Mr. Shackelford is a constitutional scholar who has argued before the United States Supreme Court, testified before the U.S. House and Senate on constitutional issues, and has won three state landmark First Amendment and religious liberty cases in the past few years alone. He was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past quarter-century by Texas Lawyer, and is the recipient of the prestigious William Bentley Ball Award for Life and Religious Freedom Defense for his leadership and pioneering work protecting religious freedom.

Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, a research-based, public policy “think tank.” He is a health policy expert and weekly contributor at Forbes.com. He also serves as Vice Chairman of the Texas Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Dr. Matthews is a past president of the Health Economics Roundtable for the National Association for Business Economics, the largest trade association of business economists. Dr. Matthews also served for 10 years as the medical ethicist for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s Institutional Review Board for Human Experimentation, and has contributed chapters to several books, including Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate and The 21st Century Health Care Leader and, in 2009, Stop Paying the Crooks (on Medicare fraud).

He has been published in numerous journals and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, Barron’s, USA Today, Forbes magazine and the Washington Times. He was an award-winning political analyst for the USA Radio Network.

Dr. Matthews received his Ph.D. in Humanities from the University of Texas.

A group of nearly 50 conservative heavyweights co-signed a statement Wednesday supporting lawmakers who voted against Kevin McCarthy in his bid for House speaker.

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First Liberty is closing out 2022 on a high note, and we’re looking ahead to making next year another historic year for religious liberty in America. We have tremendous opportunities in front of us as ...

The derogatory term “welfare queen” was so 1980s and ‘90s, when Republicans and even some Democrats were looking to reform welfare programs. President Biden, by contrast, is doing all he can to expand the number ...

The Wall Street Journal quotes Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), “We’re not negotiating, we’re giving them [i.e., Republicans] nothing.  

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