Degrees Earned
B.A., University of Texas, Austin, 1991
M.A., Georgetown University, 2005
Ph.D., Georgetown University, 2010
Publications & Editorships
Books
Madison’s Metronome: The Constitution, Majority Rule and the Tempo of American Politics,
University Press of Kansas (March 2012)
American Burke: The Uncommon Liberalism of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, University Press of Kansas (February 2015)
Old Whigs: Burke, Lincoln and the Politics of Prudence (Encounter Books, June 2019)
The Political Constitution: The Case Against Judicial Supremacy (University Press of Kansas,
August 2019)
Articles
“James Madison and the Legitimacy of Majority Factions,” American Political Thought 2:2
(Fall 2013)
“Machiavelli’s Inflationary Economy of Violence: Notes on the Story of Agathocles,”
Interpretation 42:2 (Winter 2016)
Book Chapter
“‘The Cool and Deliberate Sense of the Community’: The Federalist on Congress,” Cambridge
Companion to The Federalist (in production)
Reference
“John Adams,” Blackwell’s Encyclopedia of Political Thought
“Separation of Powers,” Blackwell’s Encyclopedia of Political Thought
“Daniel Patrick Moynihan,” Encyclopedia of American Governance
Reviews
Review of John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy by Luke Mayville, Review of Politics 80:1 (2018)
“The Cussedness of Nathan Glazer,” Review Essay on When Ideas Mattered: A Nathan Glazer
Reader, Joseph Dorman and Leslie Lenkowsky, eds., Society (May 2018)
Review of The Papers of James Madison, Retirement Series, Volume 3, David B. Matter, et. al., eds.,
Early American Literature 52:3 (2017)
Review Essay on Reflections on the Revolution in France and Other Writings, ed. Jesse Norman,
Society (July 2018)
“James Madison Problems,” Review Essay on The Mind of James Madison by Colleen
Sheehan,Madison’s Hand by Mary Sarah Bilder, and James Madison and the Problem of Constitutional Imperfection by Jeremy Bailey, Journal of the Early Republic (Winter 2016/2017)
“The Birth of Tragedy,” Review Essay on Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics, ed. Elisabeth Sifton, Society (August 2016)
Review of Ambition in America by Jeffrey A. Becker, American Political Thought (Fall 2015)
Review of The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke by David Bromwich, Society (April 2015)
Review of Edmund Burke: The First Conservative by Jesse Norman and The Great Debate:
Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and the Birth of Right and Left by Yuval Levin, Society (August 2014)
Review of Moynihan’s Moment by Gil Troy, Society (December 2013)
Review of Cosmic Constitutional Theory by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Society
(March 2013)
Non-Refereed Writings
New York Times
“Impeachment’s Political Heart,” May 18, 2017
“The President’s Self-Destructive Disruption,” October 11, 2017
“The Power of the Courts is Messing Up Politics,” November 12, 2017
“The Scoundrel Theory of American Politics,” December 8, 2017
“How Not to Impeach,” January 2, 2018
“Wayne LaPierre’s Unconstitutionalism,” February 28, 2018
“When Liberals Become Progressives, Much is Lost,” April 13, 2018
“Congress Doesn’t Seem to Know its Own Strength,” June 21, 2018
“Nancy Pelosi’s First Order of Business Should Be to Reclaim the Power of the House,” November 9, 2018
“For Trump, the Personal is Political,” January 19, 2019
“Our Constitutional Emergency,” March 26, 2019
“It’s Not Always the End of the World,” May 26, 2019
“The Trump Fallacy,” June 30, 2019
Washington Post
“It’s all about the president now,” October 26, 2017
“There will be no winners in the Supreme Court’s wedding cake case,” December 4, 2017
“No, Congress should not protect Robert Mueller,” February 1, 2018
Society
“Of Principle and Prudence: Reflections on Lincoln’s Second Inaugural at 150,” 52:6
(December 2015)
National Affairs
“Moynihan and the Neocons,” Winter 2016
“A Constitutional Welfare State,” Fall 2016
“Trump and Truth,” Spring 2017
“After Federalist No. 10,” Fall 2017
“A Madisonian Reform,” Spring 2019
Extensions: Journal of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center
“Majorities and Madisonian Paradoxes,” Summer 2014
Modern Age
“The Founding Fathers: A Conserving Caucus in Action,” (co-authored with George W. Carey, January 2014)
“Conservatism’s Constitutional Moment,” Spring 2017
Online Library of Law and Liberty (www.libertylawsite.org)
“Congress and Deliberation in the Age of Wilson: An Elegy,” invited Liberty Forum essay, March 2013
“Evaluating the Moynihan Report on the Negro Family 50 Years Later,” invited Liberty Forum essay, March 2015
“He Tried to Warn Us: Hayek on Trump,” invited Liberty Forum essay, January 2017
