The ABA Tax Section and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Tax Program are hosting the Tax and Democracy Symposium on October 15, 2026, both in person and online.

To be held October 15, 2026, at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law campus in Chicago, the 2026 Tax & Democracy Symposium will bring together academics, students and other members of the community for an event designed to foster discussion on the role of tax law and policy in American democracy during the past 250 years. This Symposium is an extension of the ABA Tax Section’s celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The event will kick off with a lunch, including a keynote speech by Vanessa Williamson, senior fellow in governance studies at Brookings and at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, and author of The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History. Lunch will be followed by two afternoon panels, each featuring presentations by leading academics in the field, with moderators and commentators drawn from academia and the practitioner community. 

Panelists for the event are Jeremy Bearer-Friend, Associate Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School; Steven Dean, Professor of Law and Paul Siskin Research Scholar at Boston University School of Law; Ajay Mehrotra, Stanford Clinton Sr. and Zylpha Kilbride Clinton Research Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law; Joseph Thorndike, historian and Director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts; Clinton Wallace, Professor of Law at the Joseph F. Rice School of Law at University of South Carolina; Camille Walsh, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at University of Washington; and Alex Zhang, Associate Professor of Law at Emory Law.