Caleb J. Hays

Chief Counsel & Principal

Caleb J. Hays is an experienced elections attorney, serving as Chief Counsel and Principal for Section 4 Strategies, a boutique election law firm based in Alexandria, Virginia. As part of his practice, Caleb serves as Chief Policy Counsel for the Center for Election Confidence and as Special Counsel for Elections for the Republican National Lawyers Association.

In the 116th-118th Congresses, Caleb was senior staff for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration, a House Leadership committee that has jurisdiction over federal elections and House operations and where he directed the House Republican Conference’s election policy conversation. Most recently, Caleb served as the full Committee’s General Counsel & Deputy Staff Director and as Staff Director for the Subcommittee on Elections,  provided counsel to the Chairman and the Committee, sat as committee Parliamentarian, and managed the legal team.

From October 2020 through early 2024, Caleb led House Republicans’ greatest effort in a generation to engage in key election oversight, the Faith in Elections Project, conducting oversight visits in over half of the States and territories and engaging stakeholders of all stripes, including state secretaries of state and other chief elections officials, state boards of elections, state legislators, local elections officials, including county officials, members of the regulated community, and interested citizen groups. These efforts culminated in the American Confidence in Elections Act (ACE Act) and its progeny of nearly 50 bills and a model state legislation release, which was designed to re-focus election reform efforts on the constitutional division of power between the primary authority of the States and the limited secondary power of Congress. The Committee on House Administration ordered reported the ACE Act in July 2023, followed by many of its component bills over the next several months.

In 2021, Caleb led House Republicans through the most serious election contest in the House in nearly 40 years, mounting a successful defense of Iowa Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks’ six-vote victory in the second congressional district, the closest congressional margin in history.

In 2020, Caleb re-launched the House’s long-running Congressional Election Observer Program, which, pursuant to constitutional authority, trains and deploys House staff members to observe the conduct of congressional elections in order to build an independent record in the event an election contest were filed with the House. Caleb served as the lead staff author and negotiator for the Confirmation of Congressional Observer Access (COCOA) Act (118 P.L. 106, codified at 52 U.S.C. § 21083a), which for the first time provided a codification of these important House and Senate Art. I, § 5 programs. 

The William & Mary Election Law Society named Caleb an “Outstanding Alumnus” in 2020.

Previously, Caleb was an Associate with the powerhouse D.C. election law firm Holtzman Vogel, where he practiced election and campaign finance law, providing counsel to campaigns, party committees, and other groups engaged in protected political speech.

Caleb served as Associate Counsel to the National Republican Congressional Committee in the 2018 cycle and as full-time law clerk to the Committee in the 2016 cycle, advising the national party committee, Republican Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and candidates for U.S. House on matters related to election law, election day operations, and post-election legal proceedings, federal campaign finance law, House Ethics Rules, contract law, corporate law, and intellectual property regulations.

Before law school, Caleb served in various capacities for former House Republican Conference Vice-Chair Lynn Jenkins, including as Political Director during her successful 2014 campaign and as a member of her official staff. Previously, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Kansas Republican Party and worked in various positions for Republican candidates for state and federal office in Kansas, offering strategic political counsel.

Caleb received his J.D. from William & Mary Law School, where he was an editor of the William & Mary Business Law Review and a three-year meritorious scholarship recipient, and his M.B.A. from The University of Kansas School of Business, where the faculty awarded him the B.L. Trillich Memorial Award for his academic work. He is a member of the Bars of Kansas, Illinois (inactive), New York, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia.