John Cornyn

John Cornyn III (born February 2, 1952) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States Senator for Texas since 2002. He was the Republican Senate Majority Whip for the 114th and 115th Congresses.[1] Cornyn also previously served as Chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 2007 to 2011.[2]

John Cornyn
United States senator
from Texas
Assumed office
December 2, 2002
Serving with Ted Cruz
Preceded byPhil Gramm
Chair of the Senate Narcotics Caucus
Assumed office
January 3, 2019
Preceded byChuck Grassley
Senate Majority Whip
In office
January 3, 2015 – January 3, 2019
LeaderMitch McConnell
Preceded byDick Durbin
Succeeded byJohn Thune
Senate Minority Whip
In office
January 3, 2013 – January 3, 2015
LeaderMitch McConnell
Preceded byJon Kyl
Succeeded byDick Durbin
49th Attorney General of Texas
In office
January 13, 1999 – December 1, 2002
GovernorGeorge W. Bush
Rick Perry
Preceded byDan Morales
Succeeded byGreg Abbott
Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court
In office
January 2, 1991 – October 18, 1997
Preceded byFranklin Spears
Succeeded byDeborah Hankinson
Judge of the Texas 37th Judicial District Court
In office
January 1, 1985 – January 1, 1991
Preceded byRichard Woods
Succeeded byAnn-Marie Aaron
Personal details
Born
John Cornyn III

(1952-02-02) February 2, 1952
Houston, Texas, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse(s)
Sandy Hansen
(
m. 1979)
Children2
EducationTrinity University (BA)
St. Mary's University, Texas (JD)
University of Virginia (LLM)
WebsiteSenate website

Born in Houston, Cornyn is a graduate of Trinity University and St. Mary's University School of Law, and received an LL.M. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. He was a judge on Texas' 37th District Court from 1985 to 1991.[3][4] He was elected an associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court, where he served from 1991 to 1997. In 1998, Cornyn was elected Attorney General of Texas, serving one term until winning a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2002. He was reelected to a second term in 2008 and to a third term in 2014. He is running for a fourth term in 2020.

Cornyn was born in Houston, the son of Atholene Gale Cornyn (née Danley) and John Cornyn II, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force.[5] He attended the American School in Japan after his family moved to Tokyo in 1968, and graduated from it in 1969.[6] In 1973, he graduated from Trinity University, where he majored in journalism and was a member of Chi Delta Tau.[7][8] Cornyn earned a Juris Doctor from St. Mary's University School of Law in 1977 and an LL.M. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1995.[9][10] He was named the St. Mary's Distinguished Law School Graduate in 1994 and a Trinity University Distinguished Alumnus in 2001.[11]

Cornyn served as a district judge in San Antonio for six years before being elected as a Republican in 1990 to the Texas Supreme Court, on which he served for seven years.

Attorney General

1998 election

In 1998, Cornyn ran for Texas Attorney General. In the March Republican primary, Railroad Commissioner Barry Williamson received 38% of the vote and Cornyn, then a state Supreme Court Justice, 32%.[12] In the April runoff election, Cornyn defeated Williamson, 58% to 42%.[13] In the general election Cornyn defeated former attorney general (1983–1991) and U.S. Representative Jim Mattox with 54% of the vote.[14] He was the first Republican elected Attorney General of Texas since Reconstruction and was sworn in by Governor George W. Bush.[15]

Tenure
State of Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, 1997

Cornyn created the Texas Internet Bureau to investigate illegal internet practices. He fought government waste and corruption by investigating fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims.[16]

Cornyn was criticized by civil rights groups for failing to investigate in a timely manner the false drug convictions of numerous African-Americans in Tulia, Texas. On September 6, 2002, the Austin Chronicle reported that Cornyn had announced that his office would investigate the 1999 drug bust, where the testimony of one narcotics agent led to the arrests of 46 people, 43 of whom were Black.[17]

In 2005, Cornyn was mentioned as a possible replacement for Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist.[18]

