John Cornyn
John Cornyn | |
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| Junior Senator, Texas | |
| In office January 2003–Present | |
| Preceded by | Phil Gramm |
| Succeeded by | Incumbent (2009) |
| Personal details | |
| Nationality | american |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Sandy Cornyn |
John Cornyn III (born February 2, 1952) is the junior United States Senator from Texas. He was elected to his first term in 2002. He is a Republican. He defeated his Democratic Party opponent, Ron Kirk, who would have been the only African American in the Senate in 2003.
He graduated from Trinity University and later earned his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from St. Mary's School of Law, both in San Antonio, Texas, Cornyn also earned a Master of Laws from the University of Virginia Law School in 1995.
After serving six years as a District Court Judge in San Antonio, Texas, he was elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1990 and re-elected in 1996. He resigned from the Texas Supreme Court in 1997 to run for Attorney General. When elected, he became the first Republican to win the position since Reconstruction. He has now left this position to become a member of the United States Senate.
Senator Cornyn sits on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary as chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration. He previously served as chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights. He also serves on the Armed Services Committee, the Budget Committee, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee. In 2004, Cornyn co-founded and became the co-chair of the U.S. Senate India Caucus with the encouragement and aid of the USINPAC Political_Action_Committee.
Court violence controversy
Cornyn has been active in criticizing what he calls "activist judges". The term is controversial and is generally used to describe judges who make rulings based on their own policy preferences, as if they were legislators, rather than deciding cases strictly on legal merit and regardless of policy impact. It is typically used by U.S. conservatives to question the legal reasoning and, sometimes, intellectual integrity, of various landmark judicial decisions that have had liberal policy outcomes, particularly in culturally contentious issues such as abortion, school prayer, and homosexuality. (In recent years, liberals have attempted to turn the tables on conservatives by attempting to re-define "judicial activism" to signify a willingness to overturn prior decisions; in this interpretation, a judge who overturned a previous ruling upholding abortion rights would be a "judicial activist.")
Cornyn caused a controversy in the wake of several high-profile violent crimes and death threats against judges when he stated on the floor of the US Senate on April 4, 2005, that "raw political or ideological decisions" by judges cause "great distress" in many people and wondered aloud if this "distress" was the cause of the violence.
- I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence.
Cornyn's opponents argued that this amounted to rationalizing violence against judges if their decisions were unpopular with the public. His remarks came shortly after House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said that "the men responsible [for Terri Schiavo's death] will have to answer to their behavior." Liberals like Ralph Neas, President of People for the American Way argued that both comments "are irresponsible and could be seen by some as justifying inexcusable conduct against our courts." [1]
Cornyn later retracted the remarks, arguing that they were taken out of context. [2] He argued that as a former judge himself, he was "outraged" by recent acts of violence against judges and undercut his original statement by saying "I'm not aware of any evidence whatsoever linking recent acts of courthouse violence to the various controversial rulings that have captured the nation’s attention in recent years."
On April 18, 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed Texas Public Information Act requests with both the Texas Office of the Attorney General and with the Texas Governor's Office to obtain information regarding contacts between Cornyn and lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, as well as for all documents related to the Tigua Tribe of El Paso, Texas.
CREW filed its requests in response to Sen. Cornyn's statement that he never met with Reed in regard to the Tigua casino. (Maria Recio, Ft. Worth Star Telegram) However, some believe email correspondence between Abramoff and Reed suggests otherwise.
On November 12, 2001, Reed sent Abramoff an e-mail stating, "get me details so I can alert cornyn and let him know what we are doing to help him" [sic]. Similarly, on November 13, 2001, Reed wrote "I strongly suggest we start doing patch-throughs to perry and cornyn [sic]. We're getting killed on the phone." Also, on January 7, 2002, Reed sent Abramoff an e-mail stating "I think we should budget for an ataboy for cornyn" [sic].
When Cornyn ran for Senate, Abramoff contributed $1,000, the maximum amount legally allowed. The allegedly anti-gambling Cornyn also received $6,250 in contributions from Las Vegas casino interests who oppose Indian gaming, some of which were made at the same time Cornyn was pushing to close the Tigua's casino.
Anti-lynching resolution controversy
In June 2005 Cornyn stirred controversy when he was one of seventeen senators not to cosponsor a Senate resolution[3] apologizing for not passing anti-lynching legislation.
External links
http://citizensforethics.org/filelibrary/FOIA_20050418_TXAG.pdf
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