Signatories to the Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles include a variety of leaders from across the American Right.
High-profile journalists and commentators such as Jonah Goldberg, George Will, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Karl Rove, and Mona Charen? Check.
Executives and analysts at such prominent national think tanks as the American Enterprise Institute, the Economic Policy Innovation Center, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute? Yep.
Editors and contributors for such publications as National Review, The Washington Examiner, The Wall Street Journal, The Dispatch, The Washington Free Beacon, FUSION, Law & Liberty, The Bulwark, The American Spectator, and National Affairs? Roger that.
Scholars on such campuses as Stanford, Duke, Berkeley, North Carolina State, Florida State, Tulane, Cornell, Clemson, George Washington, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Liberty, Catholic, George Mason, Ava Maria, Hillsdale, and Grove City? You bet.
Key conservative leaders in such states as California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Arizona, Washington, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Michigan? Of course.
Today, we feature signatories who represent another category: activists fighting for core conservative principles within networks and coalitions across the United States.
Confirming justice
Ashley Baker is the director of public policy at the Committee for Justice. Her focus areas include the Supreme Court, technology, and regulatory policy.
A FreeCon signatory and expert on judicial confirmations, Baker worked closely on the efforts to confirm Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. She’s also an active member of the Federalist Society, where she serves as a member of the Regulatory Transparency Project’s Cyber & Privacy working group.
Baker’s writing has appeared in Fox News, USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Hill, RealClearPolitics, and elsewhere.
In a recent coalition letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Baker joined other conservatives in challenging Biden administration attempts to evade a congressional prohibition against regulating the price of broadband services.
“Despite clear legislative intent, we have observed a troubling trend where pressure is being placed on states to impose such regulations. That not only undermines the law, but also disrupts the established regulatory framework intended by Congress.”
Soaring premiums
FreeCon signatories Jim Martin and Saul Anuzis serve as chairman and president, respectively, of the 60 Plus Association, which gives a voice to seniors who believe in market-based solutions, freedom of speech, and limited but effective government.
60 Plus is active on such issues as protecting Social Security and Medicare, ensuring access to quality medical care, lowering taxes, and promoting energy production.
A former TV reporter and U.S. Marine, Jim Martin worked as a chief of staff on Capitol Hill before helping to organize and direct such organizations as the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) and the Public Service Research Council.
Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, has worked in business and politics for many decades. He held positions on Capitol Hill, in presidential campaigns, and at GOP campaign committees for the U.S. House and Senate.
In a recent Jacksonville Journal Courier op-ed, Anuzis argued that the Biden administration’s flawed health-care policies were hurting American seniors.
“Medicare premiums will almost certainly get even more expensive as the administration's new policies take full effect,” he wrote. “One analysis projects a staggering increase of nearly 50% next year.”
Better heard
Trent England (right) is the founder and executive director of Save Our States. He is also co-chairman of the Stop Ranked-Choice Voting Coalition and a FreeCon signatory.
The producer of the feature-length documentary film Safeguard: An Electoral College Story, England is the David & Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.
England previously served as executive vice president for both the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs and the Freedom Foundation, and as a legal policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation.
On a recent Firing Line Forum with Margeret Hoover, broadcast on PBS stations across the country, England criticized backdoor attempts to institute a national popular vote.
The Electoral College “helps various groups to get better heard” and reflects a key compromise at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to balance the interests of large and small states. It “still matters,” he said, that we have “a system that pushes political power outward.”
In the mix
• In The Washington Post, Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out that Joe Biden is following Donald Trump’s lead on trade. A new administration study admits “Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products reduced Americans’ real incomes and depressed investment but didn’t increase manufacturing employment,” he wrote. “Having reached these dismal conclusions, the report recommended not just keeping the tariffs but also adding new ones, which is what the Biden administration has done.”
• In The Critic, AEI’s Dalibor Rohac explained why civility in politics is essential. “From abortion and gay rights to geopolitics,” he wrote, “we have no choice but to live alongside people whose views on fundamental issues we find abhorrent. The best democratic politics can do is to channel such conflicts — which can otherwise lead to bloodshed — into highly structured, institutionalized forms confined to the boundaries that most of us find legitimate.”
• At The Federalist, David Harsanyi called for smashing “the state-backed higher education racket” in the aftermath of violent campus demonstrations. Transferring the cost of student loans to federal taxpayers is wrongheaded, he argued, because “bailouts disincentivize schools from acting responsibly and incentivize some students to keep chasing degrees that will do them very little good.”
• At National Review Online, Jon Hartley celebrated nuclear power’s revival. “Climate policymakers insist on the urgency of reducing emissions to net zero by 2050,” he wrote. “There will be a better chance of achieving that goal if the time-consuming regulation surrounding the construction of new nuclear reactors is reduced to a level compatible with a realistic assessment of their risks rather than paranoia.”