Washington, DC –The Board of Directors of Constitutional Accountability Center has announced that it has appointed Elizabeth B. Wydra as CAC’s new President, succeeding founding President Doug Kendall, who passed away on September 26, 2015 from colon cancer. Ms. Wydra has served as CAC’s Chief Counsel since the organization’s founding in June 2008, and in fact was Mr. Kendall’s first hire for the new organization. Under Ms. Wydra’s leadership of CAC’s litigation program, CAC is now regularly in the midst of the biggest Supreme Court cases each year, and has demonstrated time and again that progressives can win victories in conservative courts.

“On behalf of our Board, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Elizabeth Wydra as CAC’s new President,” said CAC Board Chair Eldie Acheson. “It was clear that we did not have to look far to find the most worthy successor to Doug Kendall, someone extraordinarily well-qualified to lead CAC and to build on its record of success. As we begin 2016, we turn the page in CAC’s history and write a new chapter on the vital work we do in the Supreme Court and in the public square. With Elizabeth as our new President, I could not be more optimistic and excited for CAC as we advance Doug Kendall’s vision through the organization that is his legacy.”

Wydra is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College and Yale Law School, joining CAC from private practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan in San Francisco, where she was an attorney working with former Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan in the firm’s Supreme Court/appellate practice. Previously, Elizabeth was a supervising attorney and teaching fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center appellate litigation clinic, a law clerk for Judge James R. Browning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and a lawyer at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a law firm in Washington. Wydra’s legal practice focuses on Supreme Court litigation and high-stakes cases in the federal courts of appeals. She has represented CAC as well as clients including congressional leaders, preeminent constitutional scholars and historians, state and local legislators and government organizations, and groups such as Justice at Stake, League of Women Voters, and AARP. Wydra appears frequently in print and on air as a legal expert for outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX, BBC, and NPR. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, USA Today, POLITICO, CNN.com, and Slate, and in 2014 she was recognized by the National Law Journal as one of D.C.’s 40 Rising Stars Under 40.

“I am deeply humbled by and grateful for the trust that CAC’s Board has placed in me,” Wydra said. “As we begin one of the most consequential election years in recent memory, the work we do at CAC – reminding Americans of the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history, helping ensure that brilliant legal minds staff the federal bench – is more essential than ever. I look forward to the many opportunities and challenges that lay ahead, and I am inspired by the phenomenal team that I have the privilege to lead into the momentous years to come.”

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Constitutional Accountability Center (www.theusconstitution.org) is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history.

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