United States Senate
Cornyn during the 113th congress

Elections
2002
Main article: 2002 United States Senate election in Texas

In the 2002 Republican primary, Cornyn faced five opponents. Cornyn defeated his closest Republican challenger, self-financed Dallas-based international physician Bruce Rusty Lang, in the election by a ten-to-one margin. In the general election, Cornyn defeated Democratic nominee Ron Kirk in a campaign that cost each candidate over $9 million.[19]

2008
Main article: 2008 United States Senate election in Texas

Texas has not elected a Democrat in a statewide election since 1994, and according to Rasmussen Reports polling, in October 2008 Cornyn had an approval rating of 50%.[20] Christian activist Larry Kilgore of Mansfield challenged Cornyn in the Republican primary, but Cornyn easily defeated him.[21] Texas Representative Rick Noriega won the March 4 Democratic primary against Gene Kelly, Ray McMurrey, and Rhett Smith. Yvonne Adams Schick was the Libertarian Party's nominee,[22] and the Green Party of Texas sought ballot access for its candidate, David B. Collins.[23] The same Rasmussen poll showed Cornyn leading Noriega 47% to 43%, suggesting that the race might prove unexpectedly competitive, but most polls showed a much wider margin, and Cornyn was reelected.

2014
John Cornyn speaking at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.
Main article: 2014 United States Senate election in Texas

Cornyn was reelected in 2014, and according to the Dallas Morning News, "never broke a sweat."[24] He won the March Republican primary with 59% of the vote against Houston-area congressman Steve Stockman.[24] In the general election, he raised $14 million, outspending Democratic nominee David Alameel by nearly 3-1.[24]

Tenure

In 2004, Cornyn co-founded and became the co-chairman of the U.S. Senate India Caucus.[25] In December 2006, he was selected by his colleagues to join the five-person Republican Senate leadership team as Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.[26]

In 2005, Cornyn gained notice by connecting the Supreme Court's reluctance to hear arguments for sustaining Terri Schiavo's life with the recent murders of Judge Joan Lefkow's husband and mother as well as the courtroom murder of Judge Rowland Barnes. Cornyn said: "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. 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 building up to the point where some people engage in violence".[27] His statement and a similar one by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay were widely denounced, including by The New York Times.[28] Cornyn later said that the statement was taken out of context and for that reason he regretted the statement.[29]

On May 18, 2007, Cornyn was involved in an altercation with the late Senator John McCain. During a meeting on immigration, McCain and Cornyn had a shouting match when Cornyn started questioning the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive. McCain yelled an insult at Cornyn and said "I know more about this than anyone else in the room." Previously, Cornyn told McCain, "Wait a second here. I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."[30]

As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Cornyn was a strong supporter of Norm Coleman's various court challenges to the 2008 election certification of the Minnesota U.S. Senate race.[31] Cornyn advocated for Coleman to bring the case before the federal court, and said the trial and appeals could take years to complete.[32] Cornyn threatened that Republicans would wage a "World War III" if Senate Democrats had attempted to seat Democratic candidate Al Franken before the appeals were complete.[33] Coleman conceded after the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Franken had won the election.

On the day of Obama's inauguration, it was reported that Cornyn would prevent Hillary Clinton from being confirmed as secretary of state by unanimous floor vote that day. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's spokesman reported to the Associated Press that a roll call vote for the Clinton confirmation would be held instead on the following day, January 21, 2009, and that it was expected Clinton would "receive overwhelming bipartisan support".[34] The vote was 94–2 in her favor, with only Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and David Vitter (R-LA) voting in opposition.[35]

On March 18, 2020, Cornyn blamed the COVID-19 pandemic on cultural practices in China and mistakenly blamed China for the MERS and swine flu epidemics.[36] His comments were criticized by some Democrats and the National Council of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. At the time, the consensus among researchers was that coronavirus had originated at a wet market in Wuhan, China.[37][38]

President Donald Trump with Senators Cornyn and Ted Cruz, August 29, 2017

Senate Majority Whip
Senator John Cornyn as U.S. Senate Majority Whip, after 2014 re-election.

