SPEAKER: Tom Tancredo

Five term Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Colorado's 6th congressional district

Tom Tancredo is a five term Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Colorado's 6th congressional district. He retired from Congress in 2008, choosing not to seek re-election.

Tancredo rose to national prominence for opposing illegal immigration. The district includes most of Denver's southern suburbs. He was a declared candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and was known for his opposition to illegal immigration and excessive immigration in general.

Tom graduated from Holy Family High School in Broomfield, CO in 1964; received his B.A.from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, CO in 1968; and served as a member of the Colorado State Legislature from 1976-1981

Tancredo was appointed by President Reagan to be the regional representative in Denver for the Department of Education in 1981. He stayed on through the first Bush administration in 1992, and pared the office's staff from 225 to 60 employees. He became president of the Independence Institute in 1993, a conservative think tank based in Golden, Colorado, serving there until his election to Congress. He has been a leader in the Colorado term limits movement.

PANELIST: Herb Rubenstein

President of the Sustainable Business Group

Herb Rubenstein is the president of the Sustainable Business Group.  Previously he was a candidate for Congress in Colorado and worked for 28 years in Washington, DC as a business consultant, lawyer, government policy specialist and author.  He is the co-author of the Financial Times business book, Breakthrough, Inc.: High Growth Strategies for Entrepreneurial Organizations, the author of the American Bar Association’s Leadership for Lawyers, and has taught entrepreneurship at Colorado State University, strategic planning in the MBA program at George Washington University, and taught leadership courses at several universities.

Herb is a Phi Beta Kappa/Omicron Delta Kappa graduate in Politics and Economics from Washington and Lee University where he was Chair of the Student Curriculum Committee and Captain of the Golf Team.  He was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar at the University of Bristol in Bristol, England and the Lyndon B. Johnson Scholar at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.  His law degree is from Georgetown University.  His expertise is business and strategic planning for businesses and large nonprofits focusing on every major aspect of the company and its operations, metrics, and its ability to absorb and manage change. 

PANELIST: Susan Sterett

Professor of political science at the University of Denver

Susan Sterett is a professor of political science at the University of Denver.  She has worked and studied in the United Kingdom, Australia, and China, in part thanks to the wonderful Fulbright program, which sends Americans abroad to collaborate.  She works on law and society questions, or how law works in people’s lives, particularly in social welfare.  She has written on the development of constitutionalism in Britain.  Therefore, she’s particularly interested in the opportunity to talk together about comparisons and connections in politics—whether in elections or courts or state agencies--between the United States and elsewhere.