Adam White

President

Adam White is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on American constitutionalism, the Supreme Court, and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

Mr. White previously practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and the environment, finance, and telecommunications. He was a research fellow for Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow for the Manhattan Institute. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

The author of a wide range of essays, book reviews, law review articles, and book chapters, Mr. White has appeared in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, Commentary, The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and the Notre Dame Law Review. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s “Notice and Comment” blog, and for many years he was one of The Weekly Standard’s primary writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.

Mr. White has testified before a variety of US House and US Senate committees, including the Senate Judiciary Committee; the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial, and Antitrust Law (currently known as the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law); the Senate Commerce Committee; and the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

In 2017 he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the boards of two nonprofit organizations: Speech First and the Land Conservation Assistance Network.

He has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.

Peter J. Wallison

Treasurer

Peter J. Wallison is a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies constitutional law and the growth of the administrative state (that is, the increasing power of unelected officials of executive branch agencies). His most recent book, “Judicial Fortitude: The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State” (Encounter Books, 2018), explores this problem. Along with AEI Visiting Scholar John Yoo, he heads the AEI project on the nondelegation doctrine, which holds that the Supreme Court should invalidate laws that delegate unconstitutional levels of authority to the agencies of the administrative state. This project will culminate in a 2021 book in which some of the best legal minds in America consider whether and under what conditions the Supreme Court should invoke the nondelegation doctrine

His earlier work at AEI focused on government housing policy, the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the government mortgage complex. He was also a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and wrote a dissent from the majority report.

Mr. Wallison served as a White House counsel under President Ronald Reagan. As the US Treasury Department general counsel in the same administration, he played a significant role in developing the Reagan administration’s proposals for the deregulation of the financial services industry. Mr. Wallison was also counsel to Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller in the Gerald Ford administration.

Mr. Wallison is the author of many other books, including “Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis” (Encounter Books, 2015) and “Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency” (Westview Press, 2004). In addition, he is the coauthor or editor of “Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds” (AEI Press, 2007); “Privatizing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks: Why and How” (AEI Press, 2004); “The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age” (AEI Press, 2000); and “Optional Federal Chartering and Regulation of Insurance Companies” (AEI Press, 2000).

He has been widely published in the popular press, including in American Banker, The Hill, National Review, RealClearPolitics, and The Wall Street Journal. His broadcast appearances include CNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, and Fox Business.

Mr. Wallison has a law degree from Harvard Law School and a BA from Harvard College.

James R. Copland

Secretary

James R. Copland is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of Legal Policy. In those roles, he develops and communicates novel, sound ideas on how to improve America’s civil- and criminal-justice systems. His latest book, The Unelected: How an Unaccountable Elite is Governing America (Encounter Books), was published in September 2020. He has testified before Congress as well as state and municipal legislatures; and has authored many policy briefs, book chapters, articles and opinion pieces in a variety of publications, including the Harvard Business Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, National Law Journal, and USA Today. Copland speaks regularly on civil- and criminal-justice issues; has made hundreds of media appearances in such outlets as PBS, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg, C-Span, and NPR; and is frequently cited in news articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist, and Forbes. In 2011 and 2012, he was named to the National Association of Corporate Directors “Directorship 100” list, which designates the individuals most influential over U.S. corporate governance.

Prior to joining MI, Copland was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company in New York. Earlier, he was a law clerk for Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Copland has been a director of two privately held manufacturing companies since 1997 and has served on many public and nonprofit boards. He holds a J.D. and an M.B.A. from Yale, where he was an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics; an M.Sc. in the politics of the world economy from the London School of Economics; and a B.A. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar.