcasting Network, Newsmax TV, and Al Jazeera. He has also written op-eds and been quoted in many major newspapers and other print media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Fox News, New York Post, Washington Times, and New Boston Post.
Before joining the Becket Fund, Mr. Baxter was a partner at Arent Fox LLP in Washington, DC, where he maintained a commercial complex litigation practice representing clients primarily in employment, intellectual property, and biotechnology disputes. He also served for many years as outside counsel to a DC church and its affiliated school. In 2007, he was awarded the Albert E. Arent Pro Bono Award for his work representing several parents adopting a total of seven children from foster care.
From 2000 to 2002, Mr. Baxter clerked for the Honorable Robert H. Cleland in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit). Mr. Baxter received a B.A. in Russian Literature and Linguistics from Brigham Young University and graduated magna cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU, where he served as Executive Editor of the Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Eric speaks Russian and some Spanish. He and his wife have seven children and an amateur family bluegrass band.
Mr. Baxter has been featured on the Kelly File, Al Jazeera, WSJ Video, and NewsmaxTV.
Chief Counsel, Senator Ted Cruz
Mike Berry serves as Chief Counsel for United States Senator Ted Cruz. As Chief Counsel for Senator Cruz, Mike provides advice and counsel to the Senator with special emphasis on the Senate’s advice and consent role pertaining to judicial nominations.
Prior to working on the Hill, Mike spent many years in public interest litigation with various non-profits. Mike served for seven years as an attorney with the U.S. Marine Corps, leaving active duty in 2013. Among his numerous positions within the Marine Corps, Mike deployed to Afghanistan in 2008 and he served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the United States Naval Academy. Mr. Berry continues to proudly serve our nation as a member of the Marine Corps Reserve.
Mr. Berry earned his bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University, and he earned his law degree from The Ohio State University.
NYU Law
Eugene R. Fidell is an expert in Military Justice, which he has taught at Yale, Harvard, and American University. He has also taught courses on Guantánamo, Habeas Corpus, Disasters, Admiralty, Law of the Sea, Native American Law, Tribal Law, and the Original Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is of counsel at Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell LLP, Washington, DC. He was lead trial and appellate defense counsel in United States v. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Prof. Fidell is a life member of the American Law Institute, president emeritus of the National Institute of Military Justice, and former chair of the Committee on Military Justice of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War. He edits the Global Military Justice Reform blog, globalmjreform.blogspot.com. His books include Military Justice: Cases and Materials (3d ed. 2020) (co-author) and Military Justice: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2016). He has served on a variety of federal advisory boards, including, most recently, the Executive Review Panel for the Comprehensive Review of Navy and Marine Corps Uniformed Legal Communities.
United States Senator from Oklahoma
Senator Lankford of Oklahoma served four years in the U.S. House of Representatives and was elected to the U.S. Senate to complete an unexpired term on November 4, 2014 and re-elected to a full six-year senate term on November 8, 2016.
As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, Lankford fights unnecessary and burdensome regulation and advocates for a more restrained federal government.
Personal faith, local decision-making, and opportunity for every person, regardless of their background, are core values for Senator Lankford. Before his time in Congress, from 1995 to 2009, the Senator served as Director of Student Ministry at the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma and Director of the Falls Creek Youth Camp, the largest youth camp in the United States, with more than 51,000 individuals attending each summer.
Committee Assignments:
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Justin R. Walker is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump on May 4, 2020, and confirmed by the United States Senate on June 18, 2020. He is a former United States District Judge of the Western District of Kentucky.
Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor
Jonathan Berry is Solicitor at the U.S. Department of Labor, in service to President Trump’s agenda to put American workers first. He leads the Department’s lawyers in advising the Secretary and agency leadership on all aspects of law and in representing the Department in court. He was previously managing partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, where he provided strategic counsel and litigated on issues at the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. Earlier, he headed the regulatory office at Labor, and also served at the Department of Justice, in the first Trump Administration. Mr. Berry served as a law clerk to Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and to Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., of the Supreme Court of the United States.
United States Senator, Utah
Elected in 2010 as Utah's 16th Senator, Mike Lee has spent his career defending the basic liberties of Americans and Utahns as a tireless advocate for our founding constitutional principles.
Senator Lee acquired a deep respect for the Constitution early on. His father, Rex Lee, who served as the Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, would often discuss varied aspects of judicial and constitutional doctrine around the kitchen table, from Due Process to the uses of Executive Plenary Power. He attended most of his father's arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, giving him a unique, hands-on experience and understanding of government up close.
Lee graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, and served as BYU's Student Body President in his senior year. He graduated from BYU's Law School in 1997 and went on to serve as law clerk to Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, and then with future Supreme Court Justice Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Lee spent several years as an attorney with the law firm Sidley & Austin specializing in appellate and Supreme Court litigation, and then served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Salt Lake City arguing cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Lee served the state of Utah as Governor Jon Huntsman's General Counsel and was later honored to reunite with Justice Alito, now on the Supreme Court, for a one-year clerkship. He returned to private practice in 2007.
Throughout his career, Lee earned a reputation as an outstanding practitioner of the law based on his sound judgment, abilities in the courtroom, and thorough understanding of the Constitution.
Today, Lee fights to preserve America's proud founding document in the United States Senate. He advocates efforts to support constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and economic prosperity.
Lee is a member of the Judiciary Committee, and serves as Chairman of the Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee protecting business competition and personal freedom.
He also oversees issues critical to Utah as the Chairman of the Water and Power Subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He serves on the Commerce Committee and the Joint Economic Committee, as well.
In the 114th Congress, Lee also began his tenure as Chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, where he works with his Republican colleagues in the Senate to introduce bold and innovative solutions to issues facing the American people.
Lee and his wife Sharon live in Alpine, Utah, with their three children. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two-year mission for the Church in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Vice President and Publisher, The Political Forum
Stephen R. Soukup is the senior commentator, Vice President, and Publisher of The Political Forum, an “independent research provider” that delivers research and consulting services to the institutional investment community, with an emphasis on economic, social, political, and geopolitical events likely to have an impact on the financial markets in the United States and abroad. He is also the Director of The Political Forum Institute, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to creating and preserving community, primarily among those who earn their livings and create wealth for the nation through the capital markets. Mr. Soukup has followed politics and federal regulatory policy for the financial community since 1996, when he joined the award-winning Washington-research office of Prudential Securities. He is also the Fellow in Culture and Economy at the Culture of Life Foundation.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Co-Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Mr. White has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment blog, and for many years, he was one of the Weekly Standard’s lead writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.
Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.
Senior Vice President, Bipartisan Policy Center
G. William Hoagland is a BPC senior vice president. In this capacity, he helps direct and manage fiscal, health, and economic policy analyses.
Before joining BPC in September 2012, Hoagland served as vice president of public policy for CIGNA Corporation, working with business leaders, trade associations, business coalitions, and interest groups to develop CIGNA policy on health care reform issues at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to joining CIGNA, Hoagland completed 33 years of federal government service, including 25 years on the U.S. Senate staff. From 2003 to 2007, he served as the director of budget and appropriations in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He assisted in evaluating the fiscal impact of major legislation and helped to coordinate budget policy for the Senate leadership.
From 1982 to 2003, Hoagland served as a staff member and director of the Senate Budget Committee, reporting to U.S. Sen. Pete V. Domenici, chairman and ranking member of the committee during this period. He participated in major federal budget negotiations, including the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Budget Deficit Reduction Act, the 1990 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, and the historic 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.
In 1981, he served as the administrator of the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service and as a special assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture. He was one of the first employees of the Congressional Budget Office in 1975, working with its first director, Alice Rivlin.
In both 1997 and 2005, National Journal listed him as one of the “Washington 100 Decision Makers” and referred to him as a “bottom-liner who is not a hard-liner.” Roll Call consistently named Hoagland as one of the top 50 Hill staffers. In 2002, he received the James L. Blum Award for Distinguished Service in Budgeting. The National Association of State Budget Officers honored him in 2004 with its Leadership in Budgeting Award, and in 2006 he was inducted as a fellow in the National Academy of Public Administration.
