Terry T. Campo

Terry T. Campo founded the Law Offices of Terry T. Campo in 1988. Mr. Campo has represented clients before the Supreme Court of the United States, the District of Columbia and the State of Illinois. In his appellate law practice, he authored the brief of Americans for Tax Reform and the Illinois Alliance for Growth in U.S. Supreme Court proceedings involving property rights and the authority of state governments to tax one class of businesses to subsidize another. The factual underpinnings of the case later formed one of the grounds for the Impeachment of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, prior to his conviction on criminal charges.

Mr. Campo’s election law practice was featured in a NEW YORK TIMES profile of the 2010 Alaska U.S. Senate race where he represented the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC). In addition to the Senatorial Committee, Mr. Campo has been part of National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee (NRCC) post-election legal teams and has represented Presidential and local candidates (of both parties) in election law litigation since 1995. In 1996, he represented Presidential candidate Steve Forbes in election law challenges. He has served as a lawyer for the Republican National Committee (RNC) in four Presidential campaigns, and for the McCain and Romney presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

During the 1980s, before founding the Law Offices of Terry T. Campo, Mr. Campo held several positions in the Reagan Administration and in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush Presidential Transition Team and Campaigns. His roles in government included serving as Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where his principal client was Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), whom he advised on all matters related to anti-trust, Constitutional law, Civil Rights, as well as National Security and Terrorism.

Beginning with Ronald Reagan’s unsuccessful challenge to President Ford, Mr. Campo has held many regional and national positions in the GOP, including advisory or operational roles in seven U.S. Presidential Campaigns and serving as Deputy Director of Election Day Activities for George H.W. Bush (“41”) campaign in 1988.

In 1989, Mr. Campo was unanimously elected National Chairman of the Young Republicans. Serving as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Young Republican National Federation when the Berlin Wall came down, he led the organization into training of young political leaders from the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe and Latin America. At the urging of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and then-West German President Helmut Kohl, he organized a Bush White House Conference founding the International Democrat(ic) Union’s youth organization that created a formal coordinating body for the center-right political parties in the established and new democracies, and became its first Treasurer.

Mr. Campo continues to serve as President of the YR Alumni Network, Inc., a 501(c)(3) charitable and educational foundation, alongside his work for other charitable and educational organizations, including acting as founding Director and General Counsel for a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to preserving and maintaining the papers and historically significant buildings on Whittaker Chambers’ beloved Pipe Creek Farm as a National Historic Landmark.

Mr. Campo also served as Vice President of the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) prior to assuming a planning role for the 2012 Presidential Campaign cycle. As a consultant to the RNC and through direct-engagement by state political parties, he has served as the Parliamentarian at GOP Conventions at fully one-half of all states In 2012, Mr. Campo was unanimously elected Parliamentarian for the Rules Committee chaired by Governor John Sununu at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, and in 2016 was appointed Parliamentarian for the Republican National Convention’s Committee on Permanent Organization chaired by former Governor Haley Barbour. Campo also served as Counsel to the 2016 Republican National Convention’s Committee on Contests and as an Election Day Operations’ attorney for Senator Marco Rubio.

Campo is a native of the state capitol of Springfield, Illinois, where he worked in the state’s House of Representatives before serving as a press aide for state Attorney General William J. Scott and directing his last re-election campaign. As a law student, Campo directed policy development for Scott’s successor, Attorney General Tyrone C. Fahner. His legal ‘clerkships’ included the Anti-Trust Division of the Attorney General and the law firm of then-House Democratic Leader Mike Madigan (D-Chicago). He returned to Illinois in 1991, following service in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations to practice law in Springfield, but sought to challenge then-Congressman Dick Durbin for reelection in 1992 & 1994. Campo continues to be active in Illinois politics and public affairs through several organizations.

• He was a founding director of the Illinois Policy Institute (various offices)—a center-right think tank concentrated on state issues. During his decade on its Board, Campo served as Vice Chair and Treasuer, where he edited many of its publications and authored his own Op-Eds and reports on Energy Policy and Petroleum Taxes.
• He now serves on the Board of Directors of The Illinois Group, an association of public affairs and lobbying representatives working in the nation’s capital on behalf of the state’s largest companies.
• In addition, Campo served as President of the Illinois State Society of Washington, D.C. (2015-2017) and previously as itsCorporate Liaison and Vice President for Governance. He also serves as Vice Chair of the the affiliated, Illinois State Society Foundation.

Mr. Campo’s international work has included conducting political training in advance of the first free elections for the Russian Federation’s Parliament. He authored the Election Procedures Manual for the Russian Federation under sponsorship of the Kriebel Foundation in 1992, and subsequently began advising former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar’s nascent campaign for President. He has made frequent trips to Russia and its former Soviet Republics conducting training in politics and economics for two decades. Reflecting a continuing concern for the protection of human rights through law, Campo joined the former Chair of Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States and a former General Counsel to the Chair of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, to form the Global Rule of Law & Liberty Legal Defense Fund, providing legal representation to wrongfully persecuted persons, including victims of political or religious persecution, including unlawful property confiscation.

In 1998, he brought his substantive energy background together with an understanding of domestic and international political influences in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union to develop projects restructuring the energy sectors of the former Soviet Republics of Georgia and Moldova. He resided in the former Soviet Union from 1998 to 2003, and has consulted on energy and infrastructure projects in Ukraine, Central Asia and the Middle East since.

In addition to serving as founder and principal of Law Offices of Terry T. Campo, Mr. Campo is the President of The Campo Group, Ltd., a Springfield, Illinois-based political consulting and public policy strategies firm.

See publications authored by Terry Campo.