Commission Members and Staff

Alan K. Simpson is a visiting lecturer at the University of Wyoming, and is currently a partner in a Washington-based government relations firm and a Denver-based law firm. Mr. Simpson served in the United States Senate from 1978 to 1997, acting as Minority Whip for ten of those years. He was an active force on the Judiciary Committee, Finance Committee, Environment and Public Works Committee and a Special Committee on Aging. A veteran who served in Germany during the final months of Allied occupation, he served as chair of the Veteran Affairs Committee. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Mr. Simpson was elected to the Wyoming House of Representatives as a Republican in 1964, where he served as Majority Whip and later Majority Floor Leader. In 1977 he became speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives. Senator Simpson served as director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government from 1998 to 2000.

Philip Chase Bobbitt is the Herbert Wechsler Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the Center for National Security at Columbia Law School and a Senior Fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. He is a Fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on the Task Force on National Security and Law at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford University. Mr. Bobbitt served as Associate Counsel to the President (1980-81) Counselor on International Law at the State Department 1990-93), Legal Counsel to the Senate Iran-Contra Committee (1987), and Director for Intelligence, Senior Director for Critical Infrastructure and Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council.  His books include Tragic Choices (W.W. Norton and Company, 1978) coauthored with Guido Calabresi, Constitutional Fate (Oxford, 1982), Democracy and Deterrence (St Martin's, 1987), U.S. Nuclear Strategy (with Freedman and Treverton) (Macmillan's, 1989), Constitutional Interpretation (Blackwell's 1991), The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History (Knopf, 2002) and, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century (Knopf, 2008).

Kenneth Duberstein is Chairman and CEO of The Duberstein Group, an independent strategic planning and consulting company located in Washington, D.C. Duberstein served as Chief of Staff to President Ronald Reagan from 1988 to 1989, and as Deputy Chief of staff in 1987. From 1981-83 he served as both an Assistant and the Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. Prior to joining the Administration, he was Vice President and Director of Business-Government Relations of the Committee for Economic Development. His earlier government service included Deputy Under Secretary of Labor during the Ford Administration and Director of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. General Services Administration. He began his public service on Capitol Hill as an assistant to Senator Jacob K. Javits. President Reagan awarded Mr. Duberstein the President's Citizens Medal in January of 1989.

Thomas Foley, former Speaker of the House, is a partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer, & Feld, LLP. Ambassador Thomas S. Foley advises clients on matters of legal and corporate strategy. Ambassador Foley is currently the chairman of the Trilateral Commission. Prior to rejoining the firm in 2001, he served as the 25th U.S. ambassador to Japan. Before taking up his diplomatic post in November 1997, Ambassador Foley served as the 49th Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was elected to represent the state of Washington's Fifth Congressional District 15 times, serving his constituents for 30 years from January 1965 to December 1994. Mr. Foley served as Majority Leader from 1987 until his election as Speaker on June 6, 1989. From 1981 to 1987 he served as Majority Whip. He also was a chairman of both the House Democratic Caucus and the Democratic Study Group. Mr. Foley has served on a number of private and public boards of directors, including the Japan-America Society of Washington. He also served on the board of advisors for the Center for Strategic and International Studies and on the board of directors for the Center for National Policy. He was a member of the board of governors of the East-West Center and is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Before his appointment as ambassador, he served as chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Charles Fried is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he has taught since 1961. From 1985-1989 he was Solicitor General of the United States and from 1995-1999 he was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. He has taught courses on appellate advocacy, commercial law, constitutional law, contracts, criminal law, federal courts, labor law, torts, legal philosophy, and medical ethics. His major works include Order and Law: Arguing the Reagan Revolution (which has appeared in over a dozen collections); Contract as Promise: A Theory of Contractual Obligation; Right and Wrong; Medical Experimentation: Personal Integrity and Social Policy; and An Anatomy of Values. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Law Institute.