Hoagland is an affiliate professor of public policy at the George Mason University and a board member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the National Advisory Committee to the Workplace Flexibility 2010 Commission. In 2009, he was appointed to the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform examining the overall structure of the budget, authorization, and appropriations process, and was a member of BPC’s Debt Reduction Task Force that published Restoring America’s Future in November 2010. He coordinated BPC’s 2013 report, A Bipartisan Rx for Patient-Centered Care and System-Wide Cost Containment. In April 2015, he co-chaired the National Academy of Social Insurance report, “Addressing Pricing Power in Health Care Markets.”
Hoagland attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and holds degrees from Purdue University and The Pennsylvania State University. His family’s Indiana family farm was recognized as a “Hoosier Homestead” for having remained in the family for over a century.
United States Senator from Oklahoma
Senator Lankford of Oklahoma served four years in the U.S. House of Representatives and was elected to the U.S. Senate to complete an unexpired term on November 4, 2014 and re-elected to a full six-year senate term on November 8, 2016.
As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, Lankford fights unnecessary and burdensome regulation and advocates for a more restrained federal government.
Personal faith, local decision-making, and opportunity for every person, regardless of their background, are core values for Senator Lankford. Before his time in Congress, from 1995 to 2009, the Senator served as Director of Student Ministry at the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma and Director of the Falls Creek Youth Camp, the largest youth camp in the United States, with more than 51,000 individuals attending each summer.
Committee Assignments:
Associate Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Matthew B. Lawrence is associate professor of law. Lawrence researches and publishes on health care finance, administrative law, and addictions. He has written widely on these subjects with articles published or forthcoming in Columbia Law Review; Florida Law Review; Duke Law Journal; Harvard Law and Policy Review; the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics; New York University Law Review; William & Mary Law Review; and Yale Law Journal, among other journals.
In addition to his teaching and scholarship, Lawrence possesses a wealth of experience in the federal government. He most recently served as a special legal advisor to the US House of Representatives Budget Committee (Majority). Previously, he worked on health care regulatory issues during the Obama and Trump Administrations as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Federal Programs Branch and attorney advisor in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of General Counsel in the Executive Office of the President. In 2016, he received an individual special commendation award for his defense of Affordable Care Act programs while serving as trial attorney in the US Department of Justice.
Before coming to Emory Law Lawrence was assistant professor of law at Pennsylvania State University (Dickinson Law), where he also held a courtesy appointment as assistant professor at Penn State College of Medicine in the Department of Surgery. He was recognized by the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics as a 2017 Health Law Scholar, and is affiliate faculty at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Bioethics, and Biotechnology, where he was previously a fellow.
Lawrence is a graduate of New York University School of Law and Brown University; and he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Senior Fellow - Governance Studies, Brookings Institution
Molly Reynolds is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings. She studies Congress, with an emphasis on how congressional rules and procedure affect domestic policy outcomes.
She is the author of the book, "Exceptions to the Rule: The Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the U.S. Senate," which explores creation, use, and consequences of the budget reconciliation process and other procedures that prevent filibusters in the U.S. Senate. Current research projects include work on oversight in the House of Representatives, congressional reform, and the congressional budget process. She also supervises the maintenance of "Vital Statistics on Congress," Brookings’s long-running resource on the first branch of government.
Reynolds received her Ph.D. in political science and public policy from the University of Michigan and her A.B. in government from Smith College, and previously served as a senior research coordinator in the Governance Studies program at Brookings. In addition, she has served as an instructor at George Mason University.
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.
Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor
Jonathan Berry is Solicitor at the U.S. Department of Labor, in service to President Trump’s agenda to put American workers first. He leads the Department’s lawyers in advising the Secretary and agency leadership on all aspects of law and in representing the Department in court. He was previously managing partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, where he provided strategic counsel and litigated on issues at the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. Earlier, he headed the regulatory office at Labor, and also served at the Department of Justice, in the first Trump Administration. Mr. Berry served as a law clerk to Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and to Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., of the Supreme Court of the United States.
United States Senator, Utah
Elected in 2010 as Utah's 16th Senator, Mike Lee has spent his career defending the basic liberties of Americans and Utahns as a tireless advocate for our founding constitutional principles.
