Norman J. Ornstein is a political scientist and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative-leaning Washington D.C. thinktank (though Ornstein is usually not identified as a conservative, and is considered within AEI to be a bipartisan centrist). Ornstein is married to Judith L. Harris, a prominent regulation litigation lawyer. He studies American politics and is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and many magazines. He has written a weekly column in Roll Call since 1993. His greatest political influence may have come in writing substantial portions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as the "McCain-Feingold" campaign finance bill passed in 2002. blank">http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1211/p01s01-usju.html. He is currently co-director, along with Thomas Mann, of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project.
Ornstein received a Ph.D. from the _University of Michigan in 1974.
