Ted Cruz

Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz was born on December 22, 1970, in Calgary, Canada, to Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz. At the time of his birth, his parents were working in the oil business. The family eventually moved to the United States. He had two older half-sisters from his father's previous marriage.

He graduated from Second Baptist High School in Houston, as valedictorian in 1988. He then attended Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy in 1992. He won several prestigious debate competitions as a college student.

He proceeded to study law from the Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1995 with a Juris Doctor degree. There he was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.

Ted Cruz embarked on a legal career and served as a law clerk to J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.

He worked with Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal, now known as Cooper & Kirk, LLC, from 1997 to 1998. During this period he helped to prepare testimony for the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

In 1999, he joined the George W. Bush presidential campaign as a domestic policy adviser and advised Bush on issues relating to policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform. He also recruited future Chief Justice John Roberts and noted attorney Mike Carvin to the Bush legal team.

He was appointed to the office of Solicitor General of Texas by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in 2003, serving in this post till 2008. In this position he was involved in several high profile cases and argued before the Supreme Court nine times, winning five cases and losing four. A highly successful lawyer, he has authored 70 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments.

He returned to private practice after leaving the Solicitor General position in 2008. He worked in a private law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, often representing corporate clients. There he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice. Cruz also defended two record-setting $54 million personal injury awards in New Mexico at the appellate level.

As the Texas Solicitor General, he drafted the amicus brief signed by the attorneys general of 31 states in the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller. He also successfully defended the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, and was involved in the high-profile case, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.