Senator Lee acquired a deep respect for the Constitution early on. His father, Rex Lee, who served as the Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, would often discuss varied aspects of judicial and constitutional doctrine around the kitchen table, from Due Process to the uses of Executive Plenary Power. He attended most of his father's arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, giving him a unique, hands-on experience and understanding of government up close.
Lee graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, and served as BYU's Student Body President in his senior year. He graduated from BYU's Law School in 1997 and went on to serve as law clerk to Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, and then with future Supreme Court Justice Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Lee spent several years as an attorney with the law firm Sidley & Austin specializing in appellate and Supreme Court litigation, and then served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Salt Lake City arguing cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Lee served the state of Utah as Governor Jon Huntsman's General Counsel and was later honored to reunite with Justice Alito, now on the Supreme Court, for a one-year clerkship. He returned to private practice in 2007.
Throughout his career, Lee earned a reputation as an outstanding practitioner of the law based on his sound judgment, abilities in the courtroom, and thorough understanding of the Constitution.
Today, Lee fights to preserve America's proud founding document in the United States Senate. He advocates efforts to support constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and economic prosperity.
Lee is a member of the Judiciary Committee, and serves as Chairman of the Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee protecting business competition and personal freedom.
He also oversees issues critical to Utah as the Chairman of the Water and Power Subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He serves on the Commerce Committee and the Joint Economic Committee, as well.
In the 114th Congress, Lee also began his tenure as Chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, where he works with his Republican colleagues in the Senate to introduce bold and innovative solutions to issues facing the American people.
Lee and his wife Sharon live in Alpine, Utah, with their three children. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two-year mission for the Church in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Vice President and Publisher, The Political Forum
Stephen R. Soukup is the senior commentator, Vice President, and Publisher of The Political Forum, an “independent research provider” that delivers research and consulting services to the institutional investment community, with an emphasis on economic, social, political, and geopolitical events likely to have an impact on the financial markets in the United States and abroad. He is also the Director of The Political Forum Institute, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to creating and preserving community, primarily among those who earn their livings and create wealth for the nation through the capital markets. Mr. Soukup has followed politics and federal regulatory policy for the financial community since 1996, when he joined the award-winning Washington-research office of Prudential Securities. He is also the Fellow in Culture and Economy at the Culture of Life Foundation.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Co-Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Mr. White has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment blog, and for many years, he was one of the Weekly Standard’s lead writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.
Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.
Former United States Senator, Utah
Over nearly four decades of public service, Senator Orrin Hatch established himself as a leading conservative voice in the United States Senate. As the upper chamber’s most senior Republican, he served as President Pro Tempore and as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. In this capacity, he fought to create jobs and strengthen the economy by repealing and replacing Obamacare, reforming the tax code, and opening up overseas markets to American exports.
As a long-time member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch also fought to check judicial activism and protect our liberties. He was instrumental in confirming conservative judges to the federal bench and played an indispensable role in confirming Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito as well as scores of district and circuit court judges.
One of Senator Hatch’s particularly noteworthy achievements on the Judiciary Committee is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993—a bill he co-authored with the late Senator Ted Kennedy. This landmark legislation prohibits substantial government burdens on the free exercise of religion, allowing all Americans to live, work, and worship in accordance with their beliefs.
In addition to protecting our individual liberties, Senator Hatch was on the front lines of legislative battles to protect our free-market economy and system of limited government under the Constitution. His reputation as a statesman and his record of fiscal responsibility earned him the nickname “Mr. Balanced Budget” from President Reagan.
By virtually all measures, Senator Hatch was among the most effective and consequential legislators in history. Since he first came to Congress in 1977, no legislator alive today has authored more bills that have become law than Senator Hatch.
Of all Senator Hatch’s achievements, he is proudest of his family, and he credits the love of his wife and children as the key to his success. He and Elaine have been married for more than fifty years. Together, they are the parents of six children, twenty-three grandchildren, and sixteen great-grandchildren.
Co-Chairman, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Leonard is Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, joining the organization over 25 years ago. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping the organization top 70,000, focusing on the growth of lawyers membership, operations and activities advancing limited, constitutional government. In addition to his work at the Society, Leonard has advised President Trump on judicial selection, assisted with the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Supreme Court selection and confirmation process, and served as a member of the transition team. He also organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations. Leonard was appointed by President George W. Bush to three terms to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as chairman. He was also a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights during the Bush Administration. Leonard was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work in advancing freedom and the rule of law. He is the coeditor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Leonard holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.
