79th U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft

Calling him a "man of great integrity, a man of great judgment and a man who knows the law," President George W. Bush announced his decision to nominate John Ashcroft to serve as U.S. Attorney General on December 22, 2000. One of the most high-profile and experienced attorneys general in the nation's history, Mr. Ashcroft led the U.S. law enforcement community through the challenging and transformational period following the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001.

Mr. Ashcroft served as governor of Missouri from 1985 through 1993. His success in setting new performance standards for education led Fortune magazine to rate him one of the top ten education governors. He was re-elected in 1988 by the widest margin in state history.

Mr. Ashcroft was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994, where he championed greater fiscal responsibility. He authored the budget rules that protected the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds from being spent on other government programs and helped balance the federal budget in 1999 after three decades of deficits. He also authored new laws to toughen mandatory penalties for gun crimes and drug trafficking.

As U.S. attorney general, Mr. Ashcroft was the chief executive officer ran the world's largest international law firm, a national prison system, and the world's finest law enforcement agencies. Mr. Ashcroft substantially reorganized the Justice Department to focus on its number one priority: to prevent another terrorist attack. Leveraging every legal tool available to law enforcement, including the critical tools provided in the USA PATRIOT Act, the Justice Department initiated a tough anti-terrorism campaign that has assisted in disrupting over 150 terrorist plots worldwide, dismantling terrorist cells in cities across America, and convicting 191 individuals in terrorism-related investigations.

Robert D. Novak

Washington columnist Robert Novak currently serves as a FOX News Channel contributor. He also writes a syndicated column, "Inside Report," for Creators Syndicate that is published three times a week. In addition, Novak produces a twice-monthly newsletter, the "Evans-Novak Political Report," and is a contributing editor for Reader's Digest.

Mr. Novak joined the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal in 1958 as its Senate correspondent and political reporter, becoming chief Congressional correspondent for the Journal in 1961.

On May 15, 1963, Mr. Novak teamed up with the late Rowland Evans, Jr., then Congressional correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, to write "Inside Report", a political column published four times a week. Since 1966, the Chicago Sun-Times has been the home newspaper to the column. One of the longest running syndicated columns in the nation, "Inside Report" has always been based on hard reporting. For over a quarter of a century, both columnists not only crisis-crossed the nation regularly covering politics, but also traveled abroad to report wars, revolutions and international conferences around the globe.

Mr. Novak's first book was Agony of the GOP: 1964. In collaboration with Rowland Evans, he has written Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power and The Reagan Revolution. In November 1999, Mr. Novak published Completing the Revolution: A Vision for Victory in 2000. His memoirs, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years of Reporting in Washington is his most current book.

75th US Attorney General Edwin Meese III

Former attorney General Edwin Meese III is a prominent leader, thinker, and elder statesman in the Conservative Movement – and America itself. Meese spent most of his adult life working with Ronald Reagan both when he was Governor of California and U.S. President. Meese served as Gov. Reagan’s Executive Assistant and Chief of Staff in California from 1969 through 1974. He also was his Legal Affairs Secretary from 1967 through 1968. He then served as the 75th U.S. Attorney General and later held the position of Counsellor to the President – the senior position on the White House Staff – where he functioned as Reagan’s chief policy adviser. As Attorney General and as Counsellor, Meese was a member of Reagan’s Cabinet and the National Security Council.

Senator Alan K. Simpson

Simpson began his political career in 1964 when he was elected to the Wyoming State Legislature as a state representative of Park County. He served for the next 13 years in the Wyoming House of Representatives, holding the offices of majority whip, majority floor leader, and speaker pro-tem. In 1978, he ran for and was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate for the six-year term beginning January 3, 1979. He was re-elected in 1984 and again in 1990. While in the Senate, Simpson served as majority leader, assistant minority leader, and chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He also served on the Judiciary Committee and chaired its Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Policy, the Environment and Public Works Committee, the Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, the Special Committee on Aging, and the Select Committee to Investigate Undercover Operations of the FBI and the Department of Justice. Simpson completed his third and final term on January 3, 1997. After retiring from the Senate, Simpson served as director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government from 1998 to 2000 before returning to Wyoming to resume practicing law in Cody. He was selected as co-chairman of the Continuity of Government Commission after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

Tom Tancredo

Tom Tancredo, a lifelong Coloradan and native of Denver, represents Colorado's 6th congressional district. Tom is a school teacher by trade and taught for several years at Drake Junior High before serving in the Colorado Legislature and in the Department of Education for former presidents Reagan and Bush. He also headed up the Independence Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Golden, prior to being elected to Congress in 1998.

He is a member of both the House Foreign Affairs and Natural Resources Committees. He is also the founder and former chairman of the bipartisan House Immigration Reform Caucus. In addition, Tom is a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Ron Robinson

Ron Robinson is the president of Young America’s Foundation. USA Today notes that Robinson “has been involved in conservative campus issues for three decades.” TIME magazine wrote that Young America’s [“Foundation—run by a former Reagan Administrator advisor, Ron Robinson—is now the nation’s largest advocacy group devoted to student politics.” TIME referred to Robinson as one of the “seasoned generals of the right” who is leading the “diverse and well funded” generation of conservatives who are “winning battles on campus.” He has led the Foundation through two victorious supreme court cases, developed the renowned National Conservative Student Conference, and led the acquisition and preservation efforts of Ronald Regan's Rancho del Cielo.

Michelle Easton

In January 1993, Michelle Easton finished twelve years of service in the administrations of Presidents Reagan and Bush. She received presidential appointments from both Presidents Reagan and Bush with Senate confirmation for her position at the U.S. Department of Education, where she served for seven of the twelve years.

In 1994, Virginia Governor George Allen appointed Michelle to the Virginia State Board of Education, whose members later elected her president of the Board. She led the Board to create nationally acclaimed academic standards, tests, and a rigorous new system of accountability for both students and schools. Prior to her government service, Michelle worked five years for Young Americans for Freedom and two years for National Right to Work, putting herself through law school at night to graduate from American University's Washington School of Law in 1980. She received her BA from Briarcliff College in New York where she briefly taught elementary school before moving to Washington DC in 1973.

Michelle travels widely to promote conservative principles and speaks at scores of conferences, meetings, and campus events. Her television appearances include Firing Line, the Fox News Channel, and C-SPAN, among others. She has been interviewed on hundreds of talk radio programs. Articles she wrote have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Richmond Times-Dispatch, Human Events, The Washington Times, and many other newspapers and publications.

The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, under the leadership of Michelle Easton, is putting forward conservative role models who promote traditional family values and reach out to women all over the nation to prepare them for effective conservative leadership.