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...

Matt Mackowiak (Mack-o-VEE-yack) is an Austin and Washington, DC-based political and communications consultant and President of Potomac Strategy Group (PSG), LLC, which provides political consulting t...

Matt Mackowiak (Mack-o-VEE-yack) is an Austin and Washington, DC-based political and communications consultant and President of Potomac Strategy Group (PSG), LLC, which provides political consulting to conservative campaigns and media relations and crisis communications assistance to companies, groups and individuals. He has served in senior roles for two U.S. Senators and a Governor, in the Bush administration, and in winning campaigns, and has developed a deep network of media and political relationships nationwide. Matt consultancy, PSG, which he founded in 2009, provides corporate communications services, including public affairs, media relations, writing, opposition research, digital strategy and other services and has been actively working in the energy, health care, transportation and tech sectors, among others. In addition to offering counsel to individuals and corporations, Matt appears regularly on MSNBC, Fox News, Sky News, BBC News and CBC-TV, and provides political analysis three times a week for KTBC Fox 7 in Austin. He is an exclusive weekly columnist for The Washington Times and periodic columnist for The New York Observer and The Hill. His weekly national politics podcast, “Mack On Politics,” which is produced in partnership with The Washington Times, has surpassed the 80,000-download mark and has featured interviews with U.S. Senators, members of Congress and a Cabinet Secretary, best-selling authors, diplomats and top journalists. He is a judge for professional awards through the AAPC Pollies and the Goldies, given to top performing campaign operatives and vendors annually. Matt is currently serving as Chairman of the Travis County Republican Party, where he manages three staff and an annual budget of over $350,000. He is a Director of the Center for Public Policy and Political Studies at Austin Community College. In 2016, he was named a finalist for “Austin Under 40” in the Public Affairs category and he is a graduate of Leadership Austin’s 2017 Essential Class. After raising over $54,000 in ten weeks for cancer research, he was named 2016 “Man of the Year” runner-up for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and serves as a member of their leadership committee. He serves as a member of the Board of Advisors for the Texas Cowboys and for the Veterans non-profit Luke’s Wings and on the Board of Directors for Balcones Country Club. He serves as Vice President of the Texas Delta Chi Housing Foundation. He was a 2016 delegate to the British-American Project, and now serves as U.S. Vice Chair, and is a member of the Council for National Policy and the Headliners Club in Austin. A native of Austin, Matt graduated with a B.S. in Political Communications from the University of Texas in 2003. Aside from his professional work, he owns and manages the popular blog site www.PotomacFlacks.com, which the Washingtonian Magazine has called “one of the best political blogs.” In 2012, Matt started a bipartisan political blog for Texas politics, MustReadTexas.com, which aggregates the top news and opinion from across the state and delivers a daily email newsletter to more than 3,000 subscribers. Matt and his wife Suzanne live in Northwest Hills in Austin and have three spoiled dogs, Ginny, Jasmine and Ella.

Scott Jensen is a lifelong Minnesotan and moved to Carver County 30 years ago to raise a family and practice medicine. He published his first book in 2015, Relationship Matters, The Foundation of Med...

Scott Jensen is a lifelong Minnesotan and moved to Carver County 30 years ago to raise a family and practice medicine. He published his first book in 2015, Relationship Matters, The Foundation of Medical Care Is Fracturing, which utilizes real life patient stories to emphasize the critical value of patient-doctor relationships and the absolute need for patients to be encouraged to be their own best “champion” for their health care decisions and desires. In 2016 Dr. Scott Jensen received the prestigious annual statewide award, Minnesota Family Physician of the Year, from the Minnesota Academy of Family Physicians. In November 2016 Jensen was elected to the Minnesota State Senate receiving more votes than any other Republican state senator. In 2019 Senator Jensen chief authored and presented seven unique bills on the senate floor, including a groundbreaking Pharmacy Benefit Manager bill representing an entirely new chapter of state statute, and all seven bills were passed by the senate unanimously. In 2020 Senator Jensen was asked by the Senate Majority Leadership to be chief author of the Insulin Safety Net Bill. After more than a year of gridlock, Senator Jensen brought the bill to the Senate floor after being chief author for 28 days – it passed unanimously. Subsequently the bill passed unanimously from the conference committee and was signed into law by Governor Walz less than a week later.

Tom Giovanetti is president of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), a public policy research organization based in Dallas, Texas. Prior to joining IPI in 1992, Mr. Giovanetti was a freelance pol...

Tom Giovanetti is president of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), a public policy research organization based in Dallas, Texas. Prior to joining IPI in 1992, Mr. Giovanetti was a freelance policy writer and the director of product development for a small manufacturing company in Dallas, where he designed several patented products and gained real-world experience in how taxes and regulations affect small business. Mr. Giovanetti writes for IPI and for other publications on a wide variety of policy topics including tax reform, intellectual property, Social Security personal accounts, communications policy, Internet governance, education reform, the broadband revolution, and out-of-control government spending. In addition to being published in leading papers including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Investor's Business Daily and The Dallas Morning News, he also appears regularly on a number of radio and television programs. Mr. Giovanetti represents IPI many national and international organizations, including the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), where IPI is an accredited NGO. IPI was also accredited as an observer organization with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), where he argued against UN involvement with Internet governance, and with the UN's Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Mr. Giovanetti also participated during meetings of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property, and represents IPI as a stakeholder during trade agreement negotiations such as the current Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Chris Jacobs, the Founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group and author of The Case Against Single Payer, has over a decade of experience in a variety of policy roles on and off Capitol Hill. He previo...

Chris Jacobs, the Founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group and author of The Case Against Single Payer, has over a decade of experience in a variety of policy roles on and off Capitol Hill. He previously worked as Policy Director for America Next, a start-up think tank, and as a Senior Policy Analyst for the Heritage Foundation and the Joint Economic Committee’s Senate Republican staff. Before that, Chris worked as a Policy Advisor for the House Republican Conference under then-Chairman Mike Pence during the debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and as a Health Policy Analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee during the first two years of the law’s implementation. He got his start on Capitol Hill as an intern for then-Congressman Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. He has taught part-time on health policy at The American University, where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and History Phi Beta Kappa.