VP and Senior Counsel, Becket Fund
Eric Baxter joined The Becket Fund as Senior Counsel in 2011. Since then he has represented religious organizations and individuals in a wide array of religious liberty disputes at both the trial and appellate level. Recent victories including a Ninth Circuit ruling upholding the “Big Mountain Jesus” statue that has stood on Forest Service land near Kalispell, Montana, for more than sixty years, and a rare Pentagon decision allowing a Sikh soldier to maintain his full beard and turban while serving in the Army. Mr. Baxter has extensive experience fighting efforts under state Blaine amendments to exclude religious organizations and individuals from participating on equal terms in the public square. He also regularly advises religious institutions of higher education in defending their religious missions against government encroachment.
Mr. Baxter has frequently appeared in the national media to discuss religious liberty issues, including appearances on Fox News (Kelly File, Fox & Friends), WSJ Live, CBS New York, Christian Broadcasting Network, Newsmax TV, and Al Jazeera. He has also written op-eds and been quoted in many major newspapers and other print media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Fox News, New York Post, Washington Times, and New Boston Post.
Before joining the Becket Fund, Mr. Baxter was a partner at Arent Fox LLP in Washington, DC, where he maintained a commercial complex litigation practice representing clients primarily in employment, intellectual property, and biotechnology disputes. He also served for many years as outside counsel to a DC church and its affiliated school. In 2007, he was awarded the Albert E. Arent Pro Bono Award for his work representing several parents adopting a total of seven children from foster care.
From 2000 to 2002, Mr. Baxter clerked for the Honorable Robert H. Cleland in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit). Mr. Baxter received a B.A. in Russian Literature and Linguistics from Brigham Young University and graduated magna cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU, where he served as Executive Editor of the Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Eric speaks Russian and some Spanish. He and his wife have seven children and an amateur family bluegrass band.
Mr. Baxter has been featured on the Kelly File, Al Jazeera, WSJ Video, and NewsmaxTV.
Chief Counsel, Senator Ted Cruz
Mike Berry serves as Chief Counsel for United States Senator Ted Cruz. As Chief Counsel for Senator Cruz, Mike provides advice and counsel to the Senator with special emphasis on the Senate’s advice and consent role pertaining to judicial nominations.
Prior to working on the Hill, Mike spent many years in public interest litigation with various non-profits. Mike served for seven years as an attorney with the U.S. Marine Corps, leaving active duty in 2013. Among his numerous positions within the Marine Corps, Mike deployed to Afghanistan in 2008 and he served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the United States Naval Academy. Mr. Berry continues to proudly serve our nation as a member of the Marine Corps Reserve.
Mr. Berry earned his bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University, and he earned his law degree from The Ohio State University.
NYU Law
Eugene R. Fidell is an expert in Military Justice, which he has taught at Yale, Harvard, and American University. He has also taught courses on Guantánamo, Habeas Corpus, Disasters, Admiralty, Law of the Sea, Native American Law, Tribal Law, and the Original Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is of counsel at Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell LLP, Washington, DC. He was lead trial and appellate defense counsel in United States v. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Prof. Fidell is a life member of the American Law Institute, president emeritus of the National Institute of Military Justice, and former chair of the Committee on Military Justice of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War. He edits the Global Military Justice Reform blog, globalmjreform.blogspot.com. His books include Military Justice: Cases and Materials (3d ed. 2020) (co-author) and Military Justice: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2016). He has served on a variety of federal advisory boards, including, most recently, the Executive Review Panel for the Comprehensive Review of Navy and Marine Corps Uniformed Legal Communities.
United States Senator from Oklahoma
Senator Lankford of Oklahoma served four years in the U.S. House of Representatives and was elected to the U.S. Senate to complete an unexpired term on November 4, 2014 and re-elected to a full six-year senate term on November 8, 2016.
As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, Lankford fights unnecessary and burdensome regulation and advocates for a more restrained federal government.
