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David Arkush  is the Director of Congress Watch. He joined Public Citizen in January 2008 after working as a staff attorney at Public Justice, where he litigated civil rights, environmental, and consumer cases, primarily in the areas of federal preemption of state law, private standing under consumer protection statutes, and binding mandatory arbitration in consumer contracts.  Prior to working at Public Justice, David taught in the Appellate Litigation Program at Georgetown University Law Center, served as the Fuchsberg Fellow at Public Citizen Litigation Group, and clerked for the Honorable R. Lanier Anderson, III, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.  Before clerking, David worked for the private public-interest law firm Adkins, Kelston & Zavez and, before law school, he served as Statewide Coordinator of Missouri Voters for Fair Elections.

David was awarded an LL.M. in Advocacy with distinction from Georgetown University Law Center in 2007.  He graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2003, where he served as Managing Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights—Civil Liberties Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.   David is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia and the state of Indiana, and he is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and D.C. Circuits.

Angela Canterbury is the Director of Advocacy for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch.  She is dedicated to engaging the public in our stand against corruption, our fight for consumer and legal rights and our work to improve our democracy.  Before joining the staff of Public Citizen, Angela organized advocacy on a wide-range of issues, such as campaign finance reform and the successful reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, as the grassroots lobbyist for the League of Women Voters. A former campaign manager and political consultant, Angela has several years’ experience in political organizing and advocating for progressive issues throughout the U.S. and abroad. Angela spent four years in Kiev, prior to the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, where she worked with Ukrainian nongovernmental organizations on elections, advocacy, media and public relations.  Angela also served as a certified international election observer for OSCE during the 1999 Ukrainian Presidential Election. She graduated with honors and distinction from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with a B.A. in Economics with an international emphasis. Angela has traveled widely and speaks conversational Russian. She lives with her two darling children in Maryland, where she is active in her community and in efforts to enact local and state reforms. 

Craig Holman, Ph.D. is a Legislative Representative for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch.  Previously, he served as Senior Policy Analyst at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice.  Dr. Holman is a nationally recognized authority in campaign finance and governmental ethics.  He has assisted many public officials in drafting campaign finance reform and governmental ethics legislation, and has conducted numerous research projects on the impact of money in politics.  He has been called upon to assist as a researcher and/or expert witness defending in court the campaign finance reform laws of Alaska, Arkansas, California and Colorado.  He has authored and co-authored several studies on campaign finance and election reform, one of the most recent being Buying Time 2000: Television Advertising in the 2000 Federal Elections (2001), which served as part of the evidentiary record in the court case defending the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act [McConnell v. FEC].  Some of his other publications include: The New Politics of Judicial Elections (2002); "Fool’s Gold: Party Politics and Campaign Finance in California," in David Schultz, ed., Money, Politics, and Campaign Finance Reform in the United States (2002); "The Cure for the ‘Ills of Democracy’: Review of Elisabeth Gerber’s Populist Paradox," Election Law Journal (2001); "Judicial Review of Ballot Initiatives," Loyola Law Review (Summer 1998); Campaign Money on the Information Highway: Electronic Filing and Disclosure of Campaign Finance Reports (1997); The Price of Justice: A Case Study in Judicial Campaign Financing (1995); and Democracy by Initiative (1992).

Taylor Lincoln has served as Research Director of Congress Watch since September 2005.  He has authored or co-authored several ground-breaking reports for Congress Watch, including the lobbying campaign of the super-wealthy to repeal the estate tax, the stealth effort of Senator Bill Frist and the pharmaceutical industry to craft a liability shield for products used to treat a pandemic illness, and the sum of campaign contributions from lobbyists to members of Congress. As a Senior Researcher, Taylor was responsible for projects on the electioneering activities of 501 (c) non-profit groups and on officials who travel through the “revolving door” between government and the K Street lobbying world.  Before joining Public Citizen, Lincoln worked as a reporter for three Washington, D.C., area newspapers: The Federal Paper, the Potomac Tech Journal and the Montgomery Journal. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan.

Alexander Cohen is a Senior Researcher for Congress Watch.  Previously, Alexander spent almost three years as a reporter and research editor for the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative journalism group in Washington, D.C. While there, he analyzed classified documents from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse investigation and exposed more than $1 million in free travel given to Food and Drug Administration employees by groups funded by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. A research editor for an investigation of the Oil and Gas industry, he and his colleagues won a Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists and an Outstanding Online Reporting award from the Society of Environmental Journalists. Before joining the Center, he worked for several magazines in New York, including Vanity Fair, Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, and Business Week. Alexander graduated from Grinnell College with a bachelor's degree in history.

Eric Encarnacion is the Administrative Assistant at Congress Watch. He joined Public Citizen shortly after bicycling solo down the Pacific Coast for charity. Prior to that adventure, Eric worked for two and a half years at a private investment firm located in Times Square, New York. He graduated with Honors from Wesleyan University in 2004, double majoring in Economics and Music. Eric grew up in Westfield, NJ and sorely misses his home state's myriad diners and pizza joints.

Peter Gosselar is the Legislative Assistant at Congress Watch. He joined Public Citizen after two years in the trenches of campaigns as an opposition researcher, where he worked for candidates from state Attorney General to Senator, from Florida to Wisconsin. He is a 2005 graduate of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio where he majored in English and Political Science.  His senior thesis on Machiavelli earned him High Honors. A native of Holland, Michigan, Peter vigorously denies that he has a Midwestern accent.

Graham Steele is the Legal Associate at Public Citizen’s Congress Watch.  He comes to Congress Watch after working at the Brady Center for the Prevention of Gun Violence, where he conducted legal research on gun control-related issues, including the gun lobby’s campaign to push guns into schools and wrongful death suits against gun manufacturers and dealers. Graham received his Bachelors degree in political science from the University of Rochester, his Law degree from The George Washington University Law School and is a member of the Massachusetts State Bar. During law school he worked for the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia's Fraud and Public Corruption Section and the Honorable Mary Ellen Coster Williams of the United States Court of Federal Claims. A native of Brookline, Massachusetts, Graham has worked on electoral campaigns in his home state and authors a blog on politics and society.