Mike Lee

For other uses, see Michael Lee.

Mike Lee
Chair of the Joint Economic Committee
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2019
Preceded by	Erik Paulsen
United States Senator from Utah
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2011 Serving with Mitt Romney
Preceded by	Bob Bennett
Personal details
Born	Michael Shumway Lee (1971-06-04) June 4, 1971 Mesa, Arizona, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Sharon Burr ​ (m. 1993)​
Relations	Thomas Rex Lee (brother)
Children	3
Parent(s)	Rex E. Lee Janet Griffin
Education	Brigham Young University (BA, JD)
Website	Senate website

Michael Shumway Lee (born June 4, 1971) is an American politician, author, attorney and amateur comedian who is the senior United States Senator from Utah. A conservative, libertarian-leaning Republican, Lee has served in the Senate since January 3, 2011.

Born in Mesa, Arizona, Lee is a graduate of Brigham Young University. Lee is the son of Rex E. Lee, who was Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, founding dean of the J. Reuben Clark Law School and president of Brigham Young University. Lee began his career as a clerk for the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah before serving as a clerk for future Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who was then a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He then entered private practice with the Sidley Austin law firm in Washington D.C. In 2002, Lee returned to his home state to work as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Utah, a position he held until 2005. Subsequently, he joined the administration of Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, serving as the general counsel in the office of the governor from 2005 to 2006. Lee then re-entered private practice in Washington D.C., with Howrey LLP.

In 2010, at the beginning of the Tea Party movement, Lee entered the party caucus process to challenge incumbent three-term Republican senator Bob Bennett. Lee defeated Bennett and business owner Tim Bridgewater during the nominating process at the Utah Republican Party Convention, receiving 1,854 votes in the final round. The two highest caucus performers were then put before primary voters, with Lee winning with 51% of the vote. He then defeated Democratic candidate Sam Granato in the senate election with 61% of the vote to Granato's 32%.

Early life and education

Lee was born in Mesa, Arizona on June 4, 1971, the son of Janet (née Griffin) and Rex E. Lee. His family moved to Provo, Utah one year later, when his father became the founding dean of Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School. While Lee spent about half of his childhood years in Utah, he spent the other half in McLean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. His father served first as an Assistant U.S. Attorney General (overseeing the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Ford Administration) from 1975 until 1976, and then as the Solicitor General of the United States (charged with representing the United States government before the Supreme Court during the first term of the Reagan Administration) from 1981 until 1985. Lee is of English, Swiss, and Danish descent on his father's side.

Growing up, Lee went to school with Senator Strom Thurmond's daughter, Nancy Moore Thurmond, and lived three doors down from Senator Robert Byrd. He was friends with Harry Reid's son Josh. Senator Reid was the Lees' home teacher. Lee recalls as a child how Senator Reid once locked him and Josh in their garage as a practical joke. According to Lee, the Reid family were the first Democrats he knew well and it was dealing with them that showed him the importance of being able to defend his political views in discussion with those who held other views.

After graduating from Timpview High School (Provo, Utah) in 1989, Lee attended Brigham Young University as an undergraduate student, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1994. He served as the president of BYUSA, a prominent student service organization, and as student body president during the 1993–1994 school year, serving together with his father, Rex E. Lee, who was president of BYU at the time. Lee received his Juris Doctor from the J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1997.

Legal career

After graduation from law school in 1997, Lee served as a law clerk to Judge Dee Benson of the United States District Court for the District of Utah. The following year, he clerked for then-Judge Samuel Alito, who was serving at that time on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. After finishing his clerkships, Lee joined the Washington, D.C. office of Sidley Austin, where he specialized in appellate and Supreme Court litigation. Several years later, Lee returned to Utah to serve as an Assistant United States Attorney in Salt Lake City, preparing briefs and arguing cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He served as general counsel to Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. from January 2005 until June 2006, when he returned to Washington to serve a one-year clerkship at the U.S. Supreme Court with Justice Alito. Lee returned to Utah (and to private practice) in the summer of 2007, joining the Salt Lake office of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Howrey LLP. Lee focused on courtroom advocacy and constitutional law.

