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David Keating is the President of the Center for Competitive Politics (CCP), the nation’s largest organization dedicated solely to protecting First Amendment political rights.
In 2007, Mr. Keating founded the organization SpeechNow.org due to his frustration with the incessant attacks on the First Amendment. His goal was to give Americans who support free speech a way to join together, pool their resources, and advocate for federal candidates who agree with them – and work to defeat those who do not.
At that time, current campaign finance laws were restricting SpeechNow.org’s ability to engage in independent expenditures due to burdensome contribution limits on their donors. This led to the court case, SpeechNow.org v. FEC, and the result was a ruling by the federal courts that such a law was indeed unconstitutional. This ruling created what has now become known technically as an Independent Expenditure Only Political Committee, or more informally as a Super PAC.
Prior to becoming President of CCP, Mr. Keating was the Executive Director of the Club for Growth. He has played a key role in helping the Club grow its membership and influence in public policy and politics.
For many years, Mr. Keating served as Executive Vice President of the National Taxpayers Union. Mr. Keating also served as the Washington Director of Americans for Fair Taxation, a tax reform group that promotes passage of the FairTax to replace the income tax.
In May 1996, he was appointed to the National Commission on Restructuring the Internal Revenue Service by then-Senator Bob Dole because of his leading role in the development and passage of the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights. The Commission’s report was released in June 1997, and served as the basis for legislation approved by Congress in 1998, which included a further expansion of taxpayers’ rights as advocated by Mr. Keating during his work on the Commission.
He also played key roles in passage of income tax indexing legislation to prevent inflation from boosting taxpayers into higher tax brackets and passage of a bill to protect innocent spouses from being dunned by the IRS for unfair tax debts.
Michael P. Farris is president, CEO, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom. In January 2017, he became only the second person to occupy that position in the organization’s 23-year history. He brings to the role a remarkably diverse background as an effective litigator, educator, public advocate, pastor, and communicator, and wide recognition for his successful work on both the national and international stage.
Farris was founding president of both the Home School Legal Defense Association (1983) and Patrick Henry College (2000) and continues to serve as chairman of the board of HSLDA and chancellor emeritus of PHC.
He graduated from Western Washington State College, magna cum laude, with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, followed by a Juris Doctor from Gonzaga University (with honors). At Gonzaga, he was articles editor of the Law Review and winner of the Linden Cup Moot Court Competition. He also earned an LL.M. in Public International Law (with honors) from the University of London.
Farris has specialized in constitutional appellate litigation. In that capacity, he has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, eight federal circuit courts of appeals, and in the appellate courts of 13 states. He is also the author of numerous amicus briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A fixture on Capitol Hill for over 30 years, Farris has testified many times before both the House and Senate. He was an executive committee member of the Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion that successfully lobbied Congress for the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, and served as co-chairman of the drafting committee that wrote the law.
Farris also has substantial experience in international human rights advocacy. He served for nearly a decade on the board of Christian Solidarity International—a Swiss-based human rights organization. He served as International Vice President of CSI for a number of years and participated in missions to the former Soviet Union and Romania. He has also engaged in private diplomatic missions to China and the Czech Republic.
Farris is nationally known as a pioneering leader of the modern homeschooling movement. His leadership of HSLDA has taken him to nearly every state and a growing number of other nations.
As the founding president of Patrick Henry College, he helped launch a highly regarded Christian educational institution founded on a strong commitment to biblical truth and the classical liberal arts, the twin pillars of education for the founding generations of the United States. At PHC, Farris has taught constitutional law, public international law, and coached the Moot Court team to nine national championships between 2004 and 2016. Although PHC is an undergraduate college, Farris’s team competed against law schools (including Yale) in the 2016 Nelson Mandela Human Rights Moot Court Championship. At the tournament, held at the UN in Geneva, PHC won the World Championship.
Farris is the author of over 15 books, as well as law review and other scholarly articles, and countless pieces for the popular press. He has appeared on every national television network, dozens of talk shows, and played himself in a motion picture. He is the author and narrator of a popular video series entitled Constitutional Literacy, and co-host of a daily radio show, “Homeschool Heartbeat,” which airs on nearly a thousand stations.
Amanda Tyler is executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. She leads the organization as it upholds the historic Baptist principle of religious liberty, defending the free exercise of religion and protecting against its establishment by government. Tyler often speaks in churches, educational institutions and denominational gatherings, and she provides commentary on church-state issues to the media. A member of the Texas and U.S. Supreme Court Bar, she has experience working in Congress, in a private legal practice and serving as a law clerk for a federal judge.
