THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY FOR LAW & PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES
MADISON LAWYERS CHAPTER PRESENTS:
Executive Overreach in the Age of Obama: Dodd-Frank, IRS Targeting, & the DOJ
A Conversation with former White House Counsel Boyden Gray
Moderated by the Honorable Randy Koschnick, Jefferson County Circuit Court
Thursday, June 27, 2013
5:00 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.
Madison Club, 5 East Wilson Street, Madison, WI
Program will begin at 5:15 p.m.
$15 Federalist Society Members
$20 Non-Federalist Society Members
(Hors d’oeuvres, desserts, and beverages included)
CLE Pending
Please RSVP by Monday, June 24th to:
Andrew Hitt – andrew.hitt.fed.soc@gmail.com
About this event: The political discourse in this country has increasingly turned towards a discussion of executive overreach by the Obama administration. Beginning with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as “Obamacare,” questions have repeatedly arisen as to whether the executive branch has exceeded its constitutional powers. President Obama signed Dodd-Frank into law in July of 2010. The constitutionality of the Act has been challenged based on separation of powers, vagueness, and due process. Boyden Gray and Associates is litigating the matter. Additionally, IRS officials have admitted to targeting conservative groups and subjecting them to increased and unwarranted scrutiny, and most recently, the DOJ has reviewed reporters’ phone records and emails in the course of a leak investigation and has ordered phone and internet providers to turn over millions of records of correspondence data between individual in the United States and abroad. During this conversation with Boyden Gray, we look to define executive overreach, establish a framework to discuss it, and examine whether there is in fact a rise of executive overreach in the age of President Obama.
A critical review of executive action is one of the Federalist Society’s new initiatives entitled the Executive Branch Review project. An increase in Federal executive branch regulatory activity – whether through executive order, formal or informal administrative agency action – has been noted by many across the country. In launching Executive Branch Review, the Practice Groups of the Federalist Society seek to prompt a national debate about whether there has been an uptick in such regulatory activity, and, if so, with what consequence. The project will provide an objective resource that identifies major government activity, and provides a forum for debate and discussion about whether such regulation constitutes a form of legal and regulatory overreach.
Guests:
C. Boyden Gray, of the District of Columbia, is the former Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy Diplomacy (2008-2009) and former Special Envoy for European Union Affairs (2008-2009). He is now a founding partner of the D.C.-based law firm, Boyden Gray & Associates LLP.
Prior to his appointment as Special Envoy, Mr. Gray served as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union in Brussels from 2006 to 2007. From 1969 to 1981 and 1993 to 2005, Mr. Gray was a partner in the Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr law firm in Washington. He served as White House Counsel in the administration of President George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) and earlier served as Legal Counsel to Vice President Bush (1981-1989). Mr. Gray also served as counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief during the Reagan Administration.
Mr. Gray was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He earned his Bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Harvard University and his Juris Doctor with high honors from the Law School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Following his graduation from university, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps. After law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1968-69).
The Honorable Randy R. Koschnick has distinguished himself as a leader in Wisconsin’s legal community and is currently serving as Presiding Judge of the Jefferson County Circuit Court and Chief Judge of Wisconsin’s Third Judicial District. He is an award-winning jurist with 30 years of legal experience covering a broad spectrum of the law including the Circuit Court, the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office, city and county prosecutor’s offices, legal education presenter and Board Member of the State Bar of Wisconsin Criminal Law Section.
Judge Koschnick was elected to the Jefferson County Circuit Court, Branch 4, in 1999 and then re-elected to the bench in 2005 and 2011. Prior to his three terms on the Circuit Court, Judge Koschnick served 14 years as lawyer with the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office in La Crosse, Monroe, Waukesha and Jefferson Counties, where he was elevated to Deputy First Assistant State Public Defender (1985-1999). He also gained valuable prosecution experience while working in the Homicide and Sexual Assault Prosecution Unit of the Hennepin County (MN) Attorney’s Office (1984-1985) and prosecuting misdemeanor and traffic cases in the Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office (1983-1985).
Judge Koschnick is a lifelong Wisconsin resident. He was born in Milwaukee in 1960, graduated from Whitefish Bay High School (1978), received a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (1982), and earned his Juris Doctorate from Hamline University School of Law (1985).
Judge Koschnick resides in Jefferson County with his wife of 30 years, Terri. They have two daughters.