Senate confirms first Hispanic U.S. attorney general, Feb. 3, 2005
On this day in 2005, the Senate confirmed Alberto Gonzales as the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general on a largely party line vote of 60-36.
Opposition from the Democrats, then in the minority, centered on the issue of whether the counterterrorism policies pursued by President George W. Bush led to the abuse of prisoners held by the U.S. in Iraq, at Guantánamo Bay and at other