Elena Kagan
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Incumbent
Assumed office August 7, 2010
Appointed by	Barack Obama
Preceded by	John Paul Stevens
45th Solicitor General of the United States
In office March 19, 2009 – May 17, 2010[1]
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Neal Katyal
Preceded by	Edwin Kneedler (Acting)
Succeeded by	Neal Katyal (Acting)
11th Dean of Harvard Law School
In office July 1, 2003 – March 19, 2009
Preceded by	Robert Clark
Succeeded by	Martha Minow
Personal details
Born	(1960-04-28) April 28, 1960 (age 52) New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	Princeton University (A.B.) University of Oxford (M.Phil.) Harvard Law School (J.D.)

Elena Kagan (pronounced /ˈkeɪɡən/; born April 28, 1960)^[2] is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kagan is the Court's 112th justice and fourth female justice.

Kagan was born and raised in New York City. After attending Princeton, Oxford, and Harvard Law School, she completed federal Court of Appeals and Supreme Court clerkships. She began her career as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, leaving to serve as Associate White House Counsel, and later as policy adviser, under President Clinton. After a nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which expired without action, she became a professor at Harvard Law School and was later named its first female dean.

President Obama appointed her Solicitor General on January 26, 2009. On May 10, 2010, Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy from the impending retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens. After Senate confirmation, Kagan was sworn in on August 7, 2010, by Chief Justice John G. Roberts. Kagan's formal investiture ceremony before a special sitting of the United States Supreme Court took place on October 1, 2010.^[3]

Personal life and education[link]

Kagan was born in New York City, the middle of three children, on the city's Upper West Side. Her mother, Gloria Gittelman Kagan, taught fifth and sixth grade at Hunter College Elementary School, and her father, Robert Kagan, was an attorney.^[4][5] Kagan's two brothers are public school teachers.^[6]

Kagan and her family lived in a third-floor apartment at West End Avenue and 75th Street^[7] and attended Lincoln Square Synagogue.^[8] Kagan was independent and strong-willed in her youth and, according to a former law partner, clashed with her Orthodox rabbi over aspects of her bat mitzvah.^[7] "She had strong opinions about what a bat mitzvah should be like, which didn't parallel the wishes of the rabbi," said her former colleague. "But they finally worked it out. She negotiated with the rabbi and came to a conclusion that satisfied everybody." Kagan's rabbi, Shlomo Riskin, had never performed a ritual bat mitzvah before.^[8] "Elena Kagan felt very strongly that there should be ritual bat mitzvah in the synagogue, no less important than the ritual bar mitzvah. This was really the first formal bat mitzvah we had," said Riskin. Kagan asked to read from the Torah on a Saturday morning but ultimately read on a Friday night, May 18, 1973, from the Book of Ruth.^[8] Today, she identifies with Conservative Judaism.^[8]

Childhood friend Margaret Raymond recalled that Kagan was a teenage smoker but not a partier. On Saturday nights, she and Kagan "were more apt to sit on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and talk."^[7] Kagan also loved literature and re-read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice every year.^[7] In her Hunter College High School yearbook of 1977, Kagan was pictured in a judge's robe and holding a gavel.^[9]

Next to her photo was a quote from former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter: "Government is itself an art, one of the subtlest of arts."^[10] After graduating from high school, Kagan attended Princeton University, where she earned an A.B., summa cum laude in history in 1981. Among the subjects she studied was the socialist movement in New York City in the early 20th century. She wrote a senior thesis under historian Sean Wilentz titled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900–1933". In it she wrote, "Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP exhausted itself forever. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America."^[11] Wilentz insists that she did not mean to defend socialism, noting that, "She was interested in it. To study something is not to endorse it."^[12] Wilentz called Kagan "one of the foremost legal minds in the country, she is still the witty, engaging, down-to-earth person I proudly remember from her undergraduate days."^[13]

As an undergraduate, Kagan also served as editorial chair of the Daily Princetonian. Along with eight other students (including Eliot Spitzer, who was student body president at the time), Kagan penned the Declaration of the Campaign for a Democratic University, which called for "a fundamental restructuring of university governance" and condemned Princeton's administration for making decisions "behind closed doors".^[14]

Kagan graduates from Harvard Law School in 1986.

