John Cornyn III (/ˈkɔːrnɪn/ COR-nin; born February 2, 1952) is an American politician, attorney, and former jurist serving as the senior United States senator from Texas, a seat he has held since 2002. A member of the Republican Party, he served on the Texas Supreme Court from 1991 to 1997 and as the attorney general of Texas from 1999 to 2002.
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's 37th District Court from 1985 to 1991.[1][2] He was elected an associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court, where he served from 1991 to 1997. While serving on that court, Cornyn played an important role in crafting its decision to uphold the constitutionality of Texas's anti-sodomy law (later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas).
In 1998, Cornyn was elected Attorney General of Texas, serving one term before winning a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2002. He was reelected in 2008, 2014, and 2020. Cornyn chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 2009 to 2013, and served as the Senate majority whip for the 114th and 115th Congresses.[3][4]
Cornyn was born in Houston, the second child 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]
In 1988, Cornyn attended a two-week seminar at Oxford University, jointly hosted by the National Judicial College at the University of Nevada, Reno and Florida State University’s College of Law.[12] The seminar, held on the Oxford campus, was not academically affiliated with the university.[12]
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.
In 1998, Cornyn ran for Texas attorney general. In the March Republican primary, Railroad Commissioner Barry Williamson received 38% of the vote, and Cornyn, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, received 32%.[13] In the April runoff election, Cornyn defeated Williamson, 58% to 42%.[14] Cornyn won the general election with 54% of the vote; he defeated Jim Mattox, a former Texas attorney general (1983–1991) and U.S. Representative.[15] Cornyn was the first Republican-elected attorney general of Texas since Reconstruction, and was sworn in by Governor George W. Bush.[11]
In September 2000, Cornyn created the Texas Internet Bureau to investigate illegal internet practices.[16] The Internet Bureau was funded through an $800,000 grant from Governor Bush’s office, and its mission was to "help fight cybercrime in Texas, including consumer fraud, hacker break-ins, and online child exploitation".[17] Cornyn investigated fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims.[18]
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.[19]
In 2005, Cornyn was mentioned as a possible replacement for Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist.[20]
In the 2002 Republican primary, Cornyn faced five opponents. Cornyn defeated his closest Republican challenger, the self-financed, Dallas-based international physician Bruce Rusty Lang, 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.[21]
Texas had not elected a Democrat in a statewide election since 1994, and according to Rasmussen Reports polling, Cornyn had an approval rating of 50% in October 2008.[22] Christian activist Larry Kilgore of Mansfield challenged Cornyn in the Republican primary, but Cornyn easily defeated him.[23] 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,[24] and the Green Party of Texas sought ballot access for its candidate, David B. Collins.[25] 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.
Cornyn was reelected in 2014, and according to the Dallas Morning News, "never broke a sweat."[26] He won the March Republican primary with 59% of the vote against Houston-area congressman Steve Stockman.[26] In the general election, he raised $14 million, outspending Democratic nominee David Alameel by nearly 3-1.[26] Cornyn won again by over 20 points.
Cornyn was reelected to a fourth term in 2020 in the closest of his Senate campaigns. He won the primary with 76% of the vote, and then defeated Democrat MJ Hegar in a race that the Cook Political Report had initially rated "Likely Republican" but then shifted to "Lean Republican".[27] Cornyn received 5,962,983 votes—more than any Republican Senate candidate had ever received before, breaking the record set by Pete Wilson of California in 1988. Hegar also set a record, getting more votes than any losing Democrat since Leo T. McCarthy in the 1988 California Senate race.
In 2004, Cornyn co-founded and became the co-chairman of the U.S. Senate India Caucus.[28] 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.[29]
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."[30] His statement and a similar one by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay were widely denounced, including by The New York Times.[31] Cornyn later said that the statement was taken out of context, and for that reason, he regretted the statement.[32]
On May 18, 2007, Cornyn was involved in a verbal altercation with Senator John McCain.[33] 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 responded by yelling profanity and insults at Cornyn, and followed up with the assertion, "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."[34]
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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.[35] Cornyn advocated for Coleman to bring the case before the federal court and said the trial and appeals could take years to complete.[36] 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.[37] Coleman conceded after the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Franken had won the election.
Cornyn voted to confirm Samuel Alito as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and John Roberts as