| Revision as of 01:08, 8 April 2007 editBbatsell (talk | contribs)8,873 editsm →Casino investigation: whoops, add title← Previous edit | Revision as of 10:39, 9 April 2007 edit undoSteve Dufour (talk | contribs)Pending changes reviewers21,429 edits Seems to be uncited negative material about a living personNext edit → | ||
| Line 71: | Line 71: | ||
| On ], ], retired Supreme Court Justice ] gave a speech in which she said of Cornyn: "It doesn't help when a high-profile Senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the Senator disagrees with."<ref>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5255712</ref> | On ], ], retired Supreme Court Justice ] gave a speech in which she said of Cornyn: "It doesn't help when a high-profile Senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the Senator disagrees with."<ref>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5255712</ref> | ||
| ==Casino investigation== | |||
| {{Unreferenced|date=April 2007}} | |||
| On ], ], ] (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 ] ], Abramoff's partner ], and former ] leader ], as well as for all documents related to the ] Tribe of ].<ref name="crew">{{cite web | |||
| | date = ] | |||
| | title = CREW Files Texas Public Information Request Regarding US Senator Cornyn's Involvement With Indian Gaming Scandal | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | url = http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/19113 | |||
| | accessdate = 2007-04-07 }}</ref> | |||
| CREW filed its requests in response to Sen. Cornyn's statement that he never met with Reed in regard to the Tigua casino.<ref>{{cite news | |||
| | date = ] | |||
| | last = Recio | |||
| | first = Maria | |||
| | publisher = Fort Worth Star-Telegram | |||
| | title = Cornyn denies ties to lobbyist }}</ref> | |||
| On ], ], Reed sent Abramoff an e-mail message stating, "get me details so I can alert cornyn and let him know what we are doing to help him" .<ref name="crew" /> Similarly, on ], ], Reed wrote "I strongly suggest we start doing patch-throughs to perry and cornyn . We're getting killed on the phone."<ref name="crew" /> On ], ], Reed sent Abramoff an e-mail stating "I think we should budget for an ataboy for cornyn" . Reed claimed in another e-mail to Abramoff that, "We have also choreographed Cornyn's response. The AG will state that the law is clear, talk about how much he wants to avoid repetition of El Paso and pledge to take swift action to enforce the law."<ref name="saen">{{cite news | |||
| | date = ] | |||
| | last = Gamboa | |||
| | first = Suzanne | |||
| | title = E-mails show link between Cornyn, Abramoff | |||
| | publisher = San Antonio Express-News | |||
| | url = http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/nation/stories/MYSA111305.abramoff.ap.4e7dd322.html | |||
| | accessdate = 2007-04-07 }}</ref> Cornyn later responded to Reed's e-mail, saying that, "Their efforts were irrelevant to what I was doing... It's kind of eye-opening to me that apparently people make money claiming credit for something I decided to do under the law."<ref name="saen" /> | |||
| During Cornyn's campaign for Senate, he received $1,000 in campaign contributions from Abramoff and $6,250 in contributions from Las Vegas casino interests who oppose Indian gaming.<ref name="crew" /> | |||
| ==Footnotes== | ==Footnotes== | ||
Revision as of 10:39, 9 April 2007
| John Cornyn | |
|---|---|
 | |
| United States Senator from Texas | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office December 2, 2002–Serving with Kay Bailey Hutchison | |
| Preceded by | W. Philip 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 is a Republican and was elected to his first term in November, 2002, defeating Democrat Ron Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas, Texas.
Cornyn was born in Houston, Texas to Atholene Gale Danley and John Cornyn II. He graduated from Trinity University in 1973, where he majored in journalism and was a member of the local fraternity Chi Delta Tau. He earned a J.D. from St. Mary's University School of Law in 1977, and an LL.M. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1995 .
After serving six years as a District Court Judge in San Antonio, Texas, Cornyn was elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1990 and re-elected in 1996. Cornyn resigned from the Texas Supreme Court in 1997 to run for the office of attorney general of Texas. When elected, he became the first Republican to win the position since Reconstruction. He left that post for his successful Senate run in 2002.
In 2005, Cornyn's name was floated among possibilities to replace Supreme Court justices Sandra Day O'Connor or William Rehnquist .
Cornyn and his wife Sandy have two daughters, Danley and Haley.
Senate career
Cornyn was ranked by National Journal as the third-most conservative United States Senator in their March, 2007 conservative/liberal rankings.
Cornyn, widely considered to be a very close Senate ally for the current President Bush, sits on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary as ranking member of the 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 and is the Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Ethics. In 2004, Cornyn co-founded and became the co-chairman of the U.S. Senate India Caucus with the encouragement and aid of the USINPAC Political Action Committee.
Senator Cornyn was selected by his colleagues in December 2006 to be a member of the five-person Republican Senate leadership team – Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference – the only first-term Senator in recent memory to be so honored.
While in the Senate, John Cornyn has received various awards and recognitions, including the 2005 Border Texan of the Year Award; the National Child Support Enforcement Association’s Children’s Champion Award; the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Friend of Farm Bureau Award; the Texas Association of Business’s (TAB) Fighter for Free Enterprise Award; the National Federation of Independent Business’s (NFIB) Guardian of Small Business Award; the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leader’s (CONLAMIC) Latino Leadership Award; and the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce’s (TAMACC) International Leadership Legislative Award; among others.