She received Princeton's Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960 Graduating Scholarship, one of the highest general awards conferred by the university, which enabled her to study at Worcester College, Oxford. She earned a Master of Philosophy at Oxford in 1983.^[15] She received a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, at Harvard Law School in 1986, where she was supervisory editor of the Harvard Law Review. Friend Jeffrey Toobin recalled Kagan "stood out from the start as one with a formidable mind. She's good with people. At the time, the law school was a politically charged and divided place. She navigated the factions with ease, and won the respect of everyone."^[16]

Kagan has never married and has no children.^[17]

Early legal and academic career[link]

Kagan was a law clerk for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1987 and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1988. Marshall nicknamed the 5 foot 3 inch Kagan "Shorty".^[7] She later entered private practice as an associate at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams & Connolly.^[2]

Kagan joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School as an assistant professor in 1991 and became a tenured professor of law in 1995.^[18] While at the University of Chicago, she published a law review article on the regulation of First Amendment hate speech in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul; an article discussing the significance of governmental motive in regulating speech; and a review of a book by Stephen L. Carter discussing the judicial confirmation process.

According to her colleagues, Kagan's students complimented and admired her from the beginning, and she was granted tenure "despite the reservations of some colleagues who thought she had not published enough."^[19]

White House and judicial nomination[link]

In 1996 she wrote an article in the University of Chicago Law Review entitled, "Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine." Kagan argued that the Supreme Court should examine governmental motives when deciding First Amendment cases.^[20] She analyzed historic draft-card burning and flag burning cases in light of free speech arguments.^[21]

While serving as an adviser in the White House domestic policy office, Kagan co-authored a May 13, 1997, memo to President Bill Clinton urging him to support a ban on late-term abortions: "We recommend that you endorse the Daschle amendment in order to sustain your credibility on HR 1122 and prevent Congress from overriding your veto."^[22]

On June 17, 1999, Clinton nominated Kagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to replace James L. Buckley, who had taken senior status in 1996. The Senate Judiciary Committee's Republican Chairman Orrin Hatch scheduled no hearing, effectively ending her nomination. When Clinton's term ended, her nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court lapsed, as did the nomination of fellow Clinton nominee Allen Snyder.^[23]

Return to academia[link]

After her service in the White House and her lapsed judicial nomination, Kagan returned to academia in 1999. She initially sought to return to the University of Chicago Law School, but having given up her tenured position as a result of her extended stint in the Clinton Administration, she needed to be rehired and the school chose not to do so, reportedly because of doubts about her commitment to academia.^[24] Kagan quickly found a position as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, she authored a law review article on United States administrative law, including the role of aiding the President of the United States in formulating and influencing federal administrative and regulatory law, which was honored as the year's top scholarly article by the American Bar Association's Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and is being developed into a book to be published by Harvard University Press.^{[citation needed]}

Kagan as Dean of Harvard Law School

In 2001, she was named a full professor and in 2003 was named Dean of the Law School by Harvard University President Lawrence Summers.^[25] She succeeded Robert C. Clark, who had served as dean for over a decade. The focus of her tenure was on improving student satisfaction. Efforts included constructing new facilities and reforming the first-year curriculum as well as aesthetic changes and creature comforts, such as free morning coffee. She has been credited for employing a consensus-building leadership style, which surmounted the school's previous ideological discord.^[26][27][28]

In her capacity as dean, Kagan inherited a $400 million capital campaign, "Setting the Standard", in 2003. It ended in 2008 with a record breaking $476 million raised, 19% more than the original goal.^[29] Kagan made a number of prominent new hires, increasing the size of the faculty considerably. Her coups included hiring legal scholar Cass Sunstein away from the University of Chicago^[30] and Lawrence Lessig away from Stanford.^[31] She also broke a logjam on conservative hires by bringing in scholars such as Jack Goldsmith, who had been serving in the Bush administration.^[27]

According to Kevin Washburn, dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, Kagan transformed Harvard Law School from a harsh environment for students to one that was much more student-centric.^[32]

During her deanship, Kagan upheld a decades old policy barring military recruiters from the Office of Career Services because she felt that the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy discriminated against gays and lesbians. According to Campus Progress,

As dean, Kagan supported a lawsuit intended to overturn the Solomon Amendment so military recruiters might be banned from the grounds of schools like Harvard. When a federal appeals court ruled the The Pentagon could not withhold funds, she banned the military from Harvard's campus once again. The case was challenged in the Supreme Court, which ruled the military could indeed require schools to allow recruiters if they wanted to receive federal money. Kagan, though she allowed the military back, simultaneously urged students to demonstrate against Don't Ask, Don't Tell.^[33][34]

In October 2003, Kagan transmitted an e-mail to students and faculty deploring that military recruiters had shown up on campus in violation of the school's anti-discrimination policy. It read, "This action causes me deep distress. I abhor the military's discriminatory recruitment policy." She also wrote that it was "a profound wrong—a moral injustice of the first order."^[35]

From 2005 through 2008, Kagan was a member of the Research Advisory Council of the Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute and received a $10,000 stipend for her service in 2008.^[36]

