Matthew Brogdon, Senior Director of CCS

Dr. Brogdon’s scholarship examines American constitutionalism with special attention to the federal judiciary. He has published on the constitutional origins of judicial federalism and the development of the federal courts, among other topics. His work on the constitutional debate over inferior courts in the First Congress was named Article of the Year by the American Political Thought section of the American Political Science Association.

• Constitutional Foundations of the Modern Judiciary: Recovering the Institutional Logic and Structural Integrity of Article III. Under contract with University of Missouri Press, Studies in Constitutional Democracy series.
• "Conscience, Consent,and a Multiplicity of Factions: The Emergence of Disestablishment and Free Exercise in Colonial Law and Political Theology,” Perspectives on Political Science 52, no. 2 (2022): 53–66.
• “The Formation of Judicial Federalism in the United States,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 48, no. 2 (2018): 269–291.
• “'Who Would Be Free, Themselves Must Strike the Blow’: Revolt and Rhetoric in Douglass’s Heroic Slave and Melville’s Benito Cereno,” Interpretation," A Journal of Political Philosophy 45, no. 1 (2018): 3–24.
• “Young Mr. Lincoln in Ford’s Theater,” Perspectives on Political Science 47, no. 2 (2018): 78–86.
• Political Jurisprudence and the Role of the Supreme Court: Framing the Judicial Power in the Federal Convention of 1787,” American Political Thought 6, no. 2 (2017): 171-200.
• "Constitutional Text and Institutional Development: Contesting the Madisonian Compromise in the First Congress,” American Political Thought 5, no. 2 (2016): 219-249.
• "Defending the Union: Andrew Jackson’s Nullification Proclamation and American Federalism,” Review of Politics 73, no. 2 (2011): 245-27.
• “Federalist Constitutionalism and Judicial Independence,” in Readings in American Government, 9th ed., ed. Mary P. Nichols and David K. Nichols (Kendall Hunt, 2013), 329-40.
• Review of The Contested Removal Power, 1789-2010, by J. David Alvis, Jeremy D. Bailey, and F. Flagg Taylor IV, Political Science Quarterly 129, no. 4 (2014): 738-39.
• “Exorcising the Mobocratic Spirit," The Constitutionalist, January 29, 2021.
• “Dont Pack the Court," San Antonio Express News, October 7, 2020.

Andrew Bibby, Associate Director of CCS

Dr. Bibby has published in various outlets, including The Wall Street Journal. He has taught classes in classical and modern political philosophy, American literature, and American political thought. He has research interests in modern political theory, political economy, and American federalism. He is the author of Montesquieu's Political Economy and co-editor of Rival Visions: How Jefferson and His Contemporaries Defined the Early American Republic.

• Gish, D. A., & Bibby, A. S. (Eds.) 2021. Rival Visions: How Jefferson and His Contemporaries Defined the Early American Republic. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.
• Bibby, A. S. 2016. Montesquieu’s Political Economy. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Verlan Lewis, Stirling Professor of Constitutional Studies

Dr. Lewis researches, teaches, and writes about American political thought, institutions, and development. His writing has been published by The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Cambridge University Press, and Oxford University Press, among others. He teaches courses on American politics, the U.S. Constitution, American political thought, and American political institutions. He earned graduate degrees from Cambridge University and the University of Virginia, and has held academic fellowships at Stanford University and Harvard University.

• The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America  (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023). With Hyrum Lewis.
• Ideas of Power: The Politics of American Party Ideology Development  (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
• "Cape Mission Liberalism and the South African Liberation Struggle,"  Social Dynamics (December 2022), 48:3, 428–441.
• “Aristocracy, Democracy, and Liberalism: Using the Tocquevillean Dichotomy to Understand Modern Liberalism,” Perspectives on Political Science (July 2021), 51(1), 15-23.
• “The Problem of Donald Trump and the Static Spectrum Fallacy,” Party Politics (July 2021), 27(4), 605-618.
• “Foundational Ideas in the Political Thought of F. A. Hayek,” The Political Science Reviewer (April 2021), 45(1), 107-126.
• "Party Control of Government and American Party Ideology Development," Studies in American Political Development (September 2018), 32(2), 188-216.
• “The President and the Parties’ Ideologies: Party Ideas about Foreign Policy Since 1900,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (March 2017), 47(1), 27-61.
• “The Best Way to Celebrate the U.S. Constitution This Month is by Honoring Its Principles,”  Deseret News (21 September 2023).
• “This President’s Day, We Should Remember Washington’s Farewell Address,” Deseret News (20 February 2023).
• “The Myth of Ideological Polarization,” The Wall Street Journal (18–19 June 2022), A11.
• “Why Presidential Candidates Campaign as Isolationists but Govern as Hawks,” The Washington Post (18 April 2017).

Robert Burton, Director of the Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative

Robert John Burton is the director of the Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative at UVU's Center for Constitutional Studies. His research and teaching occur in the fields of constitutional law, American political thought, and political philosophy, focusing on civic education, the First Amendment, and the relationship between conscience and politics.

• "Animating the Public Spirit: Adam Smith on Constitutions, Conscience, and Civic Education," The Political Science Reviewer, Vol. 47, No. 1, 2023. 
• “The State of Civics Education in Utah: A Report” (with Lisa R. Halverson and Glori H. Smith), Center for Constitutional Studies, Utah Valley University, April 2022.
• “Constitutional Humility: The Contested Meaning of a Judicial Virtue” (w/ Zachary K. German), American Political Thought. Vol. 10, No. 2, Spring 2021.
• “The Aim of Every Political Constitution: The Founders and the Election of Trump”(w/ Zachary K. German and Michael P. Zuckert), in Trump and Political Philosophy: Patriotism, Cosmopolitanism, and Civic Virtue. Eds. Mark Sable and Benjamin Torres. Palgrave, 2018.
• “Humility, Hubris, and the Next Supreme Court Justice” (with Zachary K. German), Starting Points: A Journal of American Principles and American Practices, March 20, 2017.

Conferences, university curriculum, faculty scholarship, a robust research agenda, strategic partnerships, and K-12 initiatives are among the many touchpoints that allow the Center to prepare citizens with the broad understanding of thought and practices critical to the perpetuation of constitutional government, ordered liberty, and the rule of law.