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is a senior fellow at AEI and was a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Mr. Gingrich is a member of the Terrorism Task Force for the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Commission on National Security, an advisory board member of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and a member of the Defense Policy Board. Mr. Gingrich also served as cochair, along with former Senate majority leader George Mitchell, of the Task Force on United Nations Reform created by Congress in December 2004. He is also an editorial board member of the journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism and a contributor to Fox News Channel. He writes a weekly newsletter for Human Events and is a regular contributor to the Church Report. Mr. Gingrich is the author of seventeen books, including Drill Here, Drill Now Pay Less: A Handbook for Slashing Gas Prices and Solving Our Energy Crisis (Regnery, 2008) and the New York Times bestsellers Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works (Regnery, 2008), Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America (Regnery, 2005), and Rediscovering God in America (Thomas Nelson, 2006). Mr. Gingrich is the chairman of the Gingrich Group, founder of the Center for Health Transformation, and general chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future.

Jamie S. Gorelick is Vice Chair of Fannie Mae, the nation's largest source of funds for home mortgages. Prior to joining Fannie Mae in May 1997, Gorelick was Deputy Attorney General of the United States, a position she assumed in March 1994. From May 1993 until she joined the Justice Department, Gorelick served as General Counsel of the Department of Defense. From 1979 to 1980 she was Assistant to the Secretary and Counselor to the Deputy Secretary of Energy. In the private sector, from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1993, Gorelick was a litigator in Washington, D.C., representing major U.S. companies on a broad range of legal and business matters. She served as President of the District of Columbia Bar from 1992 to 1993. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute. Gorelick currently serves on the Central Intelligence Agency's National Security Advisory Panel as well as the President's Review of Intelligence.

Nicholas deB. Katzenbach served first as deputy US Attorney General under President John F. Kennedy, then as US Attorney General (1964-66) and then as under-Secretary of State under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Following his government service, Mr. Katzenbach served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of IBM Corporation. He left IBM in 1986 to become a partner in Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Highland & Perretti until 1994. Prior to his government work, Mr. Katzenbach served in the US Air Force from 1941 to 1945. He practiced law in New Jersey and New York, and taught law first at Yale Law School and then at the University of Chicago Law School. He has published (with Morton A. Kaplan) The Political Foundations of International Law (1961), as well as many articles for professional journals. He is active in the American Bar Association and other legal organizations.

Robert A. Katzmann is a United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. After clerking on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, he joined the Brookings Institution Governmental Studies Program, where from 1981 99, he was a research associate, senior fellow, visiting fellow, and acting program director. He is a founder of the Governance Institute, a nonprofit organization concerned with exploring, explaining, and easing problems associated with both the separation and division of powers in the American federal system. He served as Walsh Professor of Government and professor of law at Georgetown University, and has served as a director of the American Judicature Society, vice chair of the Committee on Government Organization and Separation of Powers of the ABA Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. He has also been a consultant to the Federal Courts Study Committee. He served as co chair of the FTC transition team, and as special counsel to Senator Moynihan on the confirmation of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. His scholarly work has resulted in numerous books and articles, including Courts and Congress (1997).

Lynn Martin is chair of Deloitte & Touche's Council on the Advancement of Women and is an advisor to the accounting firm. She was the Secretary of Labor under President George Bush. During her tenure as Secretary of Labor, one of her initiatives was to create a model workplace program at the Department of Labor. Department employees received sexual harassment training and diversity training. The department also underwent its own glass ceiling review. Prior to serving as Secretary of Labor, Martin represented the 16th District of Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 to 1991. She was the first woman to achieve an elective leadership post when she was chosen as Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference, a position she held for four years. During her 10-year tenure, Martin served on the House Rules committee, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Budget Committee, the Committee on Public Works and Transportation, and the Committee on the District of Columbia.

