Speaker biographies
Thomas Edsall is a correspondent for The New Republic and The National Journal, and holds the Pulitzer-Moore Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at Columbia University. He previously covered national politics for twenty-five years at the Washington Post. He is a frequent contributor to such magazines as The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, Civilization, Harper’s, The American Prospect, The Nation, The Washington Monthly, and Dissent. His awards include the Carey McWilliams Award of the American Political Science Association, the Bill Pryor Award of the Newspaper Guild, a year-long fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and five media fellowships at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His book Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in 1992.
Tom Hamburger is an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, specializing in the White House and the Executive branch. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1996, he is a graduate of Oberlin College, and worked previously for the Wall Street Journal, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and the Arkansas Gazette.
Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI. In addition to serving as an election analyst for CBS News, he writes a weekly column called “Congress Inside Out” for Roll Call newspaper. He has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and other major publications. He appears regularly on television programs including The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, and Charlie Rose. He serves as senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission and is co-director of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project, a collaborative effort to improve federal election administration with regard to the Help America Vote Act. In addition to his work on election administration reform, his campaign finance working group of scholars and practitioners helped shape the major law, known as McCain/Feingold, which reformed the campaign financing system. Legal Times referred to him as “a principal drafter of the law,” and his role in its design and enactment was profiled in the February 2004 issue of Washington Lawyer. He co-directed a multiyear effort called the Transition to Governing Project to create a better climate for governing in the era of the permanent campaign, and is currently co-directing a project on election reform. He is a member of the boards of directors of the Public Broadcasting Service and the Campaign Legal Center, and a member of the board of trustees of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. His many books include The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America coauthored by Thomas E. Mann.
Douglas Sosnik served for six years as senior advisor to President Bill Clinton, playing a key role in decisions regarding policy, strategy, politics, and communications. During the 1996 presidential reelection campaign, Mr. Sosnik was the White House political director. In the second Clinton term, Mr. Sosnik served as senior advisor for policy and strategy. Prior to working in the White House, Mr. Sosnik served as chief of staff to Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut. Mr. Sosnik currently advises U.S. corporations, the National Basketball Association, and U.S. senators and governors in crisis management and strategic planning. Mr. Sosnik, senior Bush strategist Matthew Dowd, and award-winning Associated Press political reporter Ron Fournier are the authors of Applebee’s America: How Successful Political, Business, and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American (Simon & Schuster, 2006).
Peter Wallsten covers the White House and national politics for the Los Angeles Times. He was previously the Tallahassee bureau chief and national political writer for the Miami Herald. He has also worked for the St. Petersburg Times, Charlotte Observer, and Congressional Quarterly.
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