Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine

Neal R. Sonnett, a Miami lawyer, chairs the 10-member task force. Sonnett is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Criminal Division for the Southern District of Florida. He is past chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section, which he represents in the ABA House of Delegates; incoming vice-chair of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities; chair of the ABA Task Force on Domestic Surveillance and the ABA Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants; and president-elect of the American Judicature Society

William S. Sessions, now in private practice in Washington, D.C., is a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, chief U.S. district court judge for the Western District of Texas, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, and chief of the Government Operations Section of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Patricia M. Wald, most recently a member of the President's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, is a former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and trial and appellate judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She was an assistant attorney general for legislative affairs in the Carter Administration.

Former Rep. Mickey Edwards, a lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and director of the Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership, served in the House Republican Leadership as a member of Congress from 1977-1992, was a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, former national chair of the American Conservative Union, and director of policy advisory task forces for the Reagan presidential campaign.

Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and international consultant with The Lichfield Group, was associate deputy attorney general and assistant director of the Office of Legal Policy of the Department of Justice under President Reagan. He also served as general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, and a resident scholar at the Heritage Foundation.

Dean and professor Harold Hongju Koh of Yale Law School, is one of the country's leading experts on international human rights and national security law. A former assistant secretary of state, Koh advised former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright on U.S. policy on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, and also served as an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice.

Charles Ogletree, the Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, and Founding and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, is a prominent legal theorist who has made an international reputation by taking a hard look at complex issues of law and by working to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution for everyone equally under the law. The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, named in honor of the visionary lawyer who spearheaded the litigation in Brown v. Board of Education, opened in September 2005, and focuses on a variety of issues relating to race and justice, and will sponsor research, hold conferences, and provide policy analysis.

Professor Stephen A. Saltzburg of George Washington University Law School is a former associate independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation and deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the U. S. Department of Justice. He is the incoming chair elect of the ABA Criminal Justice Section and serves in the association’s House of Delegates.

Professor Kathleen M. Sullivan of Stanford Law School is a former dean of the school. She heads Stanford's Constitutional Law Center, has taught at Harvard and University of Southern California law schools, and is a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center. A nationally known constitutional law expert, she is co-author of a leading casebook in constitutional law.

Mark Agrast, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., formerly served as counsel and legislative director to Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass.) and aide to Rep. Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.). He is a member of the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association, chairs the ABA Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Legal Profession, and is a past chair of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities.

Tom Susman, a partner in a Washington, D.C., law firm, has served as general counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and several of its subcommittees, and in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice. He is a member of the ABA House of Delegates, past chair of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and has served on the ABA Board of Governors.

Alan Rothstein serves as advisor to the task force. He is general counsel to the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and coordinates the extensive law reform and public policy work of that 22,000-member association. He also serves in the New York State Bar Association House of Delegates.