Charles Burson

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Charles W. Burson was a legal counsel and Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore. He assumed the position of legal counsel from Kumiki Gibson in February 1997 after serving almost a decade as Tennessee Attorney General. In 1999 Charles Burson became Gore's Chief of Staff, replacing Ron Klain who resigned in August of that year.

In addition to his legal background, Burson was a friend of Gore for over three decades at the time of his appointment.^[1] Charles Burson first became friends with the future Vice President in 1968 during the time Gore was studying Tennessee history at Memphis State University.^[2] In 1984 he was the chairman of Gore's senatorial campaign^[2]. This continued a family tradition of involvement with the Gores. Burson's parents were active in Tennessee Democratic politics, and his mother had held a position in Albert Gore Sr.'s senatorial campaign in 1958^[3].

Before joining the White House, Charles Burson held a variety of public and private roles. From 1970 until 1988, he worked in private practice as a lawyer. He briefly flirted with active politics in the 1978 when he lost a race to Republican Ed Williams^[4] for the East Memphis seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives. In 1988 he was appointed the Tennessee Attorney General. In this capacity, Burson served on a number of public legal bodies. He was a member of the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners, of the Tennessee Code Commission and of the Commission on the Future of the Judicial System. Burson also represented the state several times before the Supreme Court of the United States. One notable case is Burson v. Freeman which established a state’s ability to regulate election advertising on voting day.[[1]] He also led a formal investigation to establish once and for all that Elvis Presley was in fact dead.

Charles Burson is the son of Josie Burson and the late Leo Burson and he grew up in Shelby County, Tennessee^[4]. Burson holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, an M.A. from Cambridge, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is married to Bunny Burson and has two daughters, Clare and Kate. He resides in St. Louis, Missouri and presently works for Monsanto as its General Counsel and its Secretary to the Board.