On November 14, 2012, Cornyn was elected Senate Minority Whip by his peers.[39]

Cornyn was named Senate Majority Whip after the 2014 election, in which Republicans gained a Senate majority.[24][40]

After the death of Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, Cornyn said that anyone Obama nominated to replace him would have a difficult confirmation process and feel like a piñata.[41] He also said that no serious candidate would accept a nomination knowing that they would not be confirmed. When Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace Scalia, Cornyn said that even if the president has the constitutional authority to nominate someone, the Senate has full authority on how to proceed. Cornyn also said that the voice of the people should play a role and that the vacancy should be filled by the winner of the upcoming presidential election, so no hearings on Garland should be held.[42] The Senate did not vote on Garland's nomination, which expired after the November election of President Donald Trump. Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the seat, and Gorsuch was confirmed.

Cornyn and Trump in El Paso, Texas on August 7, 2019

On June 8, 2017, Cornyn questioned James Comey on Hillary Clinton's emails at a committee hearing whose announced topic was the Russian interference in the 2016 election and Comey's dismissal as FBI director.[43]

In September 2018, during the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, Cornyn accused the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of devolving into mob rule by breaking the rules of decorum when asking for postponement or adjournment of the hearing to obtain or review documents from Kavanaugh's time working for the George W. Bush administration. Cornyn said that it was hard to believe the Democrats' claim that they could not properly assess Kavanaugh without the documents because it seemed that their minds were already made up.[44]

Committee assignments

Political positions

Political scientists John Sides and Daniel J. Hopkins characterized Cornyn as "very conservative" in 2015.[45] In 2013, National Journal ranked Cornyn the 14th-most conservative United States Senator.[46] The Dallas Morning News considered him a reliable ally of President George W. Bush on most issues.[47]

Civil rights and law enforcement

In the 2004 debate surrounding the Federal Marriage Amendment, 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". According to his office, he removed the reference to the box turtle in the actual speech,[48] but The Washington Post ran the quote, as did The Daily Show.[49][50]

Cornyn sponsored a bill to allow law enforcement to force anyone arrested or detained by federal authorities to provide samples of their DNA, which would be recorded in a central database.[51] He voted to recommend a constitutional ban on flag desecration and for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. He also voted for the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act and extending its wiretap provision.

In a February 24, 2019 tweet, Cornyn mocked dictatorship, centralized power and democratic socialism by quoting Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini as saying "We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become."[52]

Foreign policy and national security

In December 2010, Cornyn was one of 26 senators who voted against the ratification of New Start,[53] a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation obliging both countries to have no more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers deployed during the next seven years and providing a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when START I expired the previous year. It was the first arms treaty with Russia in eight years.[54]

In August 2012, following news reports that a Russian Akula-class nuclear-powered submarine operated in the Gulf of Mexico purportedly undetected for over a month, Cornyn demanded details of this deployment from Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert.[55][56]

In 2013, Cornyn said that, despite the sequester, the Pentagon would actually see its budget increase.[57]

In April 2018, Cornyn was one of eight Republican senators to sign a letter to United States Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin and acting Secretary of State John Sullivan expressing "deep concern" over a report by the United Nations exposing "North Korean sanctions evasion involving Russia and China" and asserting that the findings "demonstrate an elaborate and alarming military-venture between rogue, tyrannical states to avoid United States and international sanctions and inflict terror and death upon thousands of innocent people" while calling it "imperative that the United States provides a swift and appropriate response to the continued use of chemical weapons used by President Assad and his forces, and works to address the shortcomings in sanctions enforcement."[58]

Cornyn supported U.S. involvement in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.[59][60] In December 2018 he said that the U.S. should stand with Saudi Arabia despite the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, saying: "Saudi Arabia is fighting a proxy war against Iran in Yemen, and an overreaction, in my view, would mean that we cancel arms sales and simply abandon our ally."[59]

In a Washington Post opinion editorial, Cornyn highlighted concerns raised by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said that widespread adoption of Huawei technology could increase vulnerability to cyberattacks and endanger NATO troops engaged on 5G-equipped battlefields.[61]