By early 2007, Kagan was a finalist for the presidency of Harvard University as a whole after Lawrence Summers' resignation the previous year, but lost out to Drew Gilpin Faust. She was reportedly disappointed not be chosen, and supportive law school students threw her a party to express their appreciation for her leadership.^[37]

Solicitor General[link]

On January 5, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama announced he would nominate Kagan to be Solicitor General.^[38][39] Before this appointment she had never argued a case before any court.^[40] At least two previous solicitors general, Robert Bork and Kenneth Starr, also had no previous Supreme Court appearances, though Starr was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit before becoming Solicitor General.^[41]

Kagan was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2009, by a vote of 61 to 31,^[42] becoming the first woman to hold the position. She made her first appearance before the Supreme Court on September 9, 2009, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.^[43]

The First Amendment Center and the Cato Institute later expressed concern over arguments Kagan advanced as a part of her role as Solicitor General. For example, during her time as Solicitor General, Kagan prepared a brief defending a law later ruled unconstitutional that criminalized depictions of animal cruelty.^[44][45] During her confirmation hearing, she said that "there is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage." Also during her confirmation hearing, she was asked about the Defense of Marriage Act, pursuant to which states cannot recognize same-sex marriages originating in other states. Kagan indicated that she would defend the act if "there was any reasonable basis to do so."^[46]

Supreme Court[link]

Obama nominates Kagan.

Prior to the election of President Barack Obama, Kagan was the subject of media speculation regarding her potential to be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States if a Democratic president were elected in 2008.^{[47][48][49][50][51]} This speculation increased after the retirement announcement of Associate Justice David H. Souter, effective at the start of the Court's summer 2009 recess.^[52]

It was speculated that her position as Solicitor General would increase Kagan's chances for nomination, since Solicitors General have been considered potential nominees to the Supreme Court in the past. On May 13, 2009, the Associated Press reported that Obama was considering Kagan, among others, for possible appointment to the United States Supreme Court.^[53] On May 26, 2009, however, Obama announced that he was nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the post.^[54]

Kagan meets with Obama in Oval Office, April 2010.

On April 9, 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he would retire at the start of the Court's summer 2010 recess, triggering new speculation about Kagan's potential nomination to the bench.^[55] In a Fresh Dialogues interview, Jeffrey Toobin, a Supreme Court analyst and Kagan's friend and law school classmate^[56], speculated that Kagan would likely be President Obama's nominee, describing her as "very much an Obama type person, a moderate Democrat, a consensus builder."^[57] This possibility has alarmed many liberals and progressives, who worried that "replacing Stevens with Kagan risks moving the Court to the right, perhaps substantially to the right."^[58]

While Kagan's name was mentioned as a possible replacement for Justice Stevens, the New York Times noted that she "has supported assertions of executive power."^[59] This view of vast executive power has caused some commentators to fear that she would reverse the majority in favor of protecting civil liberties on the Supreme Court were she to replace Stevens.^[60]

On May 10, 2010, Obama nominated Kagan to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by Justice Stevens.^[61] The deans of over one-third of the country's law schools, sixty-nine people in total, endorsed Kagan's nomination in an open letter in early June. It lauded what it considered her coalition-building skills and "understanding of both doctrine and policy" as well as her written record of legal analysis.^[62]

Kagan, Obama, and Roberts before her investiture ceremony

The confirmation hearings began June 28. Kagan's testimony and her answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questions on July 20 were uneventful, containing no new revelations about her character or background. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania cited an article Kagan had published in the Chicago Law Review in 1995, criticizing the evasiveness of Supreme Court nominees in their hearings.^[63] Kagan, noted Specter, was now practicing that very evasiveness.^[64] On July 20, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13–6 to recommend Kagan's confirmation to the full Senate. On August 5 the full Senate confirmed her nomination by a vote of 63–37.^[65] The voting was largely on party lines, with five Republicans (Richard Lugar, Judd Gregg, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe) supporting her and one Democrat (Ben Nelson) opposing. The Senate's two independents voted in favor of confirmation. She was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts on Saturday August 7, in a private ceremony.^[3][66]

Kagan is the first justice appointed without any prior experience as a judge since William Rehnquist in 1972.^[67][68][69] She is the fourth female justice in the Court's history (and, for the first time, part of a Court with three female justices) and the eighth Jewish justice,^[70] making three of the nine current justices Jewish.

