Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, a research-based, public policy “think tank.” He is a health policy expert and weekly contributor at Forbes.co...

A fifth generation Texan, Michael Quinn Sullivan is the CEO of Empower Texans. The Fort Worth Star Telegram said Sullivan “slays taxpayer dragons in Austin… When the heat is on in Austin, Michael Qui...

A fifth generation Texan, Michael Quinn Sullivan is the CEO of Empower Texans. The Fort Worth Star Telegram said Sullivan “slays taxpayer dragons in Austin… When the heat is on in Austin, Michael Quinn Sullivan knows how to make it even hotter.” Texas Monthly dubbed him “the enforcer,” on their list of the 25 most influential Texans. The Dallas Morning News has called him the state’s most influential unelected Republican. A former newspaper reporter, Capitol Hill staffer, think tank vice president and Eagle Scout, Sullivan is a graduate of Texas A&M University. He and his wife have three children.

John Gans, PhD, is the director of communications and research at Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s global policy institute, and a Fellow at the German Marshall Fund. A former chief...

John Gans, PhD, is the director of communications and research at Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s global policy institute, and a Fellow at the German Marshall Fund. A former chief speechwriter at the Pentagon, he lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey.

Kelly Shackelford, Esq., has been president and CEO of Liberty Institute since 1997. Mr. Shackelford is a constitutional scholar who has argued before the United States Supreme Court, testified bef...

Kelly Shackelford, Esq., has been president and CEO of Liberty Institute since 1997. Mr. Shackelford is a constitutional scholar who has argued before the United States Supreme Court, testified before the U.S. House and Senate on constitutional issues, and has won three state landmark First Amendment and religious liberty cases in the past few years alone. He was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past quarter century by Texas Lawyer, and is the recipient of the prestigious William Bentley Ball Award for Life and Religious Freedom Defense for his leadership and pioneering work protecting religious freedom.

Mr. Dys graduated from Taylor University in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, degree in Communication Studies while concentrating his minor study in U.S. History and Philosophy. During his unde...

Mr. Dys graduated from Taylor University in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, degree in Communication Studies while concentrating his minor study in U.S. History and Philosophy. During his undergraduate career, Dys also studied at the American Studies Program in Washington, D.C. where he interned with the late David Orgon Coolidge as part of the Marriage Law Project of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.