Douglas Kmiec

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Douglas W. Kmiec (b. September 24, 1951) is an American legal scholar. He is the Caruso Family Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University's School of Law. He served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (U.S. Assistant Attorney General) for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, a position previously held by U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia in the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Professor Kmiec is the former Dean and St. Thomas More Professor of the law school at The Catholic University of America (2000-2003). With leaves for government service, Professor Kmiec was a member of the law faculty at the University of Notre Dame from 1980 to 1999. At Notre Dame, he directed the Thomas White Center on Law & Government and founded the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy.

Kmiec has been a White House Fellow, a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar on the Constitution (in Asia), and the inaugural Visiting Distinguished Scholar at the National Constitution Center (with Yale's Akhil Amar).

An honors graduate of Northwestern University, Kmiec received his law degree from the University of Southern California, where he served on the Law Review and received the Legion Lex Commencement Prize for Legal Writing. He is a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court and the state bars of Illinois and California.^[1]

His published work includes The Attorney General's Lawyer, three books on the American Constitution, a two-volume legal treatise, related books, and hundreds of published articles and essays. He is a frequent guest in the media on programs such as the NewsHour, Meet the Press, and NPR, analyzing constitutional, cultural, and political developments. For a list of Kmiec's recent writings, see this link. He writes the Faith and Precedent column for the Catholic News Service.

Following his CUA deanship, Kmiec assumed the chair in constitutional law at Pepperdine University School of Law.^[2] Along with Professor Mary Ann Glendon of the Harvard Law School, he was named by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to head the Romney for President Committee on the Courts and the Constitution in 2007.

Despite his Republican bona fides, Kmiec endorsed Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.^[3]^[4]^[5] A Catholic priest provoked controversy when he denied Kmiec communion for supporting Obama who is "pro-choice".^[1]

[edit] Family

With his wife, Carolyn Keenan Kmiec (the director of a fine arts program at Pepperdine for disadvantaged children), he has five children: Kloe, Kolleen, Kiley, Katherine, and Keenan.

Keenan Kmiec graduated from Boalt Hall Law School and was selected as a 2006-2007 law clerk to U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, and practices with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Sidley Austin. Katherine Kmiec Turner is a lawyer in southern California. Kiley Kmiec is in worldwide music marketing with Electronic Arts.