Robert Carter is federal legal policy analyst at Pacific Legal Foundation. He is an experienced administrative law and public policy attorney and has served in a variety of roles in state and federal government and several public interest groups.
While working as a deputy attorney general for New Jersey litigating state taxation matters, Robert’s experience of needless litigation, outdated legislation, and regulatory overreach prompted his move to Washington to work on public policy.
As legislative counsel to Congressman Bob Turner (NY), Robert drafted legislation to allow the survivors and surviving families of the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing to seize $1.9 billion from the Iranian central bank. He mediated negotiations to secure its passage, and it was later upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bank Markazi v. Peterson.
While legislative counsel to Congressman Bill Posey (FL), Robert drafted similar legislation to allow Americans held hostage by FARC rebels in Colombia to satisfy judgments against blocked narco-terrorist assets. It was later enacted as a provision of the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act.
On behalf of Congressman Posey, he also organized the House Republican effort to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the U.S. Army 65th Infantry Regiment (Borinqueneers). The regiment, recruited primarily from Puerto Rico, served honorably and faithfully as an ethnically segregated unit in both WWII and Korea, even after President Truman’s 1948 Executive Order desegregating the U.S. military.
As an attorney at the National Rifle Association, Robert provided legal research to lobbyists in 16 states, analyzed state legislative proposals, negotiated amendments, prepared hearing testimony, and drafted comment letters on proposed regulations. He also co-authored several state appellate briefs, including one that secured a unanimous decision in the Oregon Supreme Court rejecting the state attorney general’s description of a contentious ballot initiative.
Robert next worked at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where he served as a special assistant in the Office of Legal Counsel. He drafted regulations to implement Executive Order 13891 on agency guidance and assisted in the preparation of regulations on Official Time and Religious Discrimination. He further reviewed on behalf of the EEOC the final Department of Education Title IX regulations on sexual harassment and provided comments that were incorporated into the final regulation.
More recently, he advocated for asset forfeiture reform at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He also worked to combat several needless and wasteful 1099 tax-reporting proposals from the Internal Revenue Service.
Robert earned an LL.M. in Taxation from NYU School of Law and a J.D. from Seton Hall Law School. He was an associate editor of the Seton Hall Law Legislative Journal and published an article on faith-based initiatives legislation. He holds a B.A. in political science from the College of the Holy Cross. Through his work in Congress, he is a civilian graduate of the Air Force Command and Staff College and did two years of graduate work with the U.S. Naval War College.
Robert lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, Samantha, and their three children. He is active with the Brain Injury Association of Virginia and is an enthusiastic advocate for gardening with native plants. He has volunteered with the National Park Service at a variety of Civil War sites for more than two decades and more recently at Talbot House, a historic WWI British soldiers’ club and guest house in Poperinge, Belgium outside Ypres.