Claremont Institute

The Claremont Institute
Formation 1979 (1979)
Type Non-profit
Location
President
 Ryan Williams[1]
Key people
 John C. Eastman, Charles R. Kesler, Ryan Williams[1]
Budget
Revenue: $5,588,691
Expenses: $4,972,703
(FYE June 2016)[2]
Website claremont.org

The Claremont Institute is an American conservative think tank based in Upland, California. The institute was founded in 1979 by four students of Harry V. Jaffa.[3] The Institute publishes the Claremont Review of Books, a quarterly journal of political thought and statesmanship, as well as other books and publications.

History

The institute was founded in 1979 by four students of Harry V. Jaffa, a professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College and the Claremont Graduate University, although the Institute has no affiliation with any of the Claremont Colleges.[3]

The institute came to prominence under the leadership of Larry P. Arnn, who was its president from 1985 until 2000, when he became the twelfth president of Hillsdale College.

The current president is Ryan Williams, who previously served as the organization's Chief Operating Officer from 2013 until being named president in September 2017.[4] Williams succeeds Michael Pack, a documentarian who served on the National Council of the National Endowment for Humanities and as senior vice president of Television Programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and who collaborated with Steve Bannon on two films.[5] Pack was the organization's president from 2015 to September 2017.

Today, approximately 20 staff members now coordinate conferences, lecture series, and other projects. The Institute also publishes the Claremont Review of Books, a quarterly journal of political thought and statesmanship, as well as other books and publications, including reprints of Jaffa's works.

The organization was an early defender of then-candidate Donald Trump.[3]

Notable staff and fellows

Publications

The Institute publishes the Claremont Review of Books, a quarterly journal of political thought and statesmanship founded in 2000. The CRB is edited by prominent scholar and Institute mainstay Charles R. Kesler and features regular columns by Boston College faculty member Martha Bayles, as well as novelist and journalist Mark Helprin.

Projects

Publius Fellows program

The Publius program is the Institute's oldest fellowship program. Since 1979, the Institute has hosted a number of young conservatives for seminars and symposia on American politics and political thought. Publius fellows, usually college seniors, recent college graduates, and graduate students meet with the Institute's fellows and other distinguished scholars for several weeks during the summer.

Lincoln Fellows program

Since 1996, the internship has offered fellowships to young professionals serving elected officials or appointed policy-makers in the federal government, as well as staff members of national political parties and non-profit institutions that research and publish on public policy and constitutional issues.

Among the 60 alumni of the program are senior staff members of U.S. Representatives and Senators, White House speech writers, legal counsel and senior advisors in the U.S. Departments of Justice and State, as well as political editorialists for the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard.

Notable alumni of the Lincoln Fellowship include former California State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, now a vice president with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, political commentator Carol Platt Liebau, editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez, attorney and talk radio host Mark Levin, and Delaware politician Christine O'Donnell.[6]

Ronald Reagan Freedom Medallion

2010 Nevada Senate candidate Sharon Angle received the Ronald Reagan Freedom Medallion from the Claremont Institute in 2004 a year after she hired John C. Eastman of the Claremont Institute to fight the Supreme Court decision when then Governor Kenny Guinn sued the Legislature to nullify the state constitution and allow a simple majority of the legislature to pass an $836 million tax increase in Angle v. Guinn.[7]. In 2006, the state supreme court reversed its 2003 decision and restored the Nevada Constitution's two-thirds vote provision.[8]

Debates with Ludwig von Mises Institute

The Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI) is one of Claremont's most frequent sparring partners among conservative think tanks. Though both hold similar positions on many moral and economic issues in general, the two are substantially different in other aspects of their respective political philosophies.

The two differ radically in their opinions about Abraham Lincoln and have engaged debates about whether Lincoln should be embraced or shunned by conservatives. This controversy over Lincoln's significance to conservatives predates both think tanks, and encompasses Jaffa's debates on the subject with National Review editor Frank Meyer and scholar M.E. Bradford. In 2002, Jaffa debated Thomas DiLorenzo, a Senior Fellow at the LvMI on the merits of Lincoln's statesmanship during the American Civil War.[9]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Leadership". The Claremont Institute. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  2. ↑ "Claremont Institute" (PDF). Foundation Center. 30 June 2016. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 "Trump speechwriter's ouster sparks racially charged debate". POLITICO. Retrieved 2018-08-27.
  4. ↑ http://thefederalist.com/2017/07/18/claremont-institute-announces-ryan-williams-as-new-president/
  5. ↑ Michael Pack (March 20, 2017). "Will Steve Bannon Help Break Left's Monopoly on Documentaries". The Federalist. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Former Lincoln Fellows". Claremont Institute. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  7. ↑ "541 US 957 Angle Nevada State Assembly Member et al. v. Guinn Governor of Nevada et al". Open Jurist. March 22, 2004. Retrieved July 9, 2010.
  8. ↑ Whaley, Sean (September 12, 2006). "Court reverses opinion from '03". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved June 1, 2010.
  9. ↑ Jaffa, Harry V.; DiLorenzo, Thomas J. (May 7, 2002). "The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate". The Independent Institute. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.