Kagan's first opinion, Ransom v. FIA Card Services, was filed on January 11, 2011. In an 8–1 decision, Kagan found that an individual declaring bankruptcy could not count expenses for a car he had paid off in his "applicable monthly expenses".^[71][72]

Legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen praised Kagan's "eloquent voice," which he characterized as unusual for a relative newcomer to the Court, and noted her "ability to puncture her colleagues’ bloodless abstractions and tendentious arguments, and to explain the constitutional stakes in plain language that all citizens can understand." He said Kagan's writing was giving Justice Antonin Scalia "a run for his money."^[73]

See also[link]

• Barack Obama Supreme Court candidates
• Bill Clinton judicial appointment controversies
• Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Potier, Beth (September 16, 2004). "Big plans highlight Elena Kagan's 2L; HLS dean looks forward to a busy year". Harvard Gazette (Harvard News Office). http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/09.16/03-kagan.html. Retrieved January 5, 2009. 
• Levine, Adina (September 30, 2004). "Kagan declares state of the law school is "very strong"; Plans more construction, reassessment of curriculum, and enlargement of faculty". Harvard Law Record (Harvard Law School Record Corporation). ISSN 0017-8101. http://www.hlrecord.org/media/paper609/news/2004/09/30/News/Kagan.Declares.State.Of.The.Law.School.Is.very.Strong-739674.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.hlrecord.org&page=3. Retrieved January 5, 2009. 
• "No Excuse Not to Work Out: Hemenway Opens". Harvard Law Record (Harvard Law School Record Corporation). September 29, 2005. ISSN 0017-8101. http://www.hlrecord.org/media/paper609/news/2005/09/29/News/No.Excuse.Not.To.Work.Out.Hemenway.Opens-1005413.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.hlrecord.org. Retrieved January 5, 2009. 
• Brown, Kelly Lynn (September 30, 2004). "Editorial: Dean Kagan off to a promising start". Harvard Law Record (Harvard Law School Record Corporation). ISSN 0017-8101. http://www.hlrecord.org/media/paper609/news/2004/09/30/Opinion/Editorial.Dean.Kagan.Off.To.A.Promising.Start-739681.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.hlrecord.org. Retrieved January 5, 2009. 
• Gerstein, Josh (March 10, 2006). "As Harvard Seeks a President, Dean Kagan's Star Is Rising". New York Sun. http://www.nysun.com/article/28925?page_no=1. Retrieved January 5, 2009. "Ms. Kagan, 45, is credited with overseeing a renaissance at the law school during her nearly three years as dean, and many of her fans believe she could achieve the same for the entire university if given the chance." 
• Bennett, Drake (October 19, 2008). "Crimson tide – Harvard Law School, long fractious and underachieving, is on the rise again – and shaking up the American legal world". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/10/19/crimson_tide/. Retrieved January 5, 2009. "[T]here is near unanimity that the school's dean, Elena Kagan, a scholar of administrative law and a former Clinton administration official, has galvanized the place with her ambition and adroit management style, knitting together the faculty, charming the students, and attracting top-flight talent to the school." 
• Leonard, Tom (April 24, 2009). "Barack Obama administration seeks to change police questioning law". The Daily Telegraph (UK). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5214985/Barack-Obama-administration-seeks-to-change-police-questioning-law.html. Retrieved April 24, 2009. "The Justice Department, in a brief signed by Elena Kagan, the solicitor general, said the 1986 decision "serves no real purpose" and offers only "meagre benefits"." 
• Lichtblau, Eric (May 15, 2009) Potential Justice's Appeal May Be Too Bipartisan, New York Times
• van Diggelen, Alison (April 10, 2010). "Jeffrey Toobin says Elena Kagan Likely Supreme Court Justice". Huffington Post (USA). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-van-diggelen/jeffrey-toobin-says-elena_b_532838.html. Retrieved April 10, 2010. ""She's very much an Obama type person, a moderate Democrat, a consensus builder ..."" 
• Greenwald, Glenn (April 13, 2010) The case against Elena Kagan, Salon.com
• The Progressive Case For Elena Kagan Thinkprogress.com (May 10, 2010)

External links[link]

Find more about Elena Kagan on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote

• Supreme Court official site with biographies
• Profile at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center
• Legal resources at the Law Library of Congress
• Biography and writings at the Legal Information Institute
• Profile at the Oyez Project
• Profile at Judgepedia
• Profile at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Profile at the Internet Movie Database
• Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Elena Kagan in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Profile at Notable Names Database
• Elena Kagan Through the Years – slideshow by ABC News

