Robert J. Harris

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert J. (Bob) Harris (October 5, 1930 - July 9, 2005) was a lawyer, professor, and mayor from the U.S. state of Michigan.

Harris was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was educated at Wesleyan University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was then a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and went on to Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict.

He came to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1959 as a professor in the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught full-time from 1959 to 1974.

After 1974, Harris continued as an adjunct faculty member at the law school, while practicing law as the senior partner of an Ann Arbor law firm he founded. The firm included, at various times, Bob Guenzel (later Washtenaw County Corporation Counsel, and now County Administrator), Ed Goldman (now general counsel of the University of Michigan Hospitals), and Jerry Lax (candidate for a federal judicial appointment during the Clinton administration).

Bob Harris was elected Mayor of Ann Arbor on the Democratic ticket on April 7, 1969, defeating Republican candidate Richard E. Balzhiser. He was re-elected on April 5, 1971, defeating Republican Jack J. Garris. Harris served as mayor from 1969 to 1973, choosing not to run again after two two-year terms in the post.

Harris, who was Jewish, was a member of Temple Beth Emeth (Reform) in Ann Arbor.

He died in 2005 from brain lymphoma, and is interred in Arborcrest Cemetery in Ann Arbor.