Past Speakers

Overview

Top of the Page

Over the years, the Federalism Index Project (FIP) has had the opportunity to host various notable and distinguished guests to speak at our many federalism conferences. Below is a list of all FIP guests and their biographies.

Please note that the below biographies were complied at the time of the respective conferences from the fall of 2020 and onwards. For any updates or changes, please message us using the "Let's Chat" button.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

A

Josh Altic

Josh Altic is a Managing Editor for Ballotpedia. Josh joined the staff in 2012. Josh covers statewide measures, local measures, and ballot measure-related law and processes. He first joined Ballotpedia as an Assistant Staff Writer in August 2012. Josh has appeared on national radio programs, including NPR's Diane Rehm Show, and on national television with PBS Newshour, and C-SPAN. He has also been featured in many publications and Associated Press articles. His op-ed on ballot measures was published in The New York Times.

B

Sean Beienburg

Sean Beienburg is an assistant professor in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. He attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, graduating with majors in politics and history, and completed his doctorate at Princeton University in New Jersey. Before coming to ASU, he taught at Haverford College and Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Beienburg's teaching and research interests include the U.S. Constitution and constitutional law, Arizona constitutionalism, federalism and state constitutionalism/politics, executive power (both presidential and gubernatorial) 19th and early 20th century political and constitutional history, and Prohibition. He is the author of Prohibition, the Constitution, and States' Rights (published by the University of Chicago Press, 2019) and is finishing another book on states as constitutional interpreters and progressive federalists in the progressive and New Deal eras. He is the project director of the Arizona Constitution Project.

J. Edwin Benton

J. Edwin Benton is a Professor of Political Science and Public Administration, having received his Ph. D. from Florida State University in 1978. He was previously at the University of Northern Iowa (1978-79) before coming to USF. Professor Benton has written extensively about county government, state-local relations, urban government and politics, intergovernmental fiscal behavior, and city-county consolidation. Professionally, Dr. Benton has served on the editorial board of State and Local Government Review, American Review of Public Administration, and Florida Political Chronicle, and as an advisory board member of the National Center for the Study of Counties and as a Senior Fellow in the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government at the University of Central Florida. Since 2011, he has been the Managing Editor of the academic journal, State and Local Government Review. Most recently, Dr. Benton was given the Manning J. Dauer Award by the Florida Political Science Association. Since his arrival at USF, he has been appointed to a number of civic boards in Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa and testified before county, city, and state commissions (including committees in the Florida Legislature). In addition, Dr. Benton has been a frequent commentator for local, state, national, and international news media outlets and most recently was quoted in articles appearing in USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.

Rob Bishop

In 1978, Rob Bishop, a 26-year-old school teacher, was nominated to his first term as a state legislator. He retired 16 years later having served as Rules Chair, Majority Leader, Speaker, and organized the Western States Coalition to push federalism issues. For the next eight years he was out of public office, though served two terms as State Republican Chair. In 2002, he was elected to the US Congress, retiring in 2021 after serving as Chair of the Resources Committee. He also chaired the Western Caucus, 10th Amendment Task Force, and Speaker’s Committee on Inter-government Relations. Before Congress, he spent 28 years teaching high school.

Josh Blackman

Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications. Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. Josh is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Josh has authored three books. His latest, An Introduction to Constitutional Law, was a top-five bestseller on Amazon. Josh has written more than five dozen law review articles that have been cited nearly a thousand times. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League.

Richard Briffault

Since joining the Columbia Law School faculty in 1983, Richard Briffault has combined public and government service with teaching, research, and scholarship. He is the Law School’s authority on state and local government; the news media often turns to him for his expert insight into and analysis of issues central to democracy and the political process such as campaign finance reform, government ethics, gerrymandering, and fair elections. He is also a leading thinker on “the new preemption,” a critique of states that are increasingly passing ideological laws that override local ordinances. Working with the Local Solutions Support Center, he educates city and county government officials on how to respond to state preemption. Briffault is a pillar of the Columbia Law School community. He has served as a vice dean at three different times during his career. He sits on the advisory boards of the Law School’s Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity and the Public Interest/Public Service Fellows Program, and on the board of directors of the Columbia Journal of Law & Social Problems. A prodigious scholar, Briffault has written more than 75 law review and journal articles as well as books and monographs, including Dollars and Democracy: A Blueprint for Campaign Finance Reform; Cleaning Up Hazardous Waste: Is There a Better Way?; and the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth editions of the casebook State and Local Government Law. Before becoming an academic, Briffault was a clerk to Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, an assistant counsel to New York Governor Hugh L. Carey, and an associate at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. During his tenure at Columbia Law, he has served as a member of, or consultant to, an array of New York state and city commissions, including the New York State Moreland Act Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. From 2014 to 2020, Briffault served as chair of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board. He is the reporter for the American Law Institute’s Project on Principles of Government Ethics and vice-chair of the Citizens Union of the City of New York.

Adam Brown

Dr. Adam Brown is an associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University and a faculty scholar at BYU's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. He has taught courses on Utah politics, public lands, Congress, American state politics, voter behavior, and American government generally. Dr. Brown's research examines political institutions and representation across the American states, with articles in the Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is also the author of the only scholarly book on Utah politics. His current book manuscript examines the origins and implications of constitutional specificity in the states, finding that lengthier constitutions receive more amendments, attract more judicial invalidations, and result in worse policy performance. Dr. Brown received the Mollie and Karl Butler Young Scholar Award from the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies in 2018. He received his PhD from the University of California, San Diego, in 2008.