“The Price of Trump: Reflections on Year One of an Unconventional Presidency,” invited Liberty Forum essay, January 2018
More than 150 other op-ed-length essays on constitutional issues and current events
Presentations
2018 “The Dilemma of a Judicial Rencounter,” Harvard University Program on Constitutional Government
2018 “The Telos of the First Amendment: The Case of Campaign Finance,” Constitution Day Lecture, Georgetown University
2018 “Defining Decency Down,” Constitution Day Lecture, American University
2018 “The Politics of Impeachment,” Constitution Day Lecture, Belmont Abbey College
2017 “The Constitutional Status of the Judiciary,” American Political Science Association
2017 “‘The Stable Foundation of Nature’: James Wilson’s Critique of Edmund Burke,” Midwest Political Science Association
2016 “The Old Regime and the New Deal,” American Political Science Association
2016 “American Burke: The Uncommon Liberalism of Daniel Patrick Moynihan,” Kansas City Public Library
2016 “The Old Regime and the New Deal,” Southern Political Science Association
2015 “James Madison and Public Opinion,” Constitution Day panel with Colleen Sheehan
and Jeremy Bailey, College of the Holy Cross
2015 “James Madison and the Bill of Rights,” Constitution Day panel with Colleen
Sheehan and Jeremy Bailey, Assumption College
2015 “Independent of Heaven Itself,” Constitution Day Lecture, Texas State University
2015 “Of Prudence and Principle: Reflections on Lincoln’s Second Inaugural at 150,”
Paideia Colloquium, Assumption College
2015 “‘The Dilemma of a Judicial Rencounter’: James Madison, the Judiciary, and
Constitutional Interpretation,” Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison’ Montpelier (Presentation to Staff)
2015 “‘The Nurse of Aggrandizement’: Woodrow Wilson, World War I and the Executive State,” Assumption College
2015 “John Quincy Adams’ 1791 ‘Letters of Publicola’: Reconsidering the Founding,” American Political Science Association
2015 “Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Scholar as Statesman, the Statesman as Scholar,”
Midwest Political Science Association
2014 “Restoration without Romance,” Constitution Day Lecture, Boise State University
2013 “Congress’ Constitutional Capitulation,” University of Oklahoma Department of
Political Science and Institute for American Constitutional Heritage (Invited Lecture)
2013 “Why We’re Wrong About Rights: George W. Carey on Individualism, Community
and the Contemporary Condition,” American Political Science Association
2013 “When Veneration Becomes Excessive: James Madison on Constitutional
Amendments,” American Political Science Association (co-authored with Benjamin A. Kleinerman)
2013 “Needles in Madison’s Haystack: Minority Factions and Pressure Group Politics in
the ‘Extended Republic,’” Midwest Political Science Association
2012 “A Conversation on the Presidency,” Assumption College
2012 “James Madison and the Legitimacy of Majority Factions,” American Political
Science Association (scheduled but canceled due to hurricane)
2012 “When Veneration Becomes Excessive: James Madison on Constitutional
Amendments,” Midwest Political Science Association (co-authored with Benjamin A. Kleinerman)
2011 “Quantum Constitutionalism,” American Political Science Association
2010 “Temporal Republicanism,” Brown University Political Philosophy Workshop
2010 “‘The Collision and Contagion of the Passions:’ Factions, Justice and the Extent of Popular Authority in Federalist 10,” Northeast Political Science Association
2008 “‘The Mild Voice of Reason’: James Madison and the Tempo of American
Democracy,” Southern Political Science Association
2007 “The Is, the Ought Not and the Oven of Akhnai: Faith and Reason in Strauss’ Natural
Right and History,” Midwest Political Science Association
2006 “Mr. Cheney, Meet Mr. Agathocles: Torture, Terrorism and Machiavelli’s ‘Economy
of Violence,’” Northeastern Political Science Association
2006 “Raising Money, Raising Hackles: Analyzing Interest Group Response to Supreme
Court Decisions through Direct Mail Solicitations,” Southern Political Science Association (co-author)
Grants and Awards
2011 Jack Miller Center, Chairman’s Award for Best Dissertation in American Political Thought
2010 Georgetown University Harold N. Glassman Award for Best Dissertation in the Social Sciences
2009 Best Self-Taught Course by a Graduate Student, Georgetown University (“The Federalist on Current Affairs”)
2006 Best Graduate Student Paper in Political Theory, Georgetown University (“To Try Experiments Merely Upon Philosophy: Hume, Montesquieu and the Tenth Federalist”)