Cornyn with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005

Cornyn warned Trump about anticipated negative effects of restructuring tariffs on Mexican exports, saying, "We're holding a gun to our own heads by doing this."[62] In January 2018, Cornyn was one of 36 Republican senators to sign a letter to Trump requesting that he preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement by modernizing it for the 21st-century economy.[63] Cornyn urged Trump to restart trade talks on the Trans Pacific Partnership, which Trump called "a disaster."[64]

As Majority Whip, Cornyn filed a resolution welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was to address a joint meeting of Congress in March 2015, a resolution co-sponsored only by Republicans. Vice President Joe Biden and numerous Senate and House Democrats said they would not attend the address.[65] Cornyn supported the Senate resolution expressing objection to the UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which called Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories a flagrant violation of international law.[66]

In August 2018, Cornyn and 16 other lawmakers urged the Trump administration to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in western China's Xinjiang region.[67] They wrote: "The detention of as many as a million or more Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in "political reeducation” centers or camps requires a tough, targeted, and global response."[68]

In June 2020, amid reports that Russia had paid the Taliban bounties to kill American soldiers and that Trump had been briefed on the subject months earlier, Cornyn defended an assertion by Trump that he had never been briefed on the subject. Cornyn said, "I think the president can’t single-handedly remember everything, I’m sure, that he’s briefed on."[69]

Social policy

Cornyn voted to ban intact dilation and extraction (a surgical procedure that anti-abortion activists call "partial-birth abortion") except in cases where the mother's life was in danger, and for a criminal penalty for harming a fetus while committing another crime. He also voted in favor of notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. He voted against expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines.[70] He voted to prevent contributions to organizations that provide abortion as a component of family planning, and to prevent funding of organizations that support coercive abortion.[71]

Cornyn voted to confirm Samuel Alito as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and John Roberts for Chief Justice of the United States.[70] In September 2005, during Roberts's Supreme Court hearings, Cornyn's staff passed out bingo cards to reporters. He asked them to stamp their card every time a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee used terms such as "far right" or "extremist".[72]

On July 24, 2009, Cornyn announced his intention to vote against President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, saying that she might rule "from a liberal, activist perspective".[73]

In February 2019, Cornyn was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen urging them "to work with all federal, state and local regulators, as well as the hundreds of independent power producers and electricity distributors nation-wide to ensure our systems are protected" and affirming that they were "ready and willing to provide any assistance you need to secure our critical electricity infrastructure."[74]

Economy

Cornyn voted to permanently repeal the estate tax and to raise the estate tax exemption to $5 million. He voted in favor of $350 billion in tax cuts over 11 years and supported making the George W. Bush tax cuts permanent.[70] He opposed extending the 2011 payroll tax holiday.[75]

He voted for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 but against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009.

In 2008, Cornyn voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), also known as the Wall Street bailout, and later voted to end the program.[76]

Environment

Cornyn voted against a measure recognizing that climate change is manmade.[77] He was one of 22 senators to sign a letter to Trump urging him to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.[78] In May 2019, Cornyn said it was important that the United States take measures to combat climate change, but condemned the Green New Deal as proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.[79] In April 2020, he claimed that climate scientists' models of the effects of climate change do not use the "scientific method."[80]

In 2005, Cornyn voted against including oil and gas smokestacks in mercury regulations. He voted against factoring global warming into federal project planning, and against banning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He also voted against removing oil and gas exploration subsidies.[70] During his tenure in the Senate, Cornyn has scored 0% on the League of Conservation Voters' environmental scorecard, a system of ranking politicians according to their voting record on environmental legislation.[81]

Health care

Cornyn opposes the Affordable Care Act. He voted against it in 2009,[82] and played a leading role in the attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017.[83][84][85] He voted against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.[86] Cornyn said that Senator Ted Cruz's 2013 efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act by threatening to default on the U.S. government's debt obligations were "unachievable", adding, "the shutdown did not help our cause. What did help our cause was the president's implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which has overwhelmed everything else. I don't hear anyone thinking that another government shutdown is the way to achieve our goals."[87] Cornyn joined other Republican leaders to block Cruz's procedural move to reject an increase in the debt ceiling.[88]