Supreme Court of the United States
The Roberts Court Chief Justice: John Glover Roberts, Jr. (2005–present) 2010–present: A. Scalia A. Kennedy C. Thomas R.B. Ginsburg S. Breyer S. Alito S. Sotomayor E. Kagan

v t e United States Solicitors General Bristow • Phillips • Goode • Jenks • Chapman • Taft • Aldrich • Maxwell • Conrad • Richards • Hoyt • Bowers • Lehmann • Bullitt • Davis • King • Frierson • Beck • Mitchell • Hughes • Thacher • Biggs • Reed • Jackson • Biddle • Fahy • McGrath • Perlman • Cummings • Sobeloff • Rankin • Cox • Marshall • Griswold • Bork • McCree • Lee • Fried • Starr • Days • Dellinger (acting) • Waxman • Barbara Underwood (acting) • Olson • Clement • Garre • Kneedler (acting) • Kagan • Katyal (acting) • Verrilli

Paul Clement
43rd Solicitor General of the United States
In office July 11, 2004 – June 19, 2008
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Theodore Olson
Succeeded by	Gregory G. Garre
Acting Attorney General of the United States
In office September 17, 2007 – September 18, 2007
Preceded by	Alberto Gonzales
Succeeded by	Peter Keisler, act.
Personal details
Born	Paul Drew Clement (1966-06-24) June 24, 1966 (age 46) Cedarburg, Wisconsin
Political party	Republican
Alma mater	Georgetown University Darwin College, Cambridge Harvard Law School

Paul Drew Clement (born June 24, 1966) is a former United States Solicitor General and current Georgetown University legal professor. He is also an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on March 14, 2005 for the post of Solicitor-General, confirmed by the United States Senate on June 8, 2005, and took the oath of office on June 13. Clement replaced Theodore Olson.

Clement resigned on May 14, 2008, effective June 2, 2008, and joined the Georgetown University Law Center as a visiting professor and senior fellow at the Supreme Court Institute.^[1]

Early life and education[link]

Clement was born to Jean and Jerry Clement, and he had two brothers and a sister. Clement is a native of Cedarburg, Wisconsin. In 1984 he graduated from Cedarburg High School, where he was on the debate team. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and a master's degree in economics from Darwin College, University of Cambridge. While at Georgetown, Clement successfully competed in the American Parliamentary Debate Association. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School where he was the Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Legal career[link]

Following graduation, Clement clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. Clement went on to serve as Chief Counsel of Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Afterwards, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of King & Spalding, where he headed the firm's appellate practice. He also served from 1998 to 2004 as an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught a seminar on the separation of powers.

Clement joined the United States Department of Justice in February 2001. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General, and he became the acting Solicitor General on July 11, 2004 when Theodore Olson resigned. He has argued over 53 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, United States v. Booker, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld v. FAIR, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Gonzales v. Raich, Gonzales v. Oregon, Gonzales v. Carhart, and Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation. He also argued many of the key cases in the lower courts involving challenges to the President's conduct of the war on terrorism.^[2] He has argued more cases before the Supreme Court since 2000 than any other lawyer.^[3]

On August 27, 2007, President Bush named Clement as the future acting Attorney General of the United States, to take office upon the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, effective September 17, 2007.^[4] According to administration officials, Clement took that office at 12:01 AM September 17, 2007, and left office 24 hours later.^[5] On September 17, President Bush announced that Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, Peter Keisler would become acting Attorney General, pending a permanent appointment of a presidential nominee.^[6][7]

Clement gave notice of his resignation on May 14, 2008, effective June 2, 2008, and returned to Georgetown Law School as a senior fellow.^[1] He had been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court candidate in a John McCain presidency^[1] and is a coveted potential hire among DC legal firms, who reportedly are vying to build a firm around his expertise in appellate matters.^[8] Evan Tager of Mayer Brown said: “Paul Clement is the Holy Grail of law firm recruiting... The buzz in the legal world about Clement is like the buzz in basketball when LeBron James was coming out of high school and turning pro. It will be interesting to see where the market will go.”^[8]

As of November 20, 2008, Clement re-joined King & Spalding as a partner in its expanding appellate litigation practice. As part of King & Spalding he argued on behalf of the NRA in the Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago on March 2, 2010.^[9]

Clement was part of the legal team that represented players in the NBA in labor negotiations during the 2011 lockout. Clement also advised 10 NFL players in the spring of 2011 when the NFL was facing a potential lock-out.^[10]

As a partner at King & Spalding, Clement was hired in April 2011 by the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that federally defines marriage as between one man and one woman, after the U.S. Department of Justice decided to stop defending it.^[11] King & Spalding withdrew from the case on April 25, 2011, and Clement resigned from the firm to continue his representation, arguing that "representation should not be abandoned because the client's legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters."^[12] He joined Bancroft PLLC, a smaller law firm led by former Assistant Attorney General Viet D. Dinh.^[13][14]

Clement led the challenge on behalf of 26 states to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court on March 26 - 28, 2012.

