Former US Solicitor General ted olsonwho served two Republican presidents as one of the country’s best-known conservative lawyers and successfully argued on behalf of gay marriage, died Wednesday.
He was 84 years old.
The law firm Gibson Dunn, where Olson had been practicing since 1965, announced his death on its website. No cause of death was given.
Olson was at the center of some of the biggest cases of recent decades, including victories on behalf of George W. Bush In the 2000 Florida presidential election recount dispute that went before the US Supreme Court.
“Even in a city full of lawyers, Ted’s career as a litigator was particularly brilliant,” said mitch mcconnellLongtime Senate Republican leader.
“More importantly, I count myself among the many people in Washington who knew Ted as a good and decent man.”
Bush appointed Olson as his Solicitor General, a position he held from 2001 to 2004.
Olson previously served at the Justice Department as Assistant Attorney General during President Ronald Reagan’s first term in office in the early 1980s.
According to Gibson Dunn, during his career, Olson argued 65 cases before the High Court.
These include Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a 2010 case that struck down many limits on political donations, and a successful challenge to the Trump administration’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
One of Olson’s most prominent cases put him at odds with many fellow conservatives.
After California banned gay marriage in 2008, Olson joined forces with former opponent David Boies, who had represented Democrat Al Gore in a presidential election case, to represent California couples seeking the right to marry. Can be done.
A federal judge in California ruled in 2010 that the state’s ban violates the US Constitution.
The US Supreme Court let that decision stand in 2013.
Olson later said in a documentary film about the marriage case, “It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done as a lawyer or as a person.”
He told the Associated Press in 2014 that the marriage case was important because it “involves thousands of people in California, but really millions of people throughout the United States and beyond.”
His decision to join the case added a prominent conservative voice to rapidly changing views on gay marriage across the country.
Boies remembered Olson as a stalwart in legal circles who “left the law, our country, and each of us better than he found us.” Few people are heroes to those who know them well. “Ted was a hero to those who knew him best.”
Olson’s personal life also tragically intersected with the nation’s history when his third wife, renowned conservative legal analyst Barbara Olson, died on September 11, 2001.
She was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.
In recent years, their other high-profile clients include quarterback Tom Brady during the 2016 “Deflategate” scandal and the technology company in a legal battle with the FBI over unlocking the phone of a shooter who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. Apple included. In 2015.
The range of his career and his stature on the national stage were unmatched, said Barbara Baker, managing partner of Gibson Dunn.
“Ted was a giant of the legal profession and one of the most extraordinary and eloquent lawyers of our time,” Baker said in a statement.
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