April 14, 2005

Speaker Biographies

Christopher Cox (R-CA) is the first chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, with primary jurisdiction over the nation’s third largest cabinet agency, the Department of Homeland Security. In addition, the committee has responsibility for government-wide homeland security policy and the most significant responsibility for homeland security policy of any House or Senate committee. From 1986–1988, he served as senior associate counsel to President Reagan, advising the president on a broad range of policy matters; his tasks in this capacity included writing President Reagan's Budget Process Reform Act (which Representative Cox later introduced in Congress, and which received its first-ever floor vote in 2000). He also served as an adviser to the president on judicial selections, including the nomination and confirmation of three Supreme Court Justices. In 1994, President Clinton appointed him to the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform. Rep. At the requests of President George H. W. Bush, Speaker of the House Tom Foley, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Rep. Cox has served as an observer to elections in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, and as a delegate of the Helsinki Commission to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Cox has won numerous awards from taxpayer, business, and consumer advocacy organizations. These include being named a "Taxpayer Hero" by the National Taxpayers Union and Citizens Against Government Waste; a "Tax Fighter" by the National Tax Limitation Committee; a "Hero of the Taxpayer" by Americans for Tax Reform; a "Super Friend of Seniors" by the 60/Plus Association; a "Guardian of Small Business" by the National Federation of Independent Businesses; and a "Friend of the Consumer" by the citizen watchdog group Consumer Alert.

Christopher DeMuth has been president of AEI since 1986. He previously practiced law, was a consulting economist, taught at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and held positions in the Reagan and Nixon administrations. His articles have appeared in Commentary, The Public Interest, the Harvard Law Review, the Wall Street Journal, and the American Enterprise.

Veronique de Rugy is a National Research Initiative research fellow at AEI. She was a fiscal policy analyst at the Cato Institute from 2001 to 2004, a postdoctoral fellow at the George Mason University Department of Economics from 2000 to 2001, and a research fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation from 1999 to 2000. She has also served on the Board of Directors of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity since 2000. Ms. de Rugy has written extensively on the dangers of EU and OECD tax harmonization proposals, is the author of numerous op-eds and academic papers, and is the coauthor of Action ou Taxation, published in Switzerland in 1996.

Heather Mac Donald is a John M. Olin fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to City Journal. She also is a recipient of the 2005 Bradley Prize for Outstanding Intellectual Achievement. Ms. Mac Donald's work at City Journal has canvassed a range of topics including homeland security, immigration, policing and "racial" profiling, homelessness and homeless advocacy, educational policy, the New York courts, and business improvement districts. Ms. Mac Donald's writings have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, The New Republic, Partisan Review, The New Criterion, Public Interest, and Academic Questions. A non-practicing lawyer, Ms. Mac Donald has clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, has been an attorney-adviser in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and a volunteer with the National Resource Defense Fund in New York City. In 1998, she was appointed to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's task force on the City University of New York, thanks in large part to her City Journal essays on education. She is also a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN, and other television and radio programs.

Kevin A. Hassett is the director of economic policy studies and a resident scholar at AEI. Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University. He was an economic adviser to the Bush campaign in the 2004 presidential election, and was the chief economic adviser to Senator John McCain during the 2000 primaries. He has also served as a policy consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury during both the former Bush and Clinton administrations. Mr. Hassett is a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation's Dynamic Scoring Advisory Panel. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of six books on economics and economic policy, including Dow 36,000 (Times Books), the 1999 best-selling book on stock valuation, coauthored with James K. Glassman. He has published scholarly articles in the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Public Economics, and many other professional journals. His popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, the Washington Post, and numerous other outlets. His economic commentaries are regularly aired on radio and television, including recent appearances on the Today Show, CBS’s Morning Show, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball, Moneyline, and Power Lunch.

Matt Mayer is the acting executive director, chief of staff, and senior policy adviser for the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness (SLGCP) in the Office of the Secretary in the Department of Homeland Security. SLCGP is the primary office responsible for terrorism preparedness in Homeland Security. Mr. Mayer came to Homeland Security from Colorado where he served Governor Bill Owens as the deputy director for the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA). Mr. Mayer has published several public policy articles, and he has co-hosted several policy roundtables involving stakeholders on matters such as the re-importation of prescription drugs from foreign sources and the impact the FCC’s Triennial Review would have on telecommunications investment and activities. As an accomplished attorney, Mr. Mayer represented clients in matters ranging from employment discrimination cases to product liability actions, and successfully litigated several cases in federal court and private arbitration. Mr. Mayer served as secretary on the Denver Children’s Home Board of Directors, as vice chairman for Opera Colorado’s Board of Directors, and as treasurer and vice president of Finance for Opera/Columbus. At Governor Owens’ request, Mr. Mayer served on the Judicial Nominating Committee in Colorado. Mr. Mayer has served as a speaker at several events, including the American Community Preparedness Conference, the Small Business Administrations’ Business Economic Development Day, and at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy’s Homeland Security Forum.

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