As an attorney, Lee also represented Class A low-level radioactive waste facility provider EnergySolutions Inc. in a highly publicized dispute between the company and the Utah public and public officials that caused controversy during his Senate election. Utah's government had allowed the company to store radioactive waste in the state so long as it was low-grade "Class A" material. When the company arranged to store waste from Italy, many objected to the waste being foreign and that it could potentially be more radioactive than permitted. Lee argued that the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution allowed the company to accept foreign waste and that the waste could be reduced in grade by mixing it with lower grade materials, while the government of Utah sought to ban the importation of foreign waste using an interstate radioactive waste compact. EnergySolutions eventually abandoned its plans to store Italian radioactive waste in Utah, ending the dispute, with the 10th U.S. Circuit court later ruling that the compact had the power to block foreign radioactive waste from being stored in Utah.

Political positions

Lee is a conservative Republican. The New York Times used the NOMINATE system to arrange Republican senators by ideology and ranked Lee as the most conservative member of the Senate. GovTrack's 2017 analysis places Lee to the right of the spectrum, to the right of most Republicans, but still to the left of a handful of Republican senators. Five ThirtyEight, which tracks Congressional votes, has found that Lee votes with President Trump's positions on legislation 81.3% of the time as of July 2018.

Privacy

In 2017, Lee voted for S.J.Res.34, a joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to "Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services" from taking effect.

Spending

In September 2018, Lee was among six Republican senators, including Jeff Flake, Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, David Perdue, and Ben Sasse, as well as Bernie Sanders, that voted against a $854 billion spending bill, meant to avoid another government shutdown. Said bill included funding for the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Labor and Education.

Climate change

In 2011, Lee voted to limit the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. In 2013, he voted to make it harder for Congress to put a price on carbon through a point of order opposing a carbon tax or a fee on carbon emissions. The measure did not pass. At a May 2016 event, he stated that it "has long been obvious that the Democratic Party's assertion that the science of climate change is "settled" is little more than a cheap public-relations ploy masquerading as a monopoly on scientific knowledge".

In 2017, Lee was one of 22 senators to sign a letter to President Donald Trump urging the President to have the United States withdraw from the Paris Agreement. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lee has received campaign contributions from oil and gas interests amounting to $231,520 and from coal interests in the amount of $21,895 for a total of $253,415 since 2012.

Healthcare

Senator Mike Lee was part of the group of 13 Senators drafting the Senate version of the AHCA behind closed doors. Senator Lee eventually came out against the bill, along with fellow Republican senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, bringing the "no" vote total among Republicans to four. This effectively stopped any chance of the bill's passage.

Books

Since his election to the Senate in 2010, Lee has published four books:

• The Freedom Agenda: Why a Balanced Budget Amendment is Necessary to Restore Constitutional Government (July 2011, Regnery Publishing)
• Why John Roberts Was Wrong About Healthcare: A Conservative Critique of The Supreme Court's Obamacare Ruling (June 2013, Threshold Editions e-book)
• Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document (April 2015, Sentinel)
• Written Out of History: The Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government (May 2017, Sentinel)

U.S. Senate

Elections

2010

Main article: 2010 United States Senate election in Utah

Mike Lee ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010. At the Republican State Convention, he received 982 votes (28.75%) on the first ballot, defeating Tim Bridgewater (26.84% of votes) and incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Bennett (25.91% of votes). Bridgewater, however, won the second and third ballots to win the party endorsement. Both Bridgewater and Lee received enough support to have their names placed on the primary ballot.

In the primary election, held on June 22, 2010, Lee became the Republican nominee by winning 51 percent of the vote against Bridgewater's 49 percent.