Kweisi Mfume was President and Chief Executive officer of the National Associations for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Mr. Mfume gave up his seat in the United States House of Representatives to take the position. He had served as representative to Maryland's 7th Congressional District for ten years. As a member of Congress, Mr. Mfume was active with broad committee obligations. He served on the Banking and Financial Services Committee, and held the ranking seat on the General Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. He also served as a member of the Committee on Education and as a senior member of the Small Business Committee. While in his third term, the Speaker of the House chose him to serve on the Ethics Committee and the Joint Economic Committee of the House and Senate where he later became chair. Mr. Mfume served as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and later as the Caucus' Chair of the Task Force on Affirmative Action. During his last term in Congress, he was appointed by the House Democratic Caucus as the Vice-Chairman for Communications. Mr. Mfume was formerly a member of the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, the Advisory Board of the Schomburg Commission for the Preservation of Black Culture, and the Senior Advisory Committee of the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is presently a member of the Gamma Boule Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, Most Worshipful Prince Hall Masons, and Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

Robert H. Michel is Senior Advisor for Corporate and Governmental Affairs at Hogan & Hartson L.L.P. He joined the firm in 1995 after serving 38 years in Congress as the United States Representative from the 18th Congressional District of Illinois, including 14 years as House Minority Leader. He was elected to his first leadership position as Chairman of the Congressional Campaign Committee in 1972, then served as Republican Party Whip from 1974 until he was elected House Minority Leader in 1980. Prior to becoming House Minority Leader, Mr. Michel served from 1959 to 1980 as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, including 12 years as the ranking Republican on the Labor, Health, Education and Welfare Subcommittee. Mr. Michel serves on the Boards of the Chicago Board of Trade, BNFL, Inc., the Public Broadcasting System, the Dirksen Leadership Center, Bradley University, Watchdogs of Treasury, Inc., and the Capitol Hill Club. In 1994, President Clinton awarded Mr. Michel the Presidential Medal of Freedom - our nation's highest civilian honor. He was presented with the Citizens Medal, our nation's second highest Presidential Award, in 1989 by President Ronald Reagan.

James C. Ho is the Solicitor General of Texas. He has previously served in all three branches of the federal government as well as in private practice. He was chief counsel to Senator John Cornyn, who appointed him chief counsel of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights for the 108th Congress, and chief counsel of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship for the 109th Congress. He served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, and then as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. He was a law clerk for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1999 to 2000, and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court during October Term 2005. He is a member of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee which advises Texas’s U.S. Senators on judicial and U.S. Attorney appointments, and previously served on the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. He is also an adjunct professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law and a contributing editor of The Green Bag.

Donna E. Shalala is president of the University of Miami, as well as a member of the faculty. She served as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services from 1993 to January 2001. She was the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987 to 1993. Ms. Shalala has also served as the president of Hunter College and as assistant secretary at HUD during the Carter administration. A distinguished political economist, she has been a professor at Syracuse University, Columbia University, the City University of New York, and the University of Wisconsin. Ms. Shalala is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Martin Frost, former Representative from Texas (1979-2005) is a partner at Polsinelli, Shalton, Flanigan, Suelthaus, PC. While serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, Frost was the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Rules and previously had been chairman of the Democratic Caucus (1999–2003), the third highest leadership post. During the 1996 and 1998 election cycles, he was chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. An innovative lawmaker with the ability to craft bipartisan legislation, Frost is a co-author of 1992 Industrial Base and Defense Conversion Act which enabled communities and individuals to respond to the downsizing of the defense industry. He also authored the National Amber Alert law that helps find children victimized by predators. From 1990-1995, Frost chaired a special House Task Force established to help Eastern and Central European nations transition to democracy after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He has continued democracy-building efforts through work with the National Democratic Institute. He was also co-chair of the Bipartisan Working Group on Youth Violence and co-chair of a bipartisan working group on continuity of government. Frost was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard for the fall 2005 semester and was named a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in January of 2006.