Personal faith, local decision-making, and opportunity for every person, regardless of their background, are core values for Senator Lankford. Before his time in Congress, from 1995 to 2009, the Senator served as Director of Student Ministry at the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma and Director of the Falls Creek Youth Camp, the largest youth camp in the United States, with more than 51,000 individuals attending each summer.
Committee Assignments:
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Justin R. Walker is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump on May 4, 2020, and confirmed by the United States Senate on June 18, 2020. He is a former United States District Judge of the Western District of Kentucky.
United States Senator from Oklahoma
Senator Lankford of Oklahoma served four years in the U.S. House of Representatives and was elected to the U.S. Senate to complete an unexpired term on November 4, 2014 and re-elected to a full six-year senate term on November 8, 2016.
As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, Lankford fights unnecessary and burdensome regulation and advocates for a more restrained federal government.
Personal faith, local decision-making, and opportunity for every person, regardless of their background, are core values for Senator Lankford. Before his time in Congress, from 1995 to 2009, the Senator served as Director of Student Ministry at the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma and Director of the Falls Creek Youth Camp, the largest youth camp in the United States, with more than 51,000 individuals attending each summer.
Committee Assignments:
Senior Vice President, Bipartisan Policy Center
G. William Hoagland is a BPC senior vice president. In this capacity, he helps direct and manage fiscal, health, and economic policy analyses.
Before joining BPC in September 2012, Hoagland served as vice president of public policy for CIGNA Corporation, working with business leaders, trade associations, business coalitions, and interest groups to develop CIGNA policy on health care reform issues at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to joining CIGNA, Hoagland completed 33 years of federal government service, including 25 years on the U.S. Senate staff. From 2003 to 2007, he served as the director of budget and appropriations in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He assisted in evaluating the fiscal impact of major legislation and helped to coordinate budget policy for the Senate leadership.
From 1982 to 2003, Hoagland served as a staff member and director of the Senate Budget Committee, reporting to U.S. Sen. Pete V. Domenici, chairman and ranking member of the committee during this period. He participated in major federal budget negotiations, including the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Budget Deficit Reduction Act, the 1990 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, and the historic 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.
In 1981, he served as the administrator of the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service and as a special assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture. He was one of the first employees of the Congressional Budget Office in 1975, working with its first director, Alice Rivlin.
In both 1997 and 2005, National Journal listed him as one of the “Washington 100 Decision Makers” and referred to him as a “bottom-liner who is not a hard-liner.” Roll Call consistently named Hoagland as one of the top 50 Hill staffers. In 2002, he received the James L. Blum Award for Distinguished Service in Budgeting. The National Association of State Budget Officers honored him in 2004 with its Leadership in Budgeting Award, and in 2006 he was inducted as a fellow in the National Academy of Public Administration.
Hoagland is an affiliate professor of public policy at the George Mason University and a board member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the National Advisory Committee to the Workplace Flexibility 2010 Commission. In 2009, he was appointed to the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform examining the overall structure of the budget, authorization, and appropriations process, and was a member of BPC’s Debt Reduction Task Force that published Restoring America’s Future in November 2010. He coordinated BPC’s 2013 report, A Bipartisan Rx for Patient-Centered Care and System-Wide Cost Containment. In April 2015, he co-chaired the National Academy of Social Insurance report, “Addressing Pricing Power in Health Care Markets.”
Hoagland attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and holds degrees from Purdue University and The Pennsylvania State University. His family’s Indiana family farm was recognized as a “Hoosier Homestead” for having remained in the family for over a century.
Associate Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Matthew B. Lawrence is associate professor of law. Lawrence researches and publishes on health care finance, administrative law, and addictions. He has written widely on these subjects with articles published or forthcoming in Columbia Law Review; Florida Law Review; Duke Law Journal; Harvard Law and Policy Review; the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics; New York University Law Review; William & Mary Law Review; and Yale Law Journal, among other journals.
In addition to his teaching and scholarship, Lawrence possesses a wealth of experience in the federal government. He most recently served as a special legal advisor to the US House of Representatives Budget Committee (Majority). Previously, he worked on health care regulatory issues during the Obama and Trump Administrations as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Federal Programs Branch and attorney advisor in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of General Counsel in the Executive Office of the President. In 2016, he received an individual special commendation award for his defense of Affordable Care Act programs while serving as trial attorney in the US Department of Justice.
