October 22, 2004
Speaker Biographies
Thomas J. Downey is the Chairman of Downey McGrath Group, Inc. He represented the 2nd District of New York in Congress from 1975-1993. Mr. Downey served on the House Ways and Means Committee for fourteen years, the House Armed Services Committee for five years, and the House Select Committee on Aging for 6 years. He was an adviser to both the SALT and START arms negotiations talks, and is a past president of Parliamentarians for Global Action, an international arms control organization. President-elect Clinton chose Mr. Downey to head the HHS, HUD, and VA cluster of the 1992 Presidential transition and appointed him to the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform (the Kerrey Commission). Mr. Downey serves on the boards of Child Trends, the SEED Foundation, The Center for Social Gerontology, and Safe Shores, the D.C. Children's Advocacy Center.
Nina J. Easton is the deputy chief of The Boston Globe's Washington bureau and co-author of the critically acclaimed John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography, which grew out of a seven-part series that appeared in the Globe in the spring of 2003. She is the author of two other best-selling books, Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendancy, which chronicles the rise to power of today's conservative movement and Reagan's Ruling Class: Portraits of the President's Top 100 Officials. Prior to coming to the Globe, Ms. Easton spent a decade as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where her Sunday magazine pieces won numerous national awards. Ms. Easton is a regular political commentator on CNN's Newsnight with Aaron Brown, frequently co-hosts CBS' Face the Nation, and often appears on such other news outlets as ABC, NBC and Fox.
Thomas E. Mann is the W. Averell Harriman Chair and Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution and former director of Governmental Studies at Brookings. Before that, Mann was executive director of the American Political Science Association. Dr. Mann is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the National Academy of Public Administration. His published works include Vital Statistics on Congress; A Question of Balance: The President, the Congress and Foreign Policy; The Permanent Campaign and Its Future; and The New Campaign Finance Sourcebook. He is currently working on projects dealing with campaign finance reform (in the U.S. and in other democracies), redistricting, and the continuity of Congress.
Norman Ornstein is an AEI resident scholar. He is a senior counselor to the Continuity in Government Commission and formerly directed the Transition to Governing Project. Mr. Ornstein also serves as an election analyst for CBS News and writes regularly for USA Today and Roll Call. In 1997-1998, he was co-chair of the President’s Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters and currently serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Commission on the Future International Financial Architecture and the PBS Board of Directors. His most recent books include Vital Statistics on Congress, 2001-2002; Lessons and Legacies: Farewell Addresses from the US Senate; and Debt and Taxes: How America Got into Its Budget Mess and What to Do About It, with AEI’s John Makin.
John C. Fortier is a research fellow at the America Enterprise Institute. He is executive director of the Continuity of Government Commission and was project manager of the Transition to Governing Project. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Delaware, Boston College, and Harvard University. He is the author of numerous scholarly and popular articles and was the editor of the third edition of After the People Vote: A Guide to the Electoral College (AEI 2004). Most recently, he coauthored “Presidential Succession and Presidential Leaders,” Catholic University Law Review (Fall 2004); and “President Bush: Legislative Strategist,” in The Bush Presidency (Johns Hopkins University Press 2003). He is a frequent radio and television commentator on the presidency, Congress, and elections.
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