Fred Iklé is a distinguished scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and currently engaged in studies about the impact of technology on national security and the prospects for democracy. He is a member of the Defense Policy Board, a governor of the SmithRichardson Foundation, a director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and an advisory board member of the Center for Security Policy. In 1988, Iklé was undersecretary of defense for policy during the first and second Reagan administrations. In 1987, he co-chaired the bipartisan Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy, which published Discriminate Deterrence. From 1977 to 1978, he was chairman of the Republican National Committee’s Advisory Council on International Security and, from 1979 to 1980, coordinator of Governor Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy advisers. From 1973 to 1977, he served Presidents Nixon and Ford as director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Since 1988, he has been chairman of CMC Energy Services. He served for nine years as a director of the National Endowment for Democracy, and in 1999-2000 served as commissioner on the National Commission on Terrorism. He was director and chairman of Telos Corporation and director of the advisory board of Zurich Financial Services. From 1964 to 1967, Iklé was a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Max Kampelman is currently serving as Counsel to the law firm of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson, LLP. He was appointed by President Carter, and then reappointed by President Reagan, to serve as Ambassador and Head of the U.S. Delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Kampelman served as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations, and from 1949 to 1955, he served as Legislative Counsel to Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. From 1985 to 1989, Kampelman was Ambassador and Head of the United States Delegation to the Negotiations of the Soviet Union on Nuclear and Space Arms in Geneva, before serving as Counselor of the Department of State from 1987 to 1989. He was Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the United Nations Association, and is now Honorary Chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation and Honorary Governor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His books include, Entering New Worlds: Memoirs of a Private Man in Public Life (HarperCollins, 1991) and The Communist Party vs. The C.I.O.: A Study in Power Politics (Praeger Press, 1957).

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI. He serves as senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission and co-director of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. Mr. Ornstein is an election analyst for CBS News and writes a weekly column called "Congress Inside Out" for Roll Call. He has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and other major publications and regularly appears on television programs such as ABC News’ Nightline,PBS’s Charlie Rose and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He served for six years as a member of the Board of Directors of PBS and is currently on the boards of the Campaign Legal Center, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, the Center for U.S. Global Engagement, the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation, and UCB, a Belgium-based biopharmaceutical company. His many books include The Permanent Campaign and Its Future and Intensive Care: How Congress Shapes Health Policy, both with Thomas E. Mann; and Debt and Taxes: How America Got Into Its Budget Mess and What to Do About It, with John H. Makin; The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track, also coauthored with Thomas E. Mann, was published in August 2006 by Oxford University Press.

Thomas E. Mann  is the W. Averell Harriman Senior Fellow in American Governance at the Brookings Institution. He serves as a senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission and is co-director of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. Between 1987 and 1999,  Mr. Mann was the director of governmental studies at Brookings and before that was executive director of the American Political Science Association. He is a recipient of the American Political Science Association’s Frank J. Goodnow and Charles E. Merriam Awards. His books include Vital Statistics on Congress with Norman J. Ornstein and Michael Malbin (Brookings Press, 2008), The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track with Norman J. Ornstein (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2008), and Party Lines: Competition, Partisanship and Congressional Redistricting edited with Bruce Cain (Brookings Press, 2005).

John C. Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He has served as Executive Director of the Continuity of Government Commission since its founding in 2002. Fortier is also the Principal Contributor to the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. He is Director of the Center for the Study of American Democracy at Kenyon College. A political scientist who has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Delaware, Boston College, and Harvard University, Mr. Fortier has written numerous scholarly and popular articles. His books include Absentee and Early Voting: Trends, Promises, and Perils (2006), After the People Vote: A Guide to the Electoral College (2004), and Second-Term Blues: How George W. Bush Has Governed (2007). Mr. Fortier writes a column for Politico and is a frequent radio and television commentator on the presidency, Congress, and elections.

Jessica Leval is Assistant Director of the Continuity of Government Commission and a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University with a degree in Government and a concentration in Law and Society. She has held internships in the offices of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (D-CT) and William K. Suter, the Clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court. Leval has published articles in Roll Call, The American, The Cornell Daily Sun, on Forbes.com, NewMajority.com, and on the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project website.