Our team currently consists of our Board of Directors.
About Us
Board of Directors:
John Storr
President
John Storr is the founder and President of Democracy Restated. He began focusing on political reform while working on a book on the 14th Amendment. He has a BA in History from Brown University and a JD from Columbia Law School. He wrote and published a book on Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare genetic disease that one of his daughters has, and is funding research into the syndrome. He lives in Pasadena, CA.
Richard Albert
Richard Albert is one of the leading scholars of constitutionalism and constitutional amendments. He is a professor of law and government at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds law and political science degrees from Yale, Oxford, and Harvard. He is the author of Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions, published by Oxford University Press, and over 25 other books on constitutional democracy. He is very active in organizing scholarly meetings and in supporting younger scholars.
Caroline Fredrickson
Caroline Fredrickson is a progressive legal reformer and author. She was the President of the American Constitution Society from 2009 to 2019, and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law. She does TV and radio appearances, writes opinion pieces for major newspapers, and has written books on working women, election laws, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She was the Chief of Staff to Senator Maria Cantwell, and Deputy Chief of Staff to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. She has a JD from Columbia and a BA from Yale in Russian and East European Studies.
Dave Hoppe
Dave Hoppe was the Chief of Staff to Paul Ryan, when he was Speaker of the House, and to Trent Lott, when he was Senate Majority Leader. He also was a high level aide to Senators Jon Kyl and Dan Coats, and to Representative Jack Kemp. He played important roles in many major legislative efforts, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997 and the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. He serves on the boards of several organizations that empower disabled individuals. He has a BA in Government from Notre Dame and an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins.
Tom Jacobson
Tom Jacobson has been a top executive in fundraising at major Los Angeles cultural institutions. He spent 15 years at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, then moved on to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and after that, to the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association. Tom is also an award-winning playwright, who often digs into American history when doing research for his plays. He has served on the boards of several local theaters in Los Angeles.
Carol McNamara
Carol McNamara is a scholar of politics and literature, and a founder and leader of civic-minded organizations. She is currently the director of the Great Hearts Institute for Classical Education. Previously, she was the senior director for the Center for Constitutional Design at Arizona State University, and she founded and led institutes of politics and public service at two Utah universities. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Politics from Boston College. Her academic interests include Shakespeare’s politics, ancient Greek political thought, and Tom Wolfe.
Ken Sikkema
Ken Sikkema served for twenty years as a Republican in the Michigan legislature, ending up as the Senate Majority Leader. He is the only person to have led his caucus in both the House and the Senate. He successfully advanced bipartisan solutions to environmental and energy challenges. He also focused on fiscal responsibility and reforming government operations. He has a BA in History from Harvard, and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
Troy Smith
Troy Smith is a professor and scholar of American federalism. He is an editor of Federalism in America: An Encyclopedia, and a fellow at the Center for the Study of Federalism. His work has appeared in Publius: The Journal of Federalism. He is the Director of the Master of Arts in Constitutional Government, Civics, and Law at Utah Valley University. Previously, he was a professor at Brigham Young University–Hawaii. He received a PhD in political science from the University at Albany, and an MA in international affairs from George Washington University.
Julie Suk
Julie Suk is a scholar and professor of law, focusing on equality and gender. She is currently a professor at Fordham Law, having earlier been a professor at City University of New York and Cardozo Law School, as well as a visiting professor at the law schools of Yale, Harvard, Columbia, University of Chicago, and UCLA. Her 2023 book, After Misogyny: How the Law Fails Women and What to Do about It, focused on women’s struggles towards inclusive constitutional democracy around the world. She received a doctorate in politics from Oxford and a JD from Yale.