Rothfus, Spalding to Honor America’s Founding at 2026 PA Leaership Conference

Register TODAY at www.paleadershipconference.org

(Harrisburg, PA) Former U.S. Representative Keith Rothfus will be joined by Matthew Spalding, Dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C. campus, to hold a conversation Honoring America’s Founding at the 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference which will be held April 9-11, 2026 at the Penn Harris Convention Center in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

The featured dinner speaker will be Newsmax founder/CEO Chris Ruddy. Washington Examiner columnist and Fox News contributor Joe Concha will be the luncheon speaker. Speakers include Slippery Rock Mayor Jondavid “JD” Longo; State Treasurer and Republican gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity, U.S. Representative Scott Perry, Cliff Maloney of the Citizens Alliance, U.S. Senator David McCormick, Pennsylvania Attorney General David Sunday, Commonwealth Foundation President & CEO Andrew Lewis, Pennsylvania Chamber of Business & Industry President & CEO Luke Bernstein, state Senator Doug Mastriano, and Victoria Coates of the Heritage Foundation. Additional speakers will be announced.

The Pennsylvania Leadership Conference is the premiere gathering of public policy conservatives each year in the Keystone State. It is the largest and longest-running of the state-based conservative conferences regularly attracting a long list of conservative elected officials, scholars, journalists, and activists for three days of speeches, panel presentations, workshops, and networking.

Registration for the 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference is NOW OPEN at www.paleadershipconference.org.

The full conference agenda is posted at www.paleadershipconference.org

This year’s Pennsylvania Leadership Conference will provide attendees with an expanded menu of workshop sessions on Thursday and a new welcome reception on Thursday evening.

Workshop sessions include: From Community to the Capitol: Recruiting the Right Leaders; Stop Shapiro’s Tax Hikes; Getting Stuff Right: Protecting Life, Families & Religious Liberty; Are Your Ready to Run: Questions to Ask Yourself Before Running for Office; Show Me the Money: Putting the Fun in Fundraising; Faith & Politics: Appealing to Conservatives of Faith; Social Media: Battling the Keyboard Warriors; Public Speaking: Overcoming the World’s # 1 Fear; Capturing the Youth Vote: Engaging a New Generation: The Real Nature of Politics; Powering Pennsylvania: Energy Policy, Prices and Jobs; Roadmap to an America First Immigration System: Election Integrity & Litigation: Inside and Outside the Commonwealth; Pennsylvania’s Shifting Coalitions; A History of the Republican Party.

The 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference will feature five panel presentations including: The Health Care Check Up: Why Competition Beats Bureaucracy; Ain’t Got Stuff Done: Examining Governor Shapiro’s record; Ideas to Impacts: Entrepreneurship in Pennsylvania; Protect Women’s Sports; and Powering the Future: Energy and AI in Pennsylvania.

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Keith Rothfus, Congressman, served in the U.S. House of Representatives between 2013 and 2019, where he represented a sizeable portion of southwestern Pennsylvania. He served on the Financial Services and Judiciary Committees. Since leaving Congress, Keith has continued to speak and write on public policy issues and has served on both for-profit and not-for-profit boards.

Keith is a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School and resides near Pittsburgh. He and his wife Elsie have six children and three grandchildren. In his spare time, Keith can be found at the local CrossFit gym or on his farm in Washington County, PA.

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Matthew Spalding is the Kirby Professor in Constitutional Government and Dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College and oversees the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship at Hillsdale’s Washington, D.C. campus.

His new book, The Making of the American Mind: The Making of Our Declaration of Independence, was released in December 2025. Spalding is also the best-selling author of We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future and the original executive editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, the first line-by-line analysis of each clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Prior to joining Hillsdale, Spalding was vice president for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation and founding director of its B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics.

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