Norman J. Ornstein is a Resident Scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He also
serves as an election analyst for CBS News. In addition,
Ornstein writes for USA Today as a member of its
Board of Contributors and writes a weekly column called
"Congress Inside Out" for Roll Call newspaper. He has
written for the New York Times, Washington Post,
Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs and other
major publications, and regularly appears on television
programs like The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline,
and Charlie Rose. He serves as senior counselor to the
Continuity of Government Commission, working to ensure that
our institutions of government can be maintained in the
event of a terrorist attack on Washington; his efforts in
this area are recounted in a profile of him in the June 2003
Atlantic Monthly. His campaign finance working group
of scholars and practitioners helped shape the major law,
known as McCain/Feingold, that reformed the campaign
financing system. Legal Times referred to him as “a
principal drafter of the law.” He is also co-directing a
multi-year effort, called the "Transition to Governing"
Project, to create a better climate for governing in the era
of the permanent campaign He is a member of the Board of
Directors of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the
Campaign Legal Center and of the Board of Trustees of the
U.S. Capitol Historical Society. His many books include
The Permanent Campaign and Its Future; Intensive Care: How
Congress Shapes Health Policy, both with Thomas E. Mann;
and Debt and Taxes: How America Got Into Its Budget Mess
and What to Do About It, with John H. Makin.
Mr. Ornstein was born in 1948 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
Growing up in St. Louis Park, he lived at 2654 Alabama Ave.
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