See also[link]

• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
• George W. Bush Supreme Court candidates

References[link]

External links[link]

• Paul Clement's federal campaign contributions
• Office of the Solicitor General

v t e United States Solicitors General Bristow • Phillips • Goode • Jenks • Chapman • Taft • Aldrich • Maxwell • Conrad • Richards • Hoyt • Bowers • Lehmann • Bullitt • Davis • King • Frierson • Beck • Mitchell • Hughes • Thacher • Biggs • Reed • Jackson • Biddle • Fahy • McGrath • Perlman • Cummings • Sobeloff • Rankin • Cox • Marshall • Griswold • Bork • McCree • Lee • Fried • Starr • Days • Dellinger (acting) • Waxman • Barbara Underwood (acting) • Olson • Clement • Garre • Kneedler (acting) • Kagan • Katyal (acting) • Verrilli

Colonel Lindsey Graham
United States Senator from South Carolina
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2003 Serving with Jim DeMint
Preceded by	Strom Thurmond
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 3rd district
In office January 3, 1995 – January 3, 2003
Preceded by	Butler Derrick
Succeeded by	J. Gresham Barrett
Personal details
Born	Lindsey Olin Graham (1955-07-09) July 9, 1955 (age 56) Central, South Carolina
Political party	Republican
Residence	Seneca, South Carolina
Alma mater	University of South Carolina (B.A./J.D.)
Occupation	Attorney
Religion	Southern Baptist
Website	www.lgraham.senate.gov
Military service
Service/branch	United States Air Force
Years of service	1982–1988 (active) 1988 – present (reserve)
Rank	Colonel
Unit	Judge Advocate General's Corps
Battles/wars	Gulf War Iraq War War in Afghanistan

Lindsey Olin Graham (born July 9, 1955) is the senior United States Senator from South Carolina and a member of the Republican Party. Previously he served as the United States Representative for South Carolina's 3rd congressional district.

Early life, education and career[link]

Graham was born in Central, South Carolina, where his parents, Millie and Florence James Graham, ran a liquor store, the Sanitary Cafe.^[1] After graduating from D. W. Daniel High School, Graham became the first member of his family to attend college and joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. When he was 21 his mother died, and his father died 15 months later. Because his sister was left orphaned, the service allowed Graham to attend University of South Carolina in Columbia so he could be near home and care for his sister, whom he adopted. During his studies, he became a member of the fraternity Pi Kappa Phi.

Graham graduated from the University of South Carolina with a B.A. in Psychology in 1977 and from the University of South Carolina School of Law with a J.D. in 1981. Upon graduating, Graham was commissioned as an officer and judge advocate in the United States Air Force, placed on active duty and sent to Europe as a military prosecutor. He eventually entered private practice as a lawyer.

Military service[link]

Graham decided to join the United States Air Force in 1982, and served on active duty until 1988. Following his departure he stayed in the military, joining the South Carolina Air National Guard^[2] and the U.S. Air Force Reserve. During the Gulf War, he was recalled to active duty, serving as a Judge Advocate at McEntire Air National Guard Station in Eastover, South Carolina, where he helped brief departing pilots on the laws of war.^[3] He later transferred from the Air National Guard to the Air Force Reserve.

In 2004, Graham received a promotion to Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve at a White House ceremony officiated by President George W. Bush.

Graham served in Iraq as a reservist on active duty for short periods during April and two weeks in August 2007, where he worked on detainee and rule-of-law issues.^[4] He also served in Afghanistan during the August 2009 Senate recess.^[5]

Through 2010, Graham served as a senior instructor for the Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Air Force.^[6]

South Carolina House of Representatives[link]

In 1992, Graham was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives from a district in Oconee County, and served one term.

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Committee assignments[link]

During his service in the House, Graham served on the following committees:

• Committee on International Relations, 1995–1998
• Committee on Education and the Workforce, 1995–2002
• Committee on the Judiciary, 1997–2002
• Committee on Armed Services, 1999–2002

In Congress, Graham became a member of the Judiciary Committee during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998. Graham opposed some articles, but vigorously supported others. In January and February 1999, after two impeachment articles had been passed by the full House, he was one of the managers who brought the House's case to Clinton's trial in the Senate which did not convict Clinton.^[7]

U.S. Senate[link]

Committee assignments[link]

• Committee on Armed Services
  • Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
  • Subcommittee on Personnel (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
• Committee on the Budget
• Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
  • Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia
  • Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration
  • Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery (Ranking Member)
  • Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight
• Committee on the Judiciary
  • Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts
  • Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law
  • Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights
• Committee on Veterans' Affairs
• Special Committee on Aging

Previous assignments[link]

• Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, 2003–2005
• Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, 2007–2009
• Select Committee on Intelligence, 2007–2009

Caucus memberships[link]

• International Conservation Caucus
• Senate National Guard Caucus (Co-Chair)
• Sportsmen's Caucus
• Senate Oceans Caucus

Graham is a member of the board of directors of the International Republican Institute.^[8]

Alito confirmation hearings[link]

During the Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for the nomination of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court, a question arose concerning Alito's membership in a Princeton University organization which some said was sexist and racist.^[9][9][10] Alito "deplored" racist comments made by the organization's founder.^[11] While Graham said that Alito may be saying this because he wanted the nomination, he concluded that he had no reason to believe that because "you seem to be a decent, honorable man."^[11] Alito's wife and sister characterized Graham's statements as supportive.^[12][13]

Political positions[link]

Though Graham's stances are often politically conservative,^[14] he has gained a reputation for sometimes speaking out against or criticizing the party line, as well as being open to making economic decisions, such as was demonstrated with his support for bank bailouts.^[15] Graham notably supported John McCain's presidential bid in 2000, and served as national co-chairman of McCain's 2008 presidential bid.

Free speech[link]

During an appearance on Face the Nation on April 3, 2011,^[16] Graham "suggested that Congress take unspecified though formal action against the Koran-burning by Florida preacher Terry Jones," in light of an attack on United Nations personnel triggered by Jones' actions.^[17] In asserting that "Congress might need to explore the need to limit some forms of freedom of speech,"^[18] Graham argued that "Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war," and claimed that "during World War II, we had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy."^[17][19]

Gang of 14[link]

On May 23, 2005, Graham was one of the Gang of 14 senators to forge a compromise that brought a halt to the continued blockage of an up or down vote on judicial nominees. This compromise negated both the Democrats' use of a filibuster and the Republican "nuclear option" as described in the media. Under the agreement, the Democrats would retain the power to filibuster a Bush judicial nominee only in an "extraordinary circumstance", and three conservative Bush appellate court nominees (Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor) would receive a vote by the full Senate.

Detainee interrogations[link]

In July 2005, Graham secured the declassification and release of memoranda outlining concerns made by senior military lawyers as early as 2003 about the legality of the interrogations of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.^[20]

In response to this and a June 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing detainees to file habeas corpus petitions to challenge their detentions, Graham authored an amendment^[21] to a Department of Defense Authorization Act attempting to clarify the authority of American courts which passed in November 2005 by a vote of 49–42 in the Senate despite opposition from human rights groups and legal scholars because of the lack of rights it provides detainees.^[22][23]

Graham has said he amended the Department of Defense Authorization Act in order to give military lawyers, as opposed to politically appointed lawyers, a more independent role in the oversight of military commanders. He has argued that two of the largest problems leading to the detainee abuse scandals at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib were this lack of oversight and troops' confusion over legal boundaries.^[24]

Graham further explains that military lawyers had long observed the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention, but that those provisions had not been considered by the Bush administration in decisions regarding the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. He has claimed that better legal oversight within the military’s chain of command will prevent future detainee abuse.^[25]

The Graham amendment was itself amended by Democratic Senator Carl Levin so that it would not strip the courts of their jurisdiction in cases like Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that had already been granted cert; this compromise version passed by a vote of 84–14, though it did little to satisfy many critics of the original language. The Graham-Levin amendment, combined with Republican Senator John McCain's amendment banning torture, became known as the Detainee Treatment Act and attempted to limit interrogation techniques to those in the U.S. Army Field Manual of Interrogation. Verbal statements by Senators at the time of the amendment's passage indicated that Congress believed that Levin's changes would protect the courts' jurisdiction over cases like Hamdan, though Levin and his cosponsor Kyl placed in the Congressional Record a statement indicating that there would be no change.

In February 2006, Graham joined Senator Jon Kyl in filing an amicus brief in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case that argued "Congress was aware" that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 would strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear "pending cases, including this case" brought by the Guantanamo detainees.^[27]

In a May 2009 CNN interview, Graham referred to the domestic internment of German and Japanese prisoners of war and US Citizens as a model for domestic detention of Guantanamo detainees by saying, "We had 450,000 Japanese and German prisoners housed in the United States during World War II. As a nation, we can deal with this."^[28]

Immigration reform[link]

Graham was a supporter of "comprehensive immigration reform" and of S. 2611, the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform Bill of 2006 as well as S. 1348 of 2007, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. His positions on immigration, and in particular collaborating with Senator Ted Kennedy, earned Graham the ire of conservative activists.^[29] In a synergy that would boost the US economy, Graham once said that illegal aliens were needed to provide cheap labor for golf courses.^[30] The controversy prompted conservative activists to support a primary challenge in 2008 by longtime Republican national committeeman Buddy Witherspoon,^[31][32] but Graham won the nomination by a large margin.^[33]　