C

Alexandra G. Cockerham

Alexandra's research interests center on executive power, with an eye toward the limitations that institutions impose on directly elected executives. Elected by either national or state-wide constituencies, public expectations of presidents and governors often exceed what formal powers would alone permit, and the formal separation of legislative power often frustrates executives policy agendas. Though most extant research focuses on a single national-level context, limiting our understanding of how variable institutional arrangements shape executive power, [her] research is explicitly comparative in nature, focusing on both the US states and presidential democracies.

Nicholas Cole

Dr. Nicholas Cole studies the political thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the history of democratic institutions. His particular interests are the influence of classical political thought on America’s first politicians, and the search for a new ‘science of politics’ in post-Independence America. He runs the Quill Project on Negotiated Texts, based at Pembroke College, which studies the creation of constitutions, treaties, and legislation. The Quill software platform (developed with colleagues at the Oxford e-Research Centre) presents a recreation of the original context within which decisions about these texts were made. The flagship work of the project is a presentation of the records of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that wrote the Constitution of the United States and a variety of other projects are planned or in progress. Dr. Cole teaches American history and the history of political thought and supervises graduates working on the history of institutions, political thought and classical reception. He runs the TORCH network on Negotiated Texts.

D

John Dinan

John Dinan is a professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University. He is the author of several books, including State Constitutional Politics: Governing by Amendment in the American States and The American State Constitutional Tradition. He also writes an annual review of state constitutional developments in the 50 states and has published numerous articles analyzing various aspects of the U.S. federal system. He is the current editor of Publius: The Journal of Federalism and a past chair of the Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations Section of the American Political Science Association. He received his PhD from the University of Virginia.

Brian Domitrovic

Brian Domitrovic is the Richard S. Strong Scholar at the Laffer Center and Professor of History at Sam Houston State University in Texas. He is author most recently of The Emergence of Arthur Laffer (Palgrave, 2021), and previously JFK and the Reagan Revolution (with Lawrence Kudlow, Portfolio, 2016) and the history of supply-side economics Econoclasts (ISI, 2009). He has appeared widely on radio and television and writes regularly for Forbes.com. In 2015-16 he was the visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy at the University of Colorado. He holds the Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.

E

Akram R. Elias

Akram R. Elias has 35+ years of professional experience in the field of international relations and is the co-founder and President of Capital Communications Group, Inc. (“CCG”) an international consulting firm offering a variety of services to government and private clients in the areas of public diplomacy, cultural intelligence, strategic language services, communication strategies, and orientations to Washington, DC. In recognition of his commitment to the American spirit of service and his dedication to the Great Experiment, Mr. Elias was awarded the prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor on May 12, 2018, an award that is officially recognized by both Houses of Congress. Prior to establishing CCG in 1998, Mr. Elias, a Lebanese-born American citizen, was a Program Officer and International Trade Consultant at Meridian International Center (1997 – 1998); Program Officer at the Institute of International Education (1996 – 1998) working on professional international exchange programs; and a Contractor with the U.S. Department of State (1985 – 1995), accompanying delegations of foreign dignitaries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Mr. Elias holds a Master’s degree in International Service (American University, Washington D.C.); a Graduate Certificate in International Finance (Georgetown University, Washington D.C.); and a Bachelor’s degree in Government and Politics (University of Maryland, College Park, MD).

F

Lawrence Friedman

Professor Friedman teaches constitutional law, state constitutional law, privacy law, and national security at New England Law, Boston. He edits the Oxford University Press series on the constitutions of the United States and is the co-author of the volume in the series on the Massachusetts Constitution and the author of the second edition of the volume on the New Hampshire Constitution. With Robert Williams, he is the co-author of State Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials, and he has written numerous articles on state and national constitutional law issues. Before joining the New England Law faculty in 2004, Professor Friedman was a visiting assistant professor of law at Boston College Law School and a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School. Before teaching, he was an associate with Choate, Hall & Stewart in Boston, Massachusetts, where his practice focused on environmental, land use, Internet, and government enforcement litigation. He previously served as a law clerk with the New Hampshire Superior Court and then as a law clerk to the Honorable John T. Broderick, Jr., of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

G

Gary Gerstle

Gary Gerstle arrived in Cambridge in 2014 after a three-decade career in the United States, most recently at Vanderbilt University where he was the James G. Stahlman Professor of American History. He is currently the Paul Mellon Professor of American History and Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. He is a social and political historian of the twentieth century, with substantial interests in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He received his BA from Brown University and his MA and PhD from Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Historical Society. Gerstle has received many fellowships, and has lectured throughout North America and Europe, and in Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Japan, South Africa, and South Korea. He was elected to the Society of American Historians in 2006 and named a Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians in 2007. He has testified before the US Congress on immigration matters and served as an advisor and on-screen commentator for the 2013 Public Broadcasting Service documentary, Latino Americans. He is the creator and presenter of a four-part radio programme, America: Laboratory of Democracy, broadcast on BBC World Service in October-November 2017, and rebroadcast on multiple National Public Radio stations in the US in early 2018. His writings have been translated into Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Greg Goelzhauser

Greg Goelzhauser is a professor in the political science department at Utah State University. Professor Goelzhauser has published two books on judicial selection—Choosing State Supreme Court Justices: Merit Selection and the Consequences of Institutional Reform and Judicial Merit Selection: Institutional Design and Performance for State Courts. He also served as co-editor of the Annual Review of American Federalism, published by Publius: The Journal of Federalism.