A native of Austin, Texas, Tyler grew up hearing about the cherished Baptist principles of religious liberty and the separation of church and state as a member of Highland Park Baptist Church. Because she was committed to these principles, Tyler sought out the Baptist Joint Committee when she moved to Washington to attend Georgetown University, and she began volunteering in the office.
Tyler graduated from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown with a bachelor’s degree in foreign service, magna cum laude. She was hired by the BJC to serve as assistant to the general counsel, working closely with Brent Walker, James Dunn, Melissa Rogers and Holly Hollman. During this time, she wrote columns for Report from the Capital, drafted statements on religious liberty issues, presented educational programs and coordinated the broad coalition in support of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
Tyler left the BJC to enroll in The University of Texas School of Law, where she received her J.D. with honors. Following law school, Tyler worked in private practice and served as a law clerk for a U.S. district court judge in Dallas, Texas. She later joined the staff of U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett in Austin and Washington, D.C.
In Austin, Tyler served as the congressman’s district director, leading the staff in the development and execution of an outreach agenda for a 7-county congressional district, as well as serving as a spokesperson for his office. She later served as Rep. Doggett’s counsel for the Ways and Means Committee.
Throughout her career, Tyler continued to stay connected to the BJC. She is a long-time monthly financial supporter and served on the Board from 2010-2016.
A member of First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., she lives in the city with her husband, Robert Behrendt, and their son, Phelps.
Tim Delaney applies his diverse leadership experiences in law, government, and nonprofits as President & CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, a trusted resource and advocate for America’s charitable nonprofits that connects the nation’s largest network of nonprofits. His former roles as partner at a large law firm (where he focused on litigation, media law, and government relations), Solicitor General and later Chief Deputy Attorney General for the State of Arizona (where he guided the state to win several cases in the U.S. Supreme Court), and President of the nonprofit Center for Leadership, Ethics & Public Service (where he championed positive ethics and advanced civic engagement) inform his current work helping charitable nonprofits throughout the country achieve greater impact by identifying emerging trends, engaging in critical policy issues, exchanging proven practices, and advancing their missions through advocacy.
Since graduating from Yale and earning joint degrees in law and public affairs from the University of Texas, Tim has helped nonprofits from a variety of vantage points, including as an attorney, author, board chair, CEO, consultant, founder, incubator, lobbyist, teacher, trainer, and volunteer. Tim currently serves on the Leadership Council of Nonprofit VOTE and as a leader of the collaborative “Stand For Your Mission” campaign. He previously served as, among other things, an adjunct faculty member teaching graduate courses on “Leadership and Ethics in the Nonprofit Sector,” author of a guidebook on nonprofit advocacy, board chair of Valley Leadership, co-founder and later board chair of Valley Citizens League, a Steering Committee member for the international Affinity Group of National Associations, and a national Training Fellow for the nonprofit Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest, which the National Council of Nonprofits absorbed in 2012.
In the field of ethics and public trust, Tim has served as a prosecutor (helping to impeach a Governor and later remove four other elected officials from office), author, legislative drafter (developing Arizona’s Public Service Ethics Act and a comprehensive rewrite of Arizona’s Open Meeting Law), and consultant and trainer for businesses, governments, and nonprofits.
A sought-after speaker, Tim has made more than 100 keynote and other presentations for a diverse range of groups, such as ARNOVA, BoardSource, Conference of Western Attorneys General, Council of State Governments, Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, Girl Scouts, Imagine Canada, National Association of State Charity Officials, Philanthropy New York, The Wheel (Ireland), and YWCA, as well as state governments across the country and most of the state associations of nonprofits. Additionally, Tim has been interviewed by ABC News, Chronicle of Philanthropy, C-SPAN, NPR, The New York Times, Nonprofit Quarterly, NonProfit Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, U.S. News and World Report, Wall Street Journal, and many other news outlets. He also writes extensively, publishing articles and reports about advocacy, current events, nonprofits, and public policy.
Numerous organizations have formally recognized Tim’s community and professional contributions, including the National Association of Attorneys General (Marvin Award for leadership and service, and co-recipient of the Best Brief Award for legal writing in the U.S. Supreme Court), National Association of Community Leadership (Distinguished Leadership Award), LBJ School of Public Affairs (Distinguished Public Service Award – alumnus of the year), ASU School of Public Affairs (Faculty Associate Award for teaching excellence), ASU College of Extended Education (Outstanding Faculty Member Award for “excellence in teaching” at the Nonprofit Management Institute), the City of Phoenix (which dedicated the Delaney Family Playground in recognition of years of public service), and the NonProfit Times (Power & Influence Top 50 nonprofit leaders in the country in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015).