Lee won the general election on November 2, 2010 with 62 percent of the vote to Democrat Sam Granato's 33 percent and Constitution Party candidate Scott Bradley's 6 percent.

2016

Main article: 2016 United States Senate election in Utah

Mike Lee speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland on February 26, 2015.

Lee ran for re-election in 2016. He was endorsed by the Club for Growth, the Senate Conservatives Fund, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Tenure

Scorecards/Rankings

In 2011, Club for Growth gave him a 100% score. Only four other U.S. Senators received a perfect score: Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Jim DeMint, and Tom Coburn. He also received a 100% Conservative voting record for 2011 from the American Conservative Union. The Heritage Foundation gave him a 99% score, ranking first only with DeMint. The only wrong vote he made, in the opinion of the Heritage Foundation, was voting for the GSE Bailout Elimination and Taxpayer Protection Act, which would privatize Fannie and Freddie. He received a Liberal Action score of 38%.

Patriot Act

In February 2011, Lee was one of two Republicans, along with Rand Paul of Kentucky, to vote against extending the three provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that deal with roving wiretaps, "lone wolf" terrorism suspects, and the government's ability to seize "any tangible items" in the course of surveillance. He voted in the same manner in May 2011.

NDAA for Fiscal Year 2012

On December 1, 2011, Lee was one of only seven U.S. Senators, and one of only three Republicans, to vote against the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. He opposed the bill because of concerns over Section 1021, the section of the bill that gives the Armed Forces the power to indefinitely detain any person "who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners", and anyone who commits a "belligerent act" against the U.S. or its coalition allies in aid of such enemy forces, under the law of war, "without trial, until the end of the hostilities authorized by the AUMF".

Social Security reform

In April 2011, Lee joined with Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and fellow Senate Tea Party Caucus member Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) to propose a plan they said would extend the financial viability of the U.S. Social Security retirement payment system. The three Senators' reform proposal (called the Social Security Solvency and Sustainability Act) was notable because it did not propose any tax increases to ensure solvency. Instead, it suggested that the $5.4 trillion difference between what was then funded and what had been promised could be eliminated by increasing the retirement age to 70 by the year 2032, and slightly reducing the benefits paid to upper-income recipients.

Criminal justice reform

In 2013, Lee proposed a bill with the aim "to focus limited Federal resources on the most serious offenders" together with Dick Durbin (D) and Patrick Leahy (D). The bill would reduce some minimum sentences for drug-related offenses by half.

In November 2018, Lee "called out" Sen. Tom Cotton, stating he was spreading fake news about the proposed First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill. He referred to a tweet from Cotton saying that the legislation “gives early release to 'low level, nonviolent' criminals like those convicted of assaulting police, even with deadly weapons.” Lee retorted: “I highly respect my colleague from Arkansas but everything in his tweet and this thread is 100% fake news”. The "First Step Act does not 'give early release' to anyone. Anyone claiming it does, does not understand how the bill works", he continued. President Trump is a supporter of said legislation, while Cotton has remained an "outspoken critic". The bipartisan bill, drafted by Chuck Grassley, Lee, and Dick Durbin, passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly, by 360-59 votes. The bill aims to "improve rehabilitation programs for former prisoners", and to "give judges more wiggle room" when sentencing nonviolent crime offenders, such as those involving drug charges.

Foreign policy

As part of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 2018, Lee co-sponsored a resolution, together with Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, "that would end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen's civil war". Interviewed by The Hill, he stated: "regardless of what may have happened with Mr. Khashoggi, we are fighting a war in Yemen that we haven’t declared, that has never been declared or authorized by Congress. That’s not constitutional." The Senate voted 60-39 to "formally begin debate on the resolution", which would require the President to "withdraw troops in or "affecting" Yemen within 30 days unless they are fighting al Qaeda."

In April 2018, Lee 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."

Debt ceiling

Lee was criticized by Republican Sen. John McCain and others for being overly vocal in his criticism of other Republicans and for obstructing a deal to end the United States federal government shutdown of 2013.