Alan Greenblatt

Alan Greenblatt covers politics as well as policy issues for Governing. He is the coauthor of a standard textbook on state and local governments. He previously worked as a reporter for NPR and CQ and has written about politics and culture for many other outlets, including Politico, the Washington Post and The New York Times. He won the National Press Club’s Sandy Hume award for political journalism while reporting for Congressional Quarterly.

Allen C. Guelzo

Allen C. Guelzo is the senior research scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University and director of the James Madison Program’s Initiative in Politics and Statesmanship. Guelzo is an acclaimed scholar of American history whose writings have been recognized as among the most important contributions to scholarly and public understanding of 19th century America. His book Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President received the 2000 Lincoln Prize, as well as the 2000 Book Prize of the Abraham Institute of the Mid-Atlantic. His Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America Emancipation and his Gettysburg: The Last Invasion also received the Lincoln Prize in 2005 and 2013, respectively. Guelzo is also a leading authority on the life and thought of Jonathan Edwards. A winner of the 2018 Bradley Prize, Guelzo earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds an honorary Doctorate of History from Lincoln College.

H

Kristy Hartman

Kristy Hartman is the energy program director for the Environment, Energy and Transportation Program at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). In this capacity, Kristy analyzes regulatory and legislative trends related to fossil fuels, energy security, grid reliability, nuclear power, renewable energy and alternative fuels. Additionally, she leads NCSL’s Task Force on Energy Supply and Nuclear Legislative Working Group, which bring together legislators to learn about and discuss critical energy issues and examine nuclear generation in the U.S. and the cleanup of federal nuclear weapons facilities. Kristy joined NCSL in 2013. She received her Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan where her primary research examined public opinion surrounding hydraulic fracturing. Prior to joining NCSL, Kristy managed congressional affairs and appropriations issues for the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration. She also previously served as a legislative aide in North Carolina’s General Assembly.

Lauren Heller

Lauren Heller is an associate professor of economics in the Campbell School of Business and a Director of the Berry College Honors Program. Her research interests include international health and development economics, as well as a wide variety of policy questions and topics in applied microeconomics. She received her bachelor’s degree from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, and her Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has published scholarly articles in a wide range of outlets, including the Eastern Economic Journal, Contemporary Economic Policy, Defense and Peace Economics, the Journal of Developing Areas, and Social Science & Medicine. In addition to her research fields, she also enjoys working with students in Berry’s honors program and using discussion and multimedia clips to illustrate economic concepts in her classes.

Gary Herbert

Gary Herbert was born and raised in Utah County, where he also served as a county commissioner for 14 and a half years. He attended Brigham Young University, served six years in the Utah National Guard, and founded a successful real estate brokerage and development company. Prior to becoming governor, he served as Utah’s lieutenant governor for four and a half years. Herbert was inaugurated as Utah’s 17th governor in August 2009, when Utah and the nation were in the throes of the “Great Recession.” Herbert set a goal upon his inauguration: Utah will not only lead the nation as the best performing economy, but it will also be recognized as a premier global business destination. Those goals were realized under his leadership. In Dec. 2019, The Wall Street Journal named Utah “America’s economic star.” Utah consistently ranks as the No. 1 state for private-sector job growth. For a decade, Forbes has ranked Utah a top-three Best State for business, including six times at the No. 1 spot. Always recognized as a leader among his peers, Herbert has served as the chair of both the Western Governors Association (2012) and the National Governors Association (2015) and was most recently the national president of the Council of State Governments (2018). His lieutenant governor, Spencer J. Cox, was elected to succeed him in November 2020. At that time, Herbert was recognized as the nation’s longest-serving governor. Herbert and his wife, Jeanette, currently reside in Orem, Utah. They have six children and 17 grandchildren.

Stacy Householder

Stacy Householder is the Director of Leadership and International Programs at NCSL. She has been with NCSL since 2008 and her responsibilities include overseeing program content development for legislative leaders, creating and providing training for legislators, communicating with and providing services for legislative leaders and overseeing NCSL’s international partnerships and programs. Stacy has developed and delivered numerous specialized programs for legislators and legislative staff across the country. She is knowledgeable in legislative leadership structures, leadership responsibilities, orientation programs and other topics related to the legislative institution. She has spoken to and trained national and international audiences on a variety of professional development issues specific to legislatures. Prior to joining NCSL, Stacy got a taste of the world of legislatures by working in the Wisconsin Senate. She holds her bachelor’s degree in political science and international affairs, plus a master’s degree in public administration, all from the University of Colorado.

Aziz Z. Huq

Aziz Huq’s teaching and research interests include constitutional law, criminal procedure, federal courts, and legislation. His scholarship concerns the interaction of constitutional design with individual rights and liberties. His pieces have garnered the AALS Junior Scholars Paper Competition Award in Criminal Law and been selected for the Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Before joining the Law School faculty, Prof. Huq worked as Associate Counsel and then Director of the Liberty and National Security Project of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, litigating cases in both the US Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court. He was also a Senior Consultant Analyst for the International Crisis Group, researching constitutional design and implementation in Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka. He clerked for Judge Robert D. Sack of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is also a 1996 summa cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a 2001 graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was awarded the John Ordronaux Prize. In 2015, Prof. Huq received the Graduating Students Award for Teaching Excellence.

I

J

Dustin Jansen

Dustin Jansen is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at Utah Valley University, and the Director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs. Dustin has worked in Indian Law and Policy as a Judge/Attorney since 2006. Dustin and his wife Chauma have been married twenty years and have four children. They currently reside in Mapleton, Utah.

Karla Jones

Karla Jones is the Senior Director of the ALEC Task Force on International Relations as well as the Task Force on Federalism – two very different policy areas that work well together because they are fueled by ideas that attract members interested in looking beyond strictly state-based policy. Under Karla’s leadership, the Task Force on Federalism has spearheaded work in the states on a wide array of state sovereignty issues, including the transfer of select federal lands to state control and petitioning for an Amendments Convention under the U.S. Constitution’s Article V provision. Karla has written extensively on both; however, her love of the outdoors and the American West has allowed her to witness firsthand the federal government’s mismanagement of the lands under its purview. Karla has expanded the ALEC approach to international issues from being primarily EU-focused to one that is global – reaching out to policymakers in Africa, the Americas, the Asia-Pacific and Europe to identify issues where the ALEC governing principles of free markets and limited government intersect with international policy. She has established partnerships with lawmakers and other officials and organizations both domestic and overseas in order to highlight the important role that free markets and limited government play in promoting international trade and the protection of intellectual property rights. Karla also works to expand dialogue and educate ALEC members on these pivotal issues recognizing that the states are the ultimate stakeholders on these and many other policy areas that are debated at the federal and international level. With a lifelong interest in international affairs and politics, Karla was the Europe Project Director at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs before joining ALEC. There she raised the organization’s visibility as an opinion leader through extensive contacts with lawmakers and officials representing the EU and individual European nations, Israel and NATO and worked to underscore the importance of a healthy transatlantic alliance to achieving American national security objectives. Karla also emphasized the role that the Israel-European and Israel-NATO partnerships play in international security. Karla has published op-eds in The Wall Street Journal, The Hill and RedState and has authored articles that have appeared on the ALEC and JINSA websites and in the periodical Inside ALEC, and she has been quoted in the U.S., Argentine and Australian press. Among Karla’s pursuits outside of ALEC are travel – both domestic and international – and exploring the American West by RV and on foot.

K

Don Kettl

Donald F. Kettl is the Sid Richardson Professor at the LBJ School, specializing in public management and public policy. He previously served as dean in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Volcker Alliance, the Brookings Institution and the Partnership for Public Service. Dr. Kettl has authored or edited numerous books, the most recent being The Divided States of America: Why Federalism Doesn't Work (2020). He has received three-lifetime achievement awards: the American Political Science Association's John Gaus Award, the Warner W. Stockberger Achievement Award of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources, and the Donald C. Stone Award of the American Society for Public Administration. Dr. Kettl has consulted for government organizations at all levels, including most recently the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He has appeared frequently in national and international media. He has chaired two gubernatorial blue-ribbon commissions for the Wisconsin state government — one on campaign finance reform and the other on government structure and finance.

John Kincaid

John Kincaid is the Robert B. and Helen S. Meyner Professor of Government and Public Service and Director of the Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania. He is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Section on Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations of the American Political Science Association, Distinguished Scholar Award from the Section on Intergovernmental Administration and Management of the American Society of Public Administration, and Distinguished Scholar Award from RC28: Comparative Federalism and Multilevel Governance of the International Political Science Association. He served as Senior Editor of the Global Dialogue on Federalism, a joint project of the Forum of Federations and International Association of Centers for Federal Studies (2001-2015); Editor of Publius: The Journal of Federalism (1981-2006); and Executive Director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Washington, D.C. (1988-1994). He is the author of various works on federalism and intergovernmental relations, editor of A Research Agenda for Federalism Studies (Elgar 2019) and Federalism (Sage 4 vols, 2011) and co-editor of Courts in Federal Countries: Federalists or Unitarists? (Toronto 2017), Intergovernmental Relations in Federal Systems: Comparative Structures and Dynamics (Oxford 2015), Political Parties and Civil Society in Federal Countries (Oxford 2015), Routledge Handbook of Regionalism and Federalism (2013), Constitutional Origins, Structure, and Change in Federal Countries (McGill-Queen’s 2005), and The Covenant Connection: From Federal Theology to Modern Federalism (2000).

Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer, J.D., is the Sheller Professor of Public Interest Law and Director of the Law & Public Policy Program at Temple University, Beasley School of Law. Professor Knauer’s scholarship explores the impact of law and public policy on the lives of LGBT people. She is the author of Gay and Lesbian Elders: History, Law and Identity Politics in the US and more than fifty academic articles, books, and book chapters. Professor Knauer has received numerous awards for teaching, service, and scholarship. She is the co-founder of the Aging, Law & Society Collaborative Research Network of the Law & Society Association and served on the Executive Committee of the Family Law Institute of the National LGBT Association. Professor Knauer is profiled in the book What the Best Law Teachers Do, published by Harvard University Press in 2013.

L

Alison L. LaCroix

Alison LaCroix is the Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. She is also an Associate Member of the University of Chicago Department of History. Professor LaCroix is a scholar of US legal history specializing in constitutional law, federalism, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century legal thought. Professor LaCroix is currently writing a book on US constitutional discourse between 1815 and 1861, for which she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. The book, titled The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery From the Long Founding Moment to the Civil War, is under contract with Yale University Press. Professor LaCroix is also the author of The Ideological Origins of American Federalism (Harvard University Press, 2010). She has published articles in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, and Law and History Review, among others. Professor LaCroix holds a PhD in history from Harvard University. She earned her BA (summa cum laude) and JD from Yale University. Professor LaCroix joined the University of Chicago faculty in 2006, having previously held the Samuel I. Golieb Fellowship in Legal History at New York University School of Law. Following law school, she practiced in the litigation department at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. Professor LaCroix received a three-year fellowship from the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society to support a project on law and linguistics. In addition, she has co-edited three volumes on law-and-literature topics with Martha C. Nussbaum, Saul Levmore, and Richard McAdams. Professor LaCroix has served as a member of the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History, and she is a member of the editorial advisory board of the American Journal of Legal History. She teaches constitutional law, legal history, civil procedure, law and linguistics, and federal courts.