Guns

In January 2014, Cornyn introduced the "Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act". The bill would provide interstate reciprocity for persons with concealed weapons permits. Cornyn described the bill as "It's like a driver's license. It doesn't trump state laws. Say you have a carry permit in Texas; then you use it in another state that has a concealed-carry law."[89] He was rated "A" by the National Rifle Association (NRA) as of 2003[70] and 2014;[89] as of 2018 his NRA rating was "A+".[90] Cornyn has continued to support Concealed Carry Reciprocity as of 2018, with the Republican-held House of Representatives passing a bill in late 2017 with this language attached to gun control measures from the Senate's Fix NICS bill.[91]

LGBT rights

While serving on the Texas Supreme Court in the 1990s, Cornyn ruled with the majority to overturn a lower court ruling, State v. Morales, that had found Texas's anti-sodomy laws to be unconstitutional.[92] During oral arguments, he questioned the merits of the case, asking how gay individuals were harmed by the anti-sodomy laws if those laws were not enforced.[92] According to Yale Law School professor William Eskridge, Cornyn "engineered the Morales majority" that saved the sodomy law.[93] When running for the Senate in 2002, Cornyn defended the law.[94] In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Texas's sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas.[95]

After the Supreme Court decision to overturn sodomy laws, Cornyn condemned the "startling display of judicial activism that so threatens our fundamental institutions and our values".[95] He said he worried that the Supreme Court would next overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited recognition of same-sex marriage at the federal level,[96] and subsequently played a leading role in trying to introduce a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage.[97][98][99][100][101] Cornyn argued that recognition of same-sex marriage harmed those who were in heterosexual marriages.[102] He claimed that children raised by gay couples are "at higher risk of a host of social ills," such as crime, drug use and dropping out of school,[103][104] arguing that same-sex would put "more and more children at risk through a radical social experiment."[103] Cornyn opposed adoption of children by gay couples.[95]

In 2012, when President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, Cornyn criticized Obama and accused him of trying to "divide the country."[105]

Victims' rights

Cornyn opposes profiting from memorabilia tied to convicted murderers, and has made several unsuccessful attempts to pass laws against it.[106][107][108]

Removal of Confederate statues

Cornyn opposes the removal of statues relating to the Confederate States of America. He has said, "I don't think we can go back and erase our history by removing statues".[109]

Electoral history

2020
2020 United States Senate Republican primary election in Texas[110]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn (incumbent) 1,470,669 76.04%
Republican Dwayne Stovall 231,104 11.95%
Republican Mark Yancey 124,864 6.46%
Republican John Anthony Castro 86,916 4.49%
Republican Virgil Bierschwale 20,494 1.06%
Total votes 1,934,047 100.0%
2020 United States Senate election in Texas
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn (incumbent)
Democratic MJ Hegar
Libertarian TBA
People Over Politics Party Cedric Jefferson
Human Rights Party James Brumley
Independent Arjun Srinivasan
Independent Tim Smith
Independent Ricardo Turullols-Bonilla
Independent Krisjiannis Vittato
Total votes 100.0%

2014
2014 United States Senate Republican primary election in Texas[111]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn (incumbent) 781,259 59.43%
Republican Steve Stockman 251,577 19.13%
Republican Dwayne Stovall 140,794 10.71%
Republican Linda Vega 50,057 3.80%
Republican Ken Cope 34,409 2.61%
Republican Chris Mapp 23,535 1.79%
Republican Reid Reasor 20,600 1.56%
Republican Curt Cleaver 12,325 0.94%
Total votes 1,314,556 100.00%
2014 United States Senate election in Texas[112]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn (incumbent) 2,843,995 61.60%
Democratic David Alameel 1,584,772 34.32%
Libertarian Rebecca Paddock 132,829 2.87%
Green Emily Marie Sanchez 54,075 1.17%
Independent Mohammed Tahiro 1,158 0.02%
Total votes 4,616,829 100%
Republican hold