Flint water crisis

in 2016, Lee used a procedural hold to block a vote on federal assistance for the Flint, Michigan water crisis. He was initially part of a group of senators blocking $220 million in aid to repair lead contaminated pipes but, due to public pressure on others, Lee eventually became the last opposing senator. While initially anonymous, multiple sources leaked Lee's opposition to the media.

Immigration

In February 2019, Lee was one of sixteen senators to vote against legislation preventing a partial government shutdown and containing 1.375 billion for barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border that included 55 miles of fencing. In that same month, he joined with Senator Kamala Harris to remove the per-country cap on employment-based green cards and raise the cap on family-based green cards from 7 to 15 percent.

In March 2019, Lee was one of twelve Republican senators to vote to block President Trump's national emergency declaration that would have granted him access to $3.6 billion in military construction funding to build border barriers.

Supreme Court

In March 2019, Lee was one of twelve senators to cosponsor a resolution that would impose a constitutional amendment limiting the Supreme Court to nine justices. The resolution was introduced following multiple Democratic presidential candidates expressing openness to the idea of expanding the seats on the Supreme Court.

Trade

In January 2018, Lee was one of thirty-six Republican senators to sign a letter to President Trump requesting he preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement by modernizing it for the economy of the 21st Century.

In November 2018, Lee was one of twelve Republican senators to sign a letter to President Trump requesting the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement be submitted to Congress by the end of the month to allow a vote on it before the end of the year as they were concerned "passage of the USMCA as negotiated will become significantly more difficult" if having to be approved through the incoming 116th United States Congress.

Debate on Green New Deal

One of the posters Mike Lee displayed during his US senate speech of March 26, 2019.

On March 26, 2019 the Senate opened up debate on the Green New Deal. When Lee took the floor, he used the opportunity to poke fun at the plan to tackle climate change with a poster of ex-President Ronald Reagan riding a Dinosaur while firing a machine gun. According to Lee, the stunt was to show his colleagues that the Green New Deal was as absurd as the poster he was showing to them.

Stating: “Critics might quibble with this depiction of the climactic battle of the Cold War, because, while awesome, in real life there was no climactic battle. There was no battle with or without velociraptors. The Cold War, as we all know, was won without firing a shot, because this image has as much to do with overcoming communism in the 20th century as the Green New Deal has to do with overcoming climate change in the 21st.” He went farther to criticize the deal with other posters regarding its plan to decrease air travel because of its carbon emissions, noting that Alaskans could use the fictional Star Wars animals called tauntauns, which were ridden by humans on the planet Hoth and that Hawaiians could turn to the comic book hero Aquaman and his trusted seahorse to get to the mainland.

Lee ended his speech by offering up his own solution to climate change: “In churches, in wedding chapels, in maternity wards across the country and around the world. Mister President, this is the real solution to climate change: babies. The planet does not need us to think globally so much as think family and act personally. The solution to climate change is not this unserious resolution that we’re considering this week in the Senate but rather the serious business of human flourishing. The solution to so many of our problems at all times and in all places is to fall in love, get married and have some kids.”

Soon after his speech, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is the head sponsor of the Green New Deal, issued a statement on Twitter regarding Lee's comments stating: "Like many other women + working people, I occasionally suffer from impostor syndrome: those small moments, especially on hard days, where you wonder if the haters are right. But then they do things like this to clear it right up. If this guy can be Senator, you can do anything."