Mike Leavitt

Michael Okerlund Leavitt was born February 11, 1951 in Cedar City, Utah. He served with the Utah National Guard from 1969 to 1975. In 1973, he received a B.A. in economics and business from Southern Utah University. He married Jacalyn Smith. He worked for The Leavitt Groups, a regional insurance firm, founded by his father, and served on the boards of directors of several large companies. Leavitt was elected 14th Governor of the state of Utah in 1992 and served until 2003. While Governor he led the state in an era of unprecedented economic prosperity. He convened the Governor's Growth Summit, which created statewide involvement in improving transportation, preserving open space, and developing and conserving water. On August 11, 2003, Leavitt was nominated to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection (EPA). He was confirmed to this office on October 28, 2003, and served until January 26, 2005, when he became the Secretary of Health and Human Services. While at EPA, he signed the Clean Air Diesel Rule, implemented new, more protective air quality standards for ozone and fine particle pollution and organized a regional collaboration of national significance to clean and protect the Great Lakes. He also served on the Homeland Security Advisory Council and with the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age.

M

Erica MacKellar

Erica joined NCSL’s Fiscal Affairs Program in 2011 and primarily covers issues around state budget conditions and state budget processes. Erica is the liaison to the National Association of Legislative Fiscal Offices (NALFO), one of the professional staff associations within NCSL, and she is also NCSL’s liaison to the Vermont Legislature. Erica holds a bachelor’s degree in government from Bowdoin College and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Denver.

Daniel J. Mallinson

Daniel Mallinson received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Pennsylvania State University. His expertise lies in state and local politics and policy, with his main research focus examining the mechanics of policy diffusion among the U.S. states. Additional interests include public administration and public policy as well as statistical methodology. He is particularly interested in Pennsylvania State politics and has experience as an Information Specialist for the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and a Program Analyst for the Office of Inspector General in Philadelphia (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). He has published in a variety of journals, including Policy Studies Journal, State Politics & Policy Quarterly, State & Local Government Review, and Statistics, Policy, & Politics. He received the Robert S. Friedman Award for Excellence in Teaching from Penn State University and has published about pedagogy in political science in PS: Political Science & Politics.

Grace Mallon

Grace Mallon is working on a doctoral project asking how the governments of the American states responded to the implementation of the US Constitution after 1789, how they interacted with the federal government, and how the creation of the new federal system changed how they governed. Her broader research interests include the history of the US Constitution and of law, politics, and government between the American Revolution and the American Civil War. She is interested in the history of nationalism; in modern European history, especially Germany; and in the evolution of historical theories and methodologies across time. Grace Mallon gained a BA in History and a MSt in US History from the University of Oxford, where she is a member of University College. After graduating, she was closely involved with the creation of a digital model of the 1787 Constitutional Convention at the Quill Project at Pembroke College. As a graduate student, she co-founded the Oxford Early American Republic Seminar, which is based at the Rothermere American Institute.

Jonathan Marshfield

Professor Marshfield teaches courses related to public law and litigation, including Civil Procedure, Civil Rights Litigation, and Remedies. In 2021, Professor Marshfield received the 1L Professor of the Year Award for his teaching. His research focuses on state constitutional law and constitutional change. His state constitutional law research has been cited by the New Jersey Supreme Court, and his research into constitutional change has been cited by leading scholars in law reviews, textbooks, and academic journals. Professor Marshfield has also served as a consultant to foreign officials regarding issues of constitutional revision, and he has advised public policy groups regarding voter awareness and ballot issues. Before joining the University of Nebraska faculty, Professor Marshfield taught at the University of Arkansas School of Law and practiced as a commercial litigator with Latham & Watkins LLP and Saul Ewing LLP. He also clerked for Judge Robert B. Kugler, United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey, and Chief Justice James R. Zazzali of the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey. While in practice, Professor Marshfield represented several large financial firms and fortune 500 companies regarding a variety of complex disputes in both state and federal court. He has significant experience in most stages of civil litigation, including deposing and examining witnesses, managing complex electronic discovery, arguing pre-trial and dispositive motions, handling settlement mediations, and participating in civil trials.

John Meiser

John Meiser is a Supervising Attorney for the Religious Liberty Clinic, where he oversees the Religious Liberty Initiative’s clinical litigation efforts and helps train students in the practice of law as they work to defend religious freedom for individuals of all faiths. Meiser joined Notre Dame Law School in 2021 with over a decade of experience practicing law in a variety of contexts. Most recently, he served for six years as a career law clerk to Hon. Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Meiser has also taught as an adjunct professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, practiced law as an associate in the litigation and appellate groups at Sidley Austin LLP in Washington, D.C., and served as an assistant counsel to the Inspector General in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Meiser earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and graduated summa cum laude from Notre Dame Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Notre Dame Law Review and received the Col. William J. Hoynes Award, the Law School’s highest honor.

Nancy Martorano Miller

Nancy Martorano Miller received her B.A. in Political Science from Clemson University (1995) and her M.A. (2000) and Ph.D. (2002) in Political Science from Rice University. She joined the University of Dayton as part of the Political Science faculty as an assistant professor in the fall of 2002. She was promoted to associate professor in 2008. Dr. Martorano Miller's research focuses on governing institutions and processes at the state-level. Her past research has focused on state legislative committee systems and minority party procedural rights. Her current research focuses on the politics of state constitutions. She was awarded the Alan Rosenthal Prize by the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association in 2007 for her research on state legislative committee systems. Dr. Martorano Miller was a keynote speaker at "The Rights of the Political Minority" conference held at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University in 2014, where she highlighted her research on minority party procedural rights in the policy-making process. Her work has appeared in the following academic journals: Legislative Studies Quarterly, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, American Review of Politics, Journal of Legislative Studies, Albany Law Review, and The Social Science Journal. Dr. Martorano Miller has also served as the associate editor of State Politics and Policy Quarterly. Dr. Martorano Miller has provided political commentary for numerous local (Dayton Daily News, Channel 2, and Channel 22/45), national (CNN.com, Associated Press) and international (BBC) media outlets. She has also appeared as a guest on Sirius XM's "Jim Parson's is Too Stupid for Politics."

N

Robert F. Nagel

Robert Nagel joined the faculty of Colorado Law School in 1975, leaving a position as a deputy attorney general in Pennsylvania. Since that time, he has focused on constitutional law and theory. For an audience of legal scholars, Professor Nagel has written prolifically, including four books and over 50 law review articles. He has also contributed to the popular debate on constitutional issues, including free speech, hate codes, and federalism, by addressing his ideas to the general citizenry in articles and opinion pieces in publications such as The New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, First Things, and the Weekly Standard. Much of his work has focused on the relationship between the judiciary (and its interpretation of the Constitution) and the wider context of American political culture. Professor Nagel has testified before several congressional committees. He was formerly the director of the Law School's Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law. In 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Zoe Nemerever

Dr. Zoe Nemerever is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Texas Tech University. She studies state politics and political representation. You can read more about her research at www.zoenemerever.com.

O

Walter Olson

P

Q

R

Austin Reid

Austin Reid is the Education Committee Director for the National Conference of State Legislatures where he covers federal education policy and represents NCSL’s education interests before Congress and the Administration. He staffs NCSL’s Standing Committee on Education, which includes 400 state legislators and staff. Prior to joining NCSL, Austin worked at the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) where he was a Senior Policy Advisor. He also served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Chris Coons and as a summer education fellow for U.S. Senator Patty Murray. He began his career as a high school Spanish teacher in Kansas City and at a charter school in Harlem, NY. Austin has a B.A. in English from the University of Arkansas and an Ed.M. in Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Lori Riverstone-Newell

Dr. Riverstone-Newell graduated with a Masters of Public Administration and a Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She lives in Bloomington, IL., with her husband and daughter. Teaching Interests & Areas: Subnational politics, particularly Urban Politics and Intergovernmental Relations. Also, Public Administration and Environmental Politics. Research Interests & Areas: Her primary focus is on the interaction of governments in the U.S. intergovernmental system, specifically, the tools and strategies used by state and local governments to accomplish their goals and defend their interests in America's highly competitive political system.

Mark J. Rozell

Mark J. Rozell is the Founding Dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He holds the Ruth D. and John T. Hazel chair in public policy. He is the author, or co-author of twelve books on various topics in US government and politics, including federalism, the presidency, religion and politics, and interest group politics. Among latest books is Federalism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2019 and his latest scholarly article is "Federalism in a Time of Plague: How Federal Systems Cope with Pandemic" (American Review of Public Administration) (both co-written with Clyde Wilcox). He has testified before Congress on executive privilege issues and has lectured extensively in the US and abroad. In recent years, he has lectured in Austria, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Italy, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and Vietnam. Rozell writes frequent opinion columns on state and local politics for The Washington Post. He is often asked to comment about his areas of expertise for television and in news publications. He currently serves as a Judge for the Gerald R. Ford Award Committee for Outstanding Reporting on the Presidency for the Gerald R. Ford Foundation.

Edgar Ruiz

Edgar Ruiz is the Director of the Council of State Governments West (CSG West), a position he has held since November 2011. He is responsible for staff management, engaging with partners nationally and regionally, and overseeing the development and implementation of programs and services provided to legislators and legislative staff from the Western states, territories and Canadian provinces covered by CSG West. He previously served as deputy director and managed the organization’s U.S. – Mexico programs. Edgar’s professional background expands over 25 years in the public and nonprofit sectors which has provided him a strong organizational foundation and knowledge of local, regional, national and international policy issues and politics. Prior to joining CSG West, he served as Management Analyst in the Community Development Department of the City of Lake Forest, California; legislative staff in the California State Legislature; and as a student worker for the San Diego County Probation Department. Edgar is a graduate of Lincoln Law School of Sacramento, holds a master’s degree in public administration, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from San Diego State University.

S

Carl Eric Scott

Carl Eric Scott is an adjunct professor for Oglethorpe University, Georgia, who resides in Utah. He has taught political theory, American politics, and Great Books liberal arts, at a number of institutions, including Washington and Lee University, Skidmore College, Utah Valley University, and St. John’s College. He has written on constitutionalism, film, and rock music for the "National Review Online" group blog "Postmodern Conservative." He is the co-editor of Totalitarianism on Screen: The Art and Politics of ‘The Lives of Others, and the author of The Five Conceptions of American Liberty, an essay on American political thought published by *National Affairs*. He is currently working on a book, On the Nature of Democracy: Great Books Guidance for our Troubled Republic, that compares thinkers such as Plato, Tocqueville, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Publius, and Solzhenitsyn, to address contemporary “democracy pessimism.”

Jennifer Selin

Jennifer L. Selin is a Kinder Institute Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri. She is the co-author of the Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies (2012, 2018) and her research explores how the federal bureaucracy functions in the American separation of powers system. Selin’s scholarship has been published in political science, public administration, and law journals and has been utilized by the Obama and Trump Administrations, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the media. A proud graduate of Lebanon Valley College, Selin holds a J.D. from Wake Forest University and a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. Prior to joining academia, she practiced administrative law and specialized in federal electricity market regulation and alternative energy development, licensing, and regulation.

Carmel Shachar

Carmel Shachar, JD, MPH, is the Executive Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. She is responsible for oversight of the Center’s sponsored research portfolio, event programming, fellowships, student engagement, development, and a range of other projects and collaborations. In addition, she is also the Co-Editor of the Center’s collaborative health policy blog, "Bill of Health". Carmel’s scholarship focuses on law and health policy, in particular the regulation of access to care for vulnerable individuals, health care anti-discrimination law and policy, and the use of all-payer claims databases in health care research.

Silvana R. Siddali

Silvana R. Siddali received her Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1999, where she studied with the late William E. Gienapp. She taught at Illinois State University from 1999 through 2003, and is now Associate Professor of History at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. She teaches courses in the Civil War and Reconstruction, Constitutional History, and the history of the Old Northwest. Dr. Siddali has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and from the Gilder-Lehrman Foundation. She was invited to present her work at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum opening celebration in 2005. Her first book, From Property to Person: Slavery and the Confiscation Acts, 1861-1862 was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2005. Her second book, Missouri's War: The Civil War in Documents, was published in August 2009 by Ohio University Press. Her third book, titled Frontier Democracy: Constitutional Conventions in the Old Northwest was published by Cambridge University Press in 2016. She is currently working on a book that compares American state constitutions to European revolutionary constitutions during the nineteenth century.

Steven D. Smith

Steven D. Smith (BYU B.A., Yale J.D.) is a Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego. He has previously taught at Notre Dame, the University of Colorado, and the University of Idaho. Steve has written articles and books on law, religion, and religious freedom, including The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom (Harvard 2014) and Pagans and Christians in the City (Eerdmans 2018).

Troy E. Smith

Troy E. Smith is a professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. He is also a fellow at the Center for the Study of Federalism where he is the editor of the online version of Federalism in America: An Encyclopedia. Dr. Smith's primary interest is in states lobbying Congress and the philosophy and history of federalism. His academic work has appeared in Publius: The Journal of Federalism; Congress & the Presidency; The Review of Politics, and others. His academic work has appeared in Publius: The Journal of Federalism; The Review of Politics; Congress & the Presidency; Thinking Skills & Creativity; and others. Dr. Smith first became interested in federalism when his east coast graduate friends argued for reintroducing wolves in the Rocky Mountains but opposed their reintroduction in the Adirondacks. His interest spiked when, as an intern with the U.S. Senate, he watched quarrels between his senators and the governor. Channeling his insights, he wrote a paper on how members of Congress responded to lobbying by state officials that won the “Best Paper in Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations” at the 1998 A.P.S.A. Annual Meeting.

J.H. Snider

Since 2007, J.H. Snider has been the president of iSolon.org and editor of The State Constitutional Convention Clearinghouse while also intermittently serving as a fellow at various institutions. During the 2012-2013 academic year, he was a Lab Fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. During the 2011-2012 academic year, he was a Network Fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. In 2008, he was a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy (since renamed the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy). From 2007-2011, he was an affiliated researcher at Columbia University’s Institute for Tele-Information. He has published dozens of think tank working papers and scholarly articles, hundreds of op-eds, and two books. His recent op-eds on periodic state constitutional convention referendums have been compiled in The State Con-Con Papers. He has a Ph.D. in American Government (with a specialty in political communications) from Northwestern University, an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School (where he focused non-profit management), and an undergraduate degree in Social Studies from Harvard College. He has had extensive experience in local politics. In 2010, he led the campaign in Maryland to educate the public on the November 2, 2010 referendum to convene a state constitutional referendum. The referendum received 54.4% of the vote.

Ilya Somin

Ilya Somin is a Professor of Law at George Mason University. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, and the study of popular political participation and its implications for constitutional democracy. He is the author of Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, USA Today, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, Legal Times, National Law Journal and Reason. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine.

Lance Sorenson

Lance Sorenson is an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Utah practicing constitutional law. He has a doctorate in Legal History from UNLV and has taught law and history at Stanford, BYU, and UNLV. He is the author of Tribal Sovereignty and the Recognition Power, 42 American Indian Law Rev. 69 (2017) and The Hybrid Nature of the Property Clause: Implications for Judicial Review of National Monument Reductions, 21 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law (2019). The views expressed herein are his alone and do not reflect the views of the Office of the Attorney General.

