Prof. Bradley A. Smith

Bradley A. Smith is one of the nation's leading authorities on Election Law and Campaign Finance. In 2000 he was nominated by President Clinton to fill a Republican-designated seat on the Federal Election Commission, where he served for five years, including serving as Chairman of the Commission in 2004. Since August of 2005 he has served as Professor of Law at Capital University Law School. He is also Of Counsel with the Columbus, Ohio and Washington D.C. offices of the law firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease. Previously, he had been on the Capital University Law School faculty from 1993 to 2000. He has also taught law at George Mason University in Virginia.

Professor Smith is a fixture in the national discussion on campaign finance, and has been called "the most sought after witness" when Congress considers campaign finance issues. His writings have appeared in leading law journals across the country, including the Yale Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, the Harvard Journal of Legislation, and Pennsylvania Law Review, and in popular publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and National Review. Professor Smith's book, "Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Re form (Princeton University Press)," received national attention when it was published in 2001. Syndicated columnist George Will praised it as "the year's most important book on governance." The Times of London called it "a much needed dose of realism which has relevance far beyond America," and Publishers Weekly described it as "a marvelous contrarian view: moderate in tone, elegant in language, clever in argument."

A frequent guest lecturer, Professor Smith has spoken at more than 30 of the nation's law schools, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, Michigan and New York University. His many media credits include national appearances on ABC, NBC, PBS, Fox, CNBC, MSNBC, C-Span, and Bloomberg Media, including such programs as Hardball, Hannity & Colmes, and the O'Reilly Factor. He also has appeared on numerous local, national and Canadian radio programs, and made television appearances in Great Britain and Japan. Professor Smith has represented the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights as an election observer overseas, and addressed election officials from developing democracies on behalf of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and the International Republican Institute. Professor Smith serve d from 2001 through 2005 on the Advisory Committee to the Standing Committee on Election Law of the American Bar Association, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Election Law Journal and the Board of Advisors of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. He is also a member of the Advisory Board to the Institute of Politics at the University of Minnesota School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2005, Professor Smith founded the Arlington, Virginia-based Center for Competitive Politics to provide unbiased information to the public on the effects of money in politics, and continues to serve as Chairman of the Center. He is also on the Board of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions.

Prior to attending law school, Professor Smith served as United States Vice Consul in Ecuador and as Executive Director of the Small Business Association of Michigan. He is a cum laude graduate of both Harvard Law School and Kalamazoo College, and the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Augus tana College.

Publications