In July 2010, however, Graham suggested that U.S. citizenship as an automatic birthright guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution should be amended, and that any child born of illegal immigrants inside the borders of the United States should themselves be considered illegal immigrants.^[34] "Half the children born in hospitals on our borders are the children of illegal immigrants," pointed out Graham.^[35]

Second Amendment[link]

Graham has been given an A rating by the NRA and a B rating by the Gun Owners of America.^[36]

Health care[link]

Graham opposed President Barack Obama's health reform legislation; he voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December 2009,^[37] and he voted against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.^[38]

Graham is a cosponsor of the Healthy Americans Act.

Same-sex marriage[link]

As a member of the House of Representatives, in 1996 Graham voted for the Defense of Marriage Act.^[39] As a Senator, in 2004 he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment.^[40] He received a rating of 0% from the Human Rights Campaign, a lobby group which promotes LGBT rights in the United States, in each reporting period from 1995–2008, with the exception of 1999, when he received a rating of 9%.^[41]

Climate change[link]

On December 10, 2009, Graham co-sponsored a letter to President Barack Obama along with Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman announcing their commitment to passing a climate change bill and outlining its framework.^[42] Graham has been identified as a leading supporter of passing a climate change bill and was thought to be a likely sponsor for the final bill. The Senators have identified a green economy, clean air, energy independence, consumer protection, increasing nuclear power and regulating the world's carbon market as the key features to a successful climate change bill.^[43] In response to Senate Democrats shifting their priorities to immigration issues, a reaction to Arizona's passage of an anti-undocumented immigrant law, Senator Graham withdrew his support for the climate bill, leaving its passage in doubt.^[44]

In June 2010, however, Graham told reporters that "The science about global warming has changed. I think they've oversold this stuff, quite frankly. I think they've been alarmist and the science is in question. The whole movement has taken a giant step backward."^[45][46] He also stated that he planned to vote against the climate bill that he had originally co-sponsored, citing further restriction of offshore drilling added to the bill and the bill's impact on transportation.^[46][47]

Foreign policy[link]

Graham has supported an interventionist foreign policy. On November 6, 2010, at the Halifax International Security Forum, he called for a pre-emptive military strike to "neuter" the Iranian regime.^[48] He has also argued that "the U.S. needs to keep at least 10,000 troops in Iraq into 2012," saying that "If we're not smart enough to work with the Iraqis to have 10,000 to 15,000 American troops in Iraq in 2012, Iraq could go to hell."^[49]

In August 2011, Graham co-sponsored with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen Senate Resolution 175, wherewith he contended that "Russia's invasion of Georgian land in 2008 was an act of aggression, not only to Georgia but to all new democracies." The claim that Russia instigated the aggression in South Ossetia, however, has been contradicted by many observers, including a European Union investigation. The resolution passed unanimously.

He is an advisor to the Atlantic Bridge.

Taxation[link]

Graham believes that "There are ways to raise revenue without raising taxes".^[50]

Political campaigns[link]

In 1994, Graham was elected to the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina's 3rd congressional district in the northwestern part of the state after 20-year incumbent Butler Derrick retired. With U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond campaigning on his behalf, Graham won by a large margin, becoming the first Republican to represent this district since 1877. The margin came as something of a surprise; none of the 3rd's living residents had ever been represented by a Republican before. In his first reelection bid, in 1996, Debbie Dorn, daughter of longtime 3rd District congressman W.J. Bryan Dorn and Derrick's niece, challenged Graham. However, Graham turned back this challenge fairly easily, winning by almost 20 points. He was unopposed for reelection in 1998 and handily defeated an underfunded Democrat in 2000.

In 2002, upon Thurmond's retirement, Graham defeated his Democratic opponent, Alex Sanders, the former president of the College of Charleston. Graham became South Carolina's first new Senator since 1965, and the state's first freshman Republican Senator since Reconstruction when sanctions were imposed on South Carolina by Radical Republicans. Graham served as Junior Senator for only two years, serving with U.S. Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings. Graham became Senior Senator in 2005 when Jim DeMint won election to Hollings's seat. In 2008, Graham was easily reelected against North Myrtle Beach native Bob Conley.^[51]

Electoral history[link]

Personal life[link]

Graham has never been married and, when questioned by Robert Draper of the New York Times, said, "I know it's really going to upset a lot of gay men—I'm sure hundreds of them are going to be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge—but I ain't available; I ain't gay. Sorry."^[53]

References[link]