Roy Moore endorsement and retraction

On October 16, 2017, Lee endorsed Roy Moore in the 2017 Alabama special election runoff, to fill the seat of U.S. Attorney General and former senator Jeff Sessions. Moore had been removed as the Alabama Supreme Court's chief justice in 2003, for defying a federal order to remove an illegal Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building. He was reelected as chief justice in 2012. In May 2016, Moore was once again removed from the bench by the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC), permanently via suspension for the rest of his term, making him ineligible for reelection, for ordering state probate judges to ignore a U.S. Supreme Court decision. In a 50-page opinion by the Court of the Judiciary, it denied Moore's appeal of the JIC's decision, and said Moore's removal was necessary "...to preserve the integrity, independence, impartiality of Alabama's judiciary." Nevertheless, Lee praised Moore for his "reputation of integrity" and said that he was essential to getting conservative legislation through the Senate. "That is why I am proudly endorsing Judge Roy Moore. Alabamians have the chance to send a proven, conservative fighter to the United States Senate," On November 9, 2017, Moore was accused of molesting a 14-year old and other girls under the age of 18 when he was 32 years old. On November 10, Lee asked the Moore campaign to stop employing Lee's endorsement of Moore in its fundraising ads. Lee's spokesperson said of the sexual misconduct allegations, "If these allegations are true, Judge Moore should resign." Later that day, Lee rescinded his endorsement of Moore.

Committee assignments

Current

Committee on the Judiciary

• Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts
• Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights (Chairman)
• Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

• Subcommittee on Energy
• Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
• Subcommittee on Water and Power

Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

• Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard
• Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security
• Subcommittee on Communications Technology, Innovation, and the Internet
• Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance and Data Security
• Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness

Joint Economic Committee (Vice Chairman)

Previous

• Committee on Foreign Relations (2011–2013)
• Committee on Armed Services (2013–2017)

Personal life

Lee married Sharon Burr in 1993. They live in Alpine, Utah and have three children, John David, James Rex, and Eliza Rose Lee. Lee is a second cousin to former Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Udall of Colorado and current Democratic U.S. Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, as well as former Republican senator Gordon H. Smith of Oregon.

Lee has served on the BYU alumni board, the BYU Law School alumni board, and as a long-time member of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. Lee earned the Eagle Scout award from Boy Scouts of America in 1989 and was selected to receive the National Eagle Scout Association Outstanding Eagle Scout Award (NOESA) in 2011.

Electoral history

2010

State Republican Convention results, 2010
Candidate	First ballot	Pct.	Second ballot	Pct.	Third ballot	Pct.
Mike Lee	982	28.75%	1225	35.99%	1383	42.72%
Tim Bridgewater	917	26.84%	1274	37.42%	1854	57.28%
Bob Bennett	885	25.91%	905	26.99%	Eliminated
Cherilyn Eagar	541	15.84%	Eliminated
Merrill Cook	49	1.43%	Eliminated
Leonard Fabiano	22	0.64%	Eliminated
Jeremy Friedbaum	16	0.47%	Eliminated
David Chiu	4	0.12%	Eliminated
Total	3,416	100.00%	3,404	100.00%	3,237	100.00%

State Republican Primary results

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Mike Lee	98,512	51.2%
	Republican	Tim Bridgewater	93,905	48.8%
Total votes			192,417	100.0%

United States Senate election in Utah, 2010

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Mike Lee	390,179	61.56%	-7.18%
	Democratic	Sam Granato	207,685	32.77%	+4.37%
	Constitution	Scott Bradley	35,937	5.67%	+3.78%
Majority			182,494	28.79%
Total votes			633,801	100.00%
	Republican hold		Swing

2016

United States Senate election in Utah, 2016

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Mike Lee	760,241	68.15%	+6.59%
	Democratic	Misty Snow	301,860	27.06%	-5.71%
	Independent American	Stoney Fonua	27,340	2.45%	N/A
	Unaffiliated	Bill Barron	26,167	2.34%	N/A
Majority			458,381
Total votes			1,115,608	100.00%
	Republican hold		Swing

See also

• Lee-Hamblin family
• List of politicians affiliated with the Tea Party movement
• Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act

External links

• Senator Mike Lee official government website
• Mike Lee for Senate official campaign website
• Mike Lee at Curlie
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Legislation sponsored at the Library of Congress
• Profile at Vote Smart
• Appearances on C-SPAN