Mike Lee

Michael Shumway Lee (born June 4, 1971) is an American attorney and politician. He serves as the junior United States Senator from Utah and a member of the Republican Party.

Lee has been a constitutional lawyer in Utah and Washington, D.C, in addition to serving as a clerk for then-Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. His father, Rex E. Lee, was the founding dean of Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School, and Solicitor General of the United States during the Reagan administration.

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 U.S. Solicitor General (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 descent.

Growing up Lee went to school with Senator Strom Thurmond's daughter 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 B.S. 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. He graduated from BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1997.

Legal career
After graduation from law school, Lee served as a law clerk to Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. The following year he clerked for Judge Samuel Alito, who was serving at that time on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Court in Newark, New Jersey. 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 U.S. 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.

2010 election
Lee ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010. At the Republican State Convention, on the first ballot he received 982 votes (28.75%), defeating Tim Bridgewater and incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Bennett. 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.

The general election was held on November 2, 2010. Lee won the election with 62 percent of the vote to Granato's 33 percent and Bradley's 6 percent.

Tenure
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, that would privatize Fannie and Freddy.
 * Scorecards/Rankings

However, he received a Liberal Action score of 38%.

In February 2011, Lee was one of two Republicans, along with Rand Paul of Kentucky, to vote against extending three key provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. He would again do the same in May 2011.
 * Patriot Act

On December 01, 2011, Lee was one of only seven U.S. Senators, and one of only three Republicans, to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. He vetoed because of concerns over Section 1021, the section of the bill that gives the Armed Forces the power to indefinitely detain any person (including U.S. citizens) "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]".
 * NDAA for Fiscal Year 2012

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 claimed 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.
 * Social Security reform

Committee assignments

 * Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
 * Subcommittee on Energy
 * Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
 * Subcommittee on Water and Power (Ranking Member)
 * Committee on Foreign Relations
 * Subcommittee on African Affairs
 * Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs
 * Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps and Global Narcotics Affairs
 * Committee on the Judiciary
 * Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts
 * Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights (Ranking Member)
 * Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights
 * Joint Economic Committee

Personal life
Lee married Sharon Burr in 1993. They live in Alpine, Utah and have three children.

Lee is a second cousin to current U.S. Senators Mark Udall of Colorado and Tom Udall of New Mexico, as well as former 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. He is also a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and served as a Mormon missionary in the Texas Rio Grande Valley from 1990 to 1992.

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.

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