Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, Independence Institute
Professor Robert G. Natelson is a constitutional scholar and author.
Rob’s constitutional scholarship has been cited repeatedly by justices and parties at the U.S. Supreme Court—as well as by federal appeals courts, and at least 18 state supreme courts.
Rob’s research into the Constitution’s original meaning has carried him to libraries throughout the United States and in Britain, including four months at Oxford University. His books and articles span many different parts of the Constitution, including groundbreaking studies of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Indian Commerce Clause, federalism, Founding-Era interpretation, regulation of elections, and the amendment process of Article V. He created the first-ever online bibliography for 18th century materials used in constitutional research. He is a contributing author to the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (on Magna Carta). He contributed eight essays to the third edition of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution: five on the amendment procedure and one each on the Guarantee Clause, the Postal Clause, and the Recess Appointments Clause.
U.S. Supreme Court justices have relied explicitly on Rob’s research in 41 citations in 13 separate cases.
Roberto is a 2018 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.
Former Deputy Attorney General for Virginia
Kennerly Davis has over forty years of experience in corporate management, public service, and the private practice of law. He has held senior executive positions in a Fortune 500 electric and gas company. He has served as Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a legislative aide to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman. He practiced law for 25 years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Davis is active in the Federalist Society as a member of the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, and as a member of the Execuitve Committee of the Administrative Law and Regulation Practice Group. He is active in the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and involved in AFSA-chapter initiatives, including litigation, to publicize and correct the serious legal problems created by university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and the anonymous bias reporting systems used to enforce those DEI programs.
Davis writes and speaks on a wide variety of topics, including those related to the Founding of America, the natural rights foundation of our Republic, the constitutional rule of law, equal protection and free speech, DEI programs and bias reporting systems, capitalism, regulation and regulatory reform, and economic development. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Federalist Society Review, the FedSoc Blog, Real Clear Energy, Townhall, the Daily Caller, reports of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio, podcasts, and television.
Davis graduated with honors from Cornell University with an A.B. degree in Government. He earned an M.A. degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He was awarded a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Davis lives in Richmond, Virginia. He can be contacted by email: j.kendavis@verizon.net, and by phone: (804) 624-8525.
Founding Partner, Lodestar Law and Economics PLLC
Josh is the founder of Lodestar Law and Economics, PLLC. On January 1, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Wright as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He is a leading scholar in antitrust law, economics, intellectual property, regulation, and consumer protection, and has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, co-authored a leading antitrust casebook, and edited several book volumes focusing on these issues. Commentators have recognized Wright as “widely considered his generation’s greatest mind on antitrust law,” and his academic work ranks him as one of the most cited antitrust academics in the world. Wright was also awarded the Paul M. Bator Award by the Federalist Society in 2014 to “an academic who demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact.” Wright also served as the Executive Director of the Global Antitrust Institute, the world’s premiere academic institute focused upon antitrust education for judges and regulators and has taught hundreds of judges and thousands of regulators from dozens of countries.
Wright’s practice focuses upon helping clients solve complex competition, consumer protection, and regulatory problems by providing legal and economic analysis, strategic advice and counseling, and economic expert testimony.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Throughout his 40-year career in private law practice in Washington, D.C., Richard Samp has specialized in appellate litigation with a focus on constitutional law. He served as Chief Counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation for more than 30 years. He has participated directly in more than 200 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Samp is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for a federal judge in Detroit.
General Counsel and Vice-President of Litigation, Washington Legal Foundation
Cory Andrews is General Counsel and Vice-President of Litigation for the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF). As counsel of record for WLF and other clients, he has authored more than 100 briefs, at petition and merits stages, in the U.S. Supreme Court. He also frequently litigates in state and federal appellate courts. Before joining WLF, Cory practiced trial and appellate law for White & Case LLP, where he litigated in state and federal courts on behalf of clients in the telecommunications, hospitality, and banking industries. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Florida, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Florida Law Review and elected to the Order of the Coif. Upon graduation, Cory served as a law clerk to the Honorable Steven D. Merryday of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Founder and Senior Director, Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance
Stanley Carlson-Thies is the Founder and Senior Director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance (IRFA), a division of the Center for Public Justice. As part of this role, he convenes the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom, a multi-faith alliance of social-service, education, and religious freedom organizations that advocates for the religious freedom of faith-based organizations to Congress and the federal government. In addition he is also a Senior Fellow at the Canadian think tank Cardus.
From 2009-2010 he served on a task force of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, helping to draft recommendations on how to clarify the church-state rules that apply to federal funding of social-service providers, and has consulted with federal departments and several states.
He served with the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives from its inception in February 2001 until mid-May 2002. He assisted with writing “Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs,” a report released by the White House in August 2001, and “Rallying the Armies of Compassion,” the initial blueprint for President George W. Bush’s faith and community agenda.
Previously, he was Director of Social Policy Studies for CPJ and directed CPJ’s project to track the implementation and impact of the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 federal welfare reform law. Following his term in the White House, he returned to CPJ as the Director of Faith-based Policy Studies.
He received the William Bentley Ball Life and Religious Liberty Defense Award from the Center for Law and Religious Freedom and the Christian Legal Society in October 2004. He was named as one of 12 advocates who are “reinterpreting God and country” by the National Journal in May 2004. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Toronto. His dissertation is on the role of Protestants and Catholics in the development of Dutch politics in the 19th and 20th centuries. Besides the United States, he has lived in Canada, the Netherlands, and Japan, where he was born of missionary parents. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife, Christiane. They are the proud parents of Simon.
Applying the Founders' Originalism
Robert G. Natelson
The 1787 Federal Convention drafted, and the ratifiers approved, the United States Constitution under the...
Negative Legislation
Roberto J. Borgert
Modern commentators have spilled much ink on the undemocratic nature of congressional delegations to executive...
Regulating Under the Rule of Law
John Kennerly Davis
A review of: How to Regulate: A Guide for Policymakers, by Thomas A. Lambert (Cambridge...
Net Neutrality Meets Regulatory Economics 101
Joshua D. Wright
Note from the Editor: This article reproduces then-Commissioner Joshua D. Wright's remarks at the Federalist...
Restraining Park Doctrine Prosecutions Against Corporate Officials Under the FDCA
Richard A. Samp, Cory L. Andrews
Note from the Editor: This paper analyzes the FDA’s “Park Doctrine” for prosecutions against corporate...
Which Religious Organizations Count as Religious? The Religious Employer Exemption of the Health Insurance Law's Contraceptives Mandate
Stanley Carlson-Thies
On August 1, 2011, the Health Resources and Service Administration issued guidelines specifying that, among...