Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:54, 14 August 2020

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "John Eastman" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

John C. Eastman
Eastman (2013)
Born	(1960-04-21) April 21, 1960 (age 64) Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S.
Education	University of Dallas (BA) University of Chicago (JD) Claremont Graduate School (PhD)
Employer(s)	Kirkland & Ellis Chapman University
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Elizabeth Eastman

John C. Eastman (born April 21, 1960) is an American right-wing law professor notable for several unaccepted petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court and for unsuccessfully seeking election to a number of public offices. He is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service, and former dean at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. Eastman is chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage and a director of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. He is also the director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.

Education

Eastman earned a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas, Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School, and Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School. During his time in law school, Eastman worked on the University of Chicago Law Review.

Career

Prior to law school, he served as Director of Congressional and Public Affairs at the United States Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan administration. He was also the unsuccessful 1990 Republican nominee for United States Congress in the California's 34th congressional district.

After law school, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas at the Supreme Court of the United States, then worked as an attorney for the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, specializing in civil and constitutional litigation. He later joined Chapman to teach constitutional law. He has also appeared on the nationally-syndicated Hugh Hewitt show commenting on law.

Politics and law

On February 1, 2010, Eastman resigned as Dean of the Chapman University School of Law to pursue the Republican nomination for California Attorney General. He finished second in the primary to Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who lost to Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2010 general election.

Eastman served as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of South Dakota, representing it in a denied petition to the Supreme Court of the United States in a constitutional challenge to federal spending. He has also represented the North Carolina legislature and the State of Arizona in unsuccessfully petitioning the Supreme Court in cases involving same-sex marriage, abortion, and immigration.

Kamala Harris citizenship conspiracy theory

A Newsweek op-ed by Eastman questioning the citizenship of 2020 vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris's parents, and claiming she was ineligible for the office because Eastman claimed she was not a natural born citizen, despite being born in Oakland, California, was quickly and thoroughly discredited by prominent legal scholars and was compared to the widely condemned birther-ism conspiracy theory against President Barack Obama. Newsweek defended the column. stating there was no connection between the op-ed and the birther movement, and that the op-ed was merely focusing on the "long-standing, somewhat arcane legal debate about the precise meaning of the phrase 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' in the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment". However, Axios noted that Eastman's view was not accepted by constitutional law scholars, and labeled it "baseless", while also criticizing him for how he comparatively brushed off the eligibility concerns of 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz, born in Calgary, Canada, in a 2016 National Review op-ed, claiming they were "silly".

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School, dismissed Eastman's legal reasoning, telling the BBC: "Under section 1 of the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen. "The Supreme Court has held this since the 1890s. Kamala Harris was born in the United States." Laurence H. Tribe, an eminent professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, similarly criticized Eastman’s reasoning, telling the New York Times “I hadn’t wanted to comment on because it’s such an idiotic theory. There is nothing to it.”

Board affiliations

Eastman is chairman of the Federalist Society's Federalism & Separation of Powers practice group. He is chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage, a director of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a member of the board of advisors of St. Monica's Academy, a member of the advisory board of the St. Thomas More Law Society of Orange County, and a member of the board and on the faculty at the Claremont Institute.

Congressional testimony

He has testified before Congress, including:

• June 4, 2013 - Testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee about alleged political abuses by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) during the Obama administration.
• December 10, 2014 - Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee arguing that President Barack Obama's unilateral suspension of deportation for illegal immigrants was unconstitutional.
• April 29, 2015 - Testimony before the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee about birthright citizenship.
• July 22, 2015 - Testimony at a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing chaired by Senator Ted Cruz addressing Supreme Court activism.

References

1. "Faculty Profile". www.chapman.edu.
2. "John C. Eastman - C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org.
3. "California's 34th Congressional District - Ballotpedia".
4. "Dean John Eastman On The Powers Of The Senate Vis-à-vis The SCOTUS Vacancy « The Hugh Hewitt Show". The Hugh Hewitt Show. 2016-02-15. Retrieved 2019-05-13.
5. "Eastman resigns as Dean of the Chapman University School of Law"; accessed April 27, 2014. Archived July 20, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
6. "Search - Supreme Court of the United States". www.supremecourt.gov.
7. "Search - Supreme Court of the United States". www.supremecourt.gov.
8. "Search - Supreme Court of the United States". www.supremecourt.gov.
9. "Search - Supreme Court of the United States". www.supremecourt.gov.
10. "Editor's Note: Eastman's Newsweek column has nothing to do with racist birtherism". Newsweek. 2020-08-13. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
11. Savitsky, Shane. "Trump campaign official pushes baseless Newsweek op-ed claiming Harris may not be VP-eligible". Axios. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
12. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53774289
13. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/us/politics/trump-kamala-harris.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
14. "StackPath". fedsoc.org. Archived from the original on January 29, 2013.
15. "National Organization for Marriage". nationformarriage.org.
16. "Board of Directors - Public Interest Legal Foundation".
17. "Directors and Advisors - St. Monica Academy".
18. "AD VERITATEM" (PDF). December 2013. Retrieved May 13, 2019.
19. "Claremont Institute - Board of Directors". www.claremont.org.
20. "Curriculum and Faculty Committee - The Claremont Institute". www.claremont.org.
21. "'Prosecutorial Discretion' Does Not Allow the President to 'Change the Law'" (PDF). Hearing on “Keeping Families Together: The President’s Executive Action On Immigration And The Need To Pass Comprehensive Reform”. December 10, 2014. Retrieved May 13, 2019.

External links

• Biography, Claremont Institute; accessed April 27, 2014.
• Biodata, Chapman University School of Law website; accessed April 27, 2014.
• papers.ssrn.com; accessed April 27, 2014.

• 1960 births
• American legal scholars
• California Republicans
• Chapman University School of Law faculty
• Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
• Living people
• National Organization for Marriage people
• People from Lincoln, Nebraska
• University of Chicago Law School alumni
• University of Dallas alumni
• Claremont Graduate University alumni
• Kirkland & Ellis alumni