2008
2008 United States Senate Republican primary election in Texas[113]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn (incumbent) 997,216 81.48%
Republican Larry Kilgore 226,649 18.52%
Total votes 1,223,865 100%
2008 United States Senate election in Texas[114]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn (incumbent) 4,337,469 54.8%
Democratic Rick Noriega 3,389,365 42.8%
Libertarian Yvonne Adams Schick 185,241 2.3%
Total votes 7,912,075 100%
Republican hold

2002
2002 United States Senate Republican primary election in Texas[115]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn 478,825 77%
Republican Bruce Rusty Lang 46,907 8%
Republican Douglas Deffenbaugh 43,611 7%
Republican Dudley Mooney 32,202 5%
Republican Lawrence Cranberg 17,757 3%
Total votes 619,302 100%
2002 United States Senate election in Texas
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn 2,480,991 55%
Democratic Ron Kirk 1,946,681 43%
Libertarian Scott Jameson 35,538 1%
Green Roy Williams 25,051 <1%
Total votes 4,488,261 100%
Republican hold

1998
1998 Texas Attorney General Republican primary election
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Barry Williamson 208,345 38%
Republican John Cornyn 176,269 32%
Republican Tom Pauken 162,180 30%
Total votes 546,794 100%
1998 Texas Attorney General Republican primary runoff election
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn 135,130 58%
Republican Barry Williamson 98,218 42%
Total votes 233,348 100%
1998 Texas Attorney General election
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn 2,002,794 54%
Democratic Jim Mattox 1,632,045 44%
Libertarian Mike Angwin 57,604 2%
Total votes 3,691,443 100%
Republican hold

1996
1996 Texas Associate Justice Supreme Court election
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican John Cornyn (incumbent) 2,686,518 52%
Democratic Patrice Barron 2,351,750 46%
Libertarian Thomas Stults 129,203 2%
Total votes 5,167,471 100%
Republican hold

Personal life

Cornyn and his wife, Sandy Hansen, have two daughters.[116]

In August 2014 Cornyn was named "Mr. South Texas" for the 118th Washington's Birthday Celebration in Laredo in February 2015. WBCA president Veronica Castillon said that Cornyn "loves Laredo, and it shows through his attention and actions".[117]

Cornyn receives pensions from three separate state and local governments in addition to his Senate salary.[118]

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  64. 25 GOP senators urge Trump to restart TPP trade talks, a deal he called a 'disaster', Washington Post, February 20, 2018. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
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  78. "The Republicans who urged Trump to pull out of Paris deal are big oil darlings". The Guardian. June 1, 2017. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
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  80. News, Scott Waldman,E&E. "Climate Science Deniers Turn to Attacking Coronavirus Models". Scientific American. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
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Legal offices
Preceded by
Franklin Spears		 Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court
1991–1997		 Succeeded by
Deborah Hankinson
Preceded by
Dan Morales		 Attorney General of Texas
1999–2002		 Succeeded by
Greg Abbott
Party political offices
Preceded by
Phil Gramm		 Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Texas
(Class 2)
2002, 2008, 2014, 2020		 Most recent
Preceded by
Kay Bailey Hutchison		 Vice Chair of the Senate Republican Conference
2007–2009		 Succeeded by
John Thune
Preceded by
John Ensign		 Chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee
2009–2013		 Succeeded by
Jerry Moran
Preceded by
Jon Kyl		 Senate Republican Whip
2013–2019		 Succeeded by
John Thune
U.S. Senate
Preceded by
Phil Gramm		 U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Texas
2002–present
Served alongside: Kay Hutchison, Ted Cruz		 Incumbent
Preceded by
Tim Johnson		 Ranking Member of the Senate Ethics Committee
2007–2009		 Succeeded by
Johnny Isakson
Preceded by
Jon Kyl		 Senate Minority Whip
2013–2015		 Succeeded by
Dick Durbin
Preceded by
Dick Durbin		 Senate Majority Whip
2015–2019		 Succeeded by
John Thune
Preceded by
Chuck Grassley		 Chair of the Senate Narcotics Caucus
2019–present		 Incumbent
U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial)
Preceded by
Maria Cantwell		 United States Senators by seniority
19th		 Succeeded by
Lisa Murkowski
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