T

G. Alan Tarr

G. Alan Tarr was founder and director of the Center for State Constitutional Studies and is now on the Board of Governors Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Rutgers University-Camden. He served as editor of State Constitutions of the United States, a 50-volume reference series (Oxford University Press) and as co-editor of the three-volume State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century (State University of New York Press), of Constitutional Origins, Structure, and Change in Federal Countries (McGill-Queen's University Press), and of Federalism, Subnational Constitutions, and Minority Rights (Praeger). He is the author of Without Fear or Favor (Stanford University Press), Understanding State Constitutions (Princeton University Press) and Judicial Process and Judicial Policymaking (Rutledge); co-author of State Supreme Courts in State and Nation (Yale University Press) and of American Constitutional Law (Rutledge). Three times the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and more recently a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Ottawa, he has lectured on federalism and constitutionalism throughout the United States and in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.

U

V

John Vile

John R. Vile is a professor of political science and dean of the University Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University. He has written extensively on the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the constitutional amending process, proposed alternatives to the U.S. Constitution, and Supreme Court decisions and other contemporary understandings of the document. Vile is the author of numerous books on the U.S. Constitution and the constitutional amending process and of The Wisest Council in the World: Restoring the Character Sketches by William Pierce of Georgia of the Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (Georgia). His latest book is The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference Guide.

W

Keith E. Whittington

Keith E. Whittington is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He is the author of Repugnant Laws: Judicial Review of Acts of Congress from the Founding to the Present (which won the Thomas M. Cooley Book Prize) and Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech (which won the PROSE Award for best book in education and the Heterodox Academy Award for Exceptional Scholarship)), as well as Constitutional Construction: Divided Powers and Constitutional Meaning, and Constitutional Interpretation: Textual Meaning, Original Intent, and Judicial Review, and Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy: The Presidency, the Supreme Court, and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History (which won the C. Herman Pritchett Award for best book in law and courts and the J. David Greenstone Award for best book in politics and history), and Judicial Review and Constitutional Politics, and American Political Thought: Readings and Materials. He is the editor (with Neal Devins) of Congress and the Constitution and editor (with R. Daniel Kelemen and Gregory A. Caldeira) of The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics and editor of Law and Politics: Critical Concepts in Political Science. He is also the author (with Howard Gillman and Mark A. Graber) of American Constitutionalism, vol. 1: Structures of Government and American Constitutionalism, vol. 2: Rights and Liberties (which together won the Teaching and Mentoring Award for innovative instructional materials in law and courts), and American Constitutionalism: Powers, Rights and Liberties (a one-volume abridgment). He has published widely on American constitutional theory and development, federalism, judicial politics, and the presidency.

Kenneth K. Wong

Kenneth Wong is the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Chair for Education Policy at Brown as well as professor of political science, public policy, and urban studies. He has conducted extensive research in the politics of education, federalism, policy innovation, outcome-based accountability, and governance redesign (including city and state takeover, management reform, and Title I school-wide reform). His research has received support from the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Education, the Social Science Research Council, the Spencer Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the British Council, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Wong has advised the US Secretaries of Education and Interior, US Congress, state legislature, governor and mayoral offices, and the leadership in several large urban school systems on how to redesign the accountability framework. He was editor of a major educational policy journal, Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis. He holds BA (Hons), MA and PhD degrees in political science from the University of Chicago.

Robinson Woodward-Burns

Robinson Woodward-Burns is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Howard University, where he researches and teaches American constitutionalism, civil and voting rights, federalism, and slavery and abolition. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. His first book, Hidden Laws: How State Constitutions Stabilize American Politics, was published in 2021 by Yale University Press. Using datasets and chronological case studies, the book argues that high barriers to national constitutional change have encouraged reformers to instead seek state constitutional revision, addressing national controversies over economic and labor laws and voting, civil, and gender rights. His research is also published or forthcoming in The Journal of Politics, Polity, Perspectives on Politics, The Maryland Law Review, and The Tulsa Law Review. He has written on these topics, with a special emphasis on DC statehood, in The Atlantic and The Washington Post. In 2021 he was awarded a Library of Congress Kluge Fellowship to write a book on constitutional hardball.

X

Y

Ernest A. Young

Professor Young teaches constitutional law, federal courts, and foreign relations law. He is one of the nation's leading authorities on the constitutional law of federalism, having written extensively on the Rehnquist Court's "Federalist Revival" and the difficulties confronting courts as they seek to draw lines between national and state authority. He also is an active commentator on foreign relations law, where he focuses on the interaction between domestic and supranational courts and the application of international law by domestic courts. Professor Young also writes on constitutional interpretation and constitutional theory. He has been known to dabble in maritime law and comparative constitutional law. A native of Abilene, Texas, Professor Young joined the Duke Law faculty in 2008, after serving as the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, where he had taught since 1999. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (2004-05) and Villanova University School of Law (1998-99), as well as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center (1997). Elected to the American Law Institute in 2006, Professor Young is an active participant in both public and private litigation in his areas of interest. He has been the principal author of amicus briefs on behalf of leading constitutional scholars in several recent Supreme Court cases, including Medellin v. Texas (concerning presidential power and the authority of the International Court of Justice over domestic courts) and Gonzales v. Raich (concerning federal power to regulate medical marijuana).

Z

James Zink

Dr. Jim Zink is an Associate Professor of political science in the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University. He has taught courses in political theory, American political thought, slavery and its legacy for American political thought, and politics and science fiction, among other things. His research explores theories of liberalism and constitutionalism, focusing in particular on the way institutions shape citizen psychology. He has pursued these themes as they have been treated in the history of political thought, especially within the American political tradition, but has also analyzed the empirical implications that emerge from these past debates. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, and Political Behavior, among other outlets. His current project is a book manuscript on James Wilson's moral-psychological understanding of American constitutionalism. He received his PhD from the University of California, Davis, and his J.D. from DePaul University College of Law.