Cornyn was rated 0% by the League of Conservation Voters, indicating what they evaluate as an anti-environment voting record.
In the 2004 debate surrounding the Federal Marriage Amendment, John Cornyn released an advance copy of a speech he was to give at the Heritage Foundation. In the speech, he wrote, "It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right... Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife." He removed the reference to the box turtle in the actual speech, but the Washington Post ran the quote. Jon Stewart on the Daily Show lampooned the quote, and a news blog called Box Turtle Bulletin was started.
After the withdrawal of the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, Cornyn was mentioned as a possible replacement nominee.
In September 2005, during the Supreme Court hearings for John G. Roberts Jr., Cornyn's staff passed out bingo cards to reporters, asking them to stamp their card every time a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee used terms such as "far right" or "extremist".
In September 2005, Cornyn sponsored a bill that would allow law enforcement to force anyone arrested or detained to provide samples of their DNA, which would be recorded in a central database.
On January 24, 2007, Cornyn was one of 28 Senators who voted to repeal the minimum wage in order to allow the States more flexibility to determine minimum wage. On February 1, 2007, Cornyn voted to raise the federal minimum wage.
During senate hearings on a possible censure of President George W. Bush Cornyn attacked Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, arguing that censuring the president would amount to "aiding our enemies during a time of war".
Cornyn will be up for reelection to the Senate in 2008. He is considered to be in relatively good position for reelection given Texas' recent history of favoring Republicans in statewide elections (no Democrat has been elected to the Senate from Texas since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988). However, Democrats have been experiencing something of a resurgence in Texas, gaining two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006, and Cornyn may be vulnerable.
Court violence controversy
Cornyn has been active in criticizing what he calls "activist judges". 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 U.S. 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 then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said that "the men responsible will have to answer to their behavior." 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."
Cornyn argued that his remarks were taken out of context. -- that as a former judge himself, he was "outraged" by recent acts of violence against judges. The following day on the Senate floor he said:
- there is no possible justification for courthouse violence. ... I am 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.
- My point was, and is, simply this: We should all be concerned that the judiciary is losing respect that it needs to serve the interests of the American people well. We should all want judges who interpret the law fairly -- not impose their own personal views on the Nation. We should all want to fix our broken judicial confirmation process. And we should all be disturbed by overheated rhetoric about the judiciary from both sides of the aisle. I regret that my remarks have been taken out of context to create a wrong impression about my position, and possibly be construed to contribute to the problem rather than to a solution. Our judiciary must not be politicized. Rhetoric about the judiciary and about judicial nominees must be toned down. Our broken judicial confirmation process must be fixed once and for all.
On March 9, 2006, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor gave a speech in which she said of Cornyn: "It doesn't help when a high-profile Senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the Senator disagrees with."
Footnotes
- http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/senators/cornyn.htm
- http://politicalarithmetik.blogspot.com/2007/03/national-journal-2006.html
- http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/About/AboutUs.htm
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/AR2005070100756.html
- http://www.dot-bingo.com/20050918/bingo-game-introduced-to-supreme-court-nomination-hearing_2175_oeaehr.php
- Washington Post Article, 9/23/05
- Vote Roll Call
- Vote Roll Call
- http://cornyn.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=236007
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26236-2005Apr4.html
- http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_04_03_corner-archive.asp#060012
- http://cornyn.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=236040
- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5255712
External links
- United States Senator John Cornyn official Senate site
- United States Congress. "John Cornyn (id: c001056)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- Federal Election Commission - John Cornyn campaign finance reports and data
- New York Times - John Cornyn News collected news and commentary
- On the Issues - John Cornyn issue positions and quotes
- OpenSecrets.org - John Cornyn campaign contributions
- Project Vote Smart - Senator John Cornyn (TX) profile
- SourceWatch Congresspedia - John Cornyn profile
- Washington Post - Congress Votes Database: John Cornyn voting record
- 2008 Texas Senate Race at 2008RaceTracker.com
Articles
- Courthouse violence remarks
- Retraction/clarification of courthouse violence remarks
- Citizens for Ethics FOIA Request
- Courts are to blame for war on Christmas see also War on Christmas
- The Texas Blue - John Cornyn - Vulnerable in '08?
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded byFranklin S. Spears | Texas Supreme Court Justice 1991 – 1997 |
Succeeded byDeborah Hankinson |
| Preceded byDan Morales | Texas State Attorney General 1999 – 2002 |
Succeeded byGreg Abbott |
| Preceded byPhil Gramm | U.S. senator (Class 2) from Texas December 2, 2002- Served alongside: Kay Bailey Hutchison |
Incumbent |
| Texas's current delegation to the United States Congress | |
|---|---|
| Senators |
|
| Representatives (ordered by district) |
|
| Current United States senators | ||
|---|---|---|
| President: ▌ Kamala Harris (D) ‧ President pro tempore: ▌ Chuck Grassley (R) | ||
|  | |
| ||