Speaker biographies

Edward Blum is a visiting fellow at AEI and the director of the Project on Fair Representation. Mr. Blum studies civil rights policy issues such as voting rights, affirmative action, and multiculturalism. Prior to joining AEI, he facilitated the legal challenge to dozens of racially gerrymandered voting districts, race-based school admissions, and public contracting programs throughout the nation. Mr. Blum is currently working on the forthcoming AEI Press book The Unintended Consequences of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Gregory S. Coleman heads Yetter & Warden’s appellate litigation practice. He has handled appeals across a broad spectrum of litigation categories, including complex business torts, class actions, securities, products liability, insurance, bankruptcy, telecommunications, intellectual property, accounting malpractice, constitutional litigation, and governmental representation. Mr. Coleman is board certified in civil appellate law and has successfully represented clients before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals, and numerous state supreme courts and intermediate courts of appeals. Mr. Coleman previously served as Texas solicitor general.

Jose Garza currently practices law at his own firm, Law Office of Jose Garza. He also serves as the litigation director at Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. He specializes in election and voting law. Mr. Garza’s most recent high-profile case, LULAC v. Perry (2005), was a successful challenge against the Texas Congressional redistricting plan argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Garza is also involved in multiple professional and civil organizations, including the State Bar of Texas, the Section of Concerns of Spanish Speaking, and the advisory board for the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Stuart S. Taylor Jr. is a weekly opinion columnist for National Journal and a contributing editor of Newsweek, writing about legal and policy issues of national and international importance. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He practiced law at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering from 1977 to 1980. He joined the New York Times in 1980 as a legal affairs reporter and covered the Supreme Court from 1986 to 1988. Mr. Taylor moved to American Lawyer Media in 1989 and to National Journal in 1997. He has won various journalism awards and appeared on all major television networks.

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