Before coming to Emory Law Lawrence was assistant professor of law at Pennsylvania State University (Dickinson Law), where he also held a courtesy appointment as assistant professor at Penn State College of Medicine in the Department of Surgery. He was recognized by the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics as a 2017 Health Law Scholar, and is affiliate faculty at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Bioethics, and Biotechnology, where he was previously a fellow.
Lawrence is a graduate of New York University School of Law and Brown University; and he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Senior Fellow - Governance Studies, Brookings Institution
Molly Reynolds is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings. She studies Congress, with an emphasis on how congressional rules and procedure affect domestic policy outcomes.
She is the author of the book, "Exceptions to the Rule: The Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the U.S. Senate," which explores creation, use, and consequences of the budget reconciliation process and other procedures that prevent filibusters in the U.S. Senate. Current research projects include work on oversight in the House of Representatives, congressional reform, and the congressional budget process. She also supervises the maintenance of "Vital Statistics on Congress," Brookings’s long-running resource on the first branch of government.
Reynolds received her Ph.D. in political science and public policy from the University of Michigan and her A.B. in government from Smith College, and previously served as a senior research coordinator in the Governance Studies program at Brookings. In addition, she has served as an instructor at George Mason University.
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.
Senior Vice President, Bipartisan Policy Center
G. William Hoagland is a BPC senior vice president. In this capacity, he helps direct and manage fiscal, health, and economic policy analyses.
Before joining BPC in September 2012, Hoagland served as vice president of public policy for CIGNA Corporation, working with business leaders, trade associations, business coalitions, and interest groups to develop CIGNA policy on health care reform issues at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to joining CIGNA, Hoagland completed 33 years of federal government service, including 25 years on the U.S. Senate staff. From 2003 to 2007, he served as the director of budget and appropriations in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He assisted in evaluating the fiscal impact of major legislation and helped to coordinate budget policy for the Senate leadership.
From 1982 to 2003, Hoagland served as a staff member and director of the Senate Budget Committee, reporting to U.S. Sen. Pete V. Domenici, chairman and ranking member of the committee during this period. He participated in major federal budget negotiations, including the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Budget Deficit Reduction Act, the 1990 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, and the historic 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.
In 1981, he served as the administrator of the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service and as a special assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture. He was one of the first employees of the Congressional Budget Office in 1975, working with its first director, Alice Rivlin.
In both 1997 and 2005, National Journal listed him as one of the “Washington 100 Decision Makers” and referred to him as a “bottom-liner who is not a hard-liner.” Roll Call consistently named Hoagland as one of the top 50 Hill staffers. In 2002, he received the James L. Blum Award for Distinguished Service in Budgeting. The National Association of State Budget Officers honored him in 2004 with its Leadership in Budgeting Award, and in 2006 he was inducted as a fellow in the National Academy of Public Administration.
Hoagland is an affiliate professor of public policy at the George Mason University and a board member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the National Advisory Committee to the Workplace Flexibility 2010 Commission. In 2009, he was appointed to the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform examining the overall structure of the budget, authorization, and appropriations process, and was a member of BPC’s Debt Reduction Task Force that published Restoring America’s Future in November 2010. He coordinated BPC’s 2013 report, A Bipartisan Rx for Patient-Centered Care and System-Wide Cost Containment. In April 2015, he co-chaired the National Academy of Social Insurance report, “Addressing Pricing Power in Health Care Markets.”
Hoagland attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and holds degrees from Purdue University and The Pennsylvania State University. His family’s Indiana family farm was recognized as a “Hoosier Homestead” for having remained in the family for over a century.
United States Senator from Oklahoma
Senator Lankford of Oklahoma served four years in the U.S. House of Representatives and was elected to the U.S. Senate to complete an unexpired term on November 4, 2014 and re-elected to a full six-year senate term on November 8, 2016.
As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, Lankford fights unnecessary and burdensome regulation and advocates for a more restrained federal government.
Personal faith, local decision-making, and opportunity for every person, regardless of their background, are core values for Senator Lankford. Before his time in Congress, from 1995 to 2009, the Senator served as Director of Student Ministry at the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma and Director of the Falls Creek Youth Camp, the largest youth camp in the United States, with more than 51,000 individuals attending each summer.
Committee Assignments:
Associate Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Matthew B. Lawrence is associate professor of law. Lawrence researches and publishes on health care finance, administrative law, and addictions. He has written widely on these subjects with articles published or forthcoming in Columbia Law Review; Florida Law Review; Duke Law Journal; Harvard Law and Policy Review; the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics; New York University Law Review; William & Mary Law Review; and Yale Law Journal, among other journals.
In addition to his teaching and scholarship, Lawrence possesses a wealth of experience in the federal government. He most recently served as a special legal advisor to the US House of Representatives Budget Committee (Majority). Previously, he worked on health care regulatory issues during the Obama and Trump Administrations as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Federal Programs Branch and attorney advisor in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of General Counsel in the Executive Office of the President. In 2016, he received an individual special commendation award for his defense of Affordable Care Act programs while serving as trial attorney in the US Department of Justice.
Before coming to Emory Law Lawrence was assistant professor of law at Pennsylvania State University (Dickinson Law), where he also held a courtesy appointment as assistant professor at Penn State College of Medicine in the Department of Surgery. He was recognized by the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics as a 2017 Health Law Scholar, and is affiliate faculty at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Bioethics, and Biotechnology, where he was previously a fellow.
Lawrence is a graduate of New York University School of Law and Brown University; and he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Senior Fellow - Governance Studies, Brookings Institution
Molly Reynolds is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings. She studies Congress, with an emphasis on how congressional rules and procedure affect domestic policy outcomes.
She is the author of the book, "Exceptions to the Rule: The Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the U.S. Senate," which explores creation, use, and consequences of the budget reconciliation process and other procedures that prevent filibusters in the U.S. Senate. Current research projects include work on oversight in the House of Representatives, congressional reform, and the congressional budget process. She also supervises the maintenance of "Vital Statistics on Congress," Brookings’s long-running resource on the first branch of government.
Reynolds received her Ph.D. in political science and public policy from the University of Michigan and her A.B. in government from Smith College, and previously served as a senior research coordinator in the Governance Studies program at Brookings. In addition, she has served as an instructor at George Mason University.
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.
Keynote Remarks
Second Annual Florida Young Lawyers Summit
Tampa, FLJune 2022 DC Lunch with Senator Mike Lee
Washington, DC Lawyers Chapter
Washington, DCBreakout Panel: Religious Liberty and the Department of Defense
Tenth Annual Executive Branch Review
Washington, DCWelcome & Plenary Session: Regulation by Surrogate? Is the Government Evading the Administrative Procedure Act?
Jonathan Berry, Mike S. Lee, Stephen Soukup, Stephen Alexander Vaden, Adam White
In 1946, after ten years of study, Congress passed, and President Truman signed, the Administrative...
Welcome & Plenary Session: Regulation by Surrogate? Is the Government Evading the Administrative Procedure Act?
Tenth Annual Executive Branch Review
Washington, DCNecessary & Proper Episode 76: 2015 Address by Senator Orrin Hatch
Orrin Hatch, Leonard A. Leo
Recently we were saddened to hear of the passing of Senator Orrin Hatch. In his...
Breakout Panel: Religious Liberty and the Department of Defense
Eric Baxter, Michael D. Berry, Eugene Fidell, James Lankford, Justin Reed Walker
The Department of Defense is the largest employer in the nation, and its policies significantly...
Necessary & Proper Episode 74: Can Congress Improve Budget Transparency and Process?
James Lankford, G. William Hoagland, Matthew B. Lawrence, Molly Reynolds, Ilya Shapiro
Some experts argue that the first and most important place for congressional reform is its...
Can Congress Improve Budget Transparency and Process?
Article I Initiative Virtual Event
Can Congress Improve Budget Transparency and Process?
G. William Hoagland, James Lankford, Matthew B. Lawrence, Molly Reynolds, Ilya Shapiro
Some experts argue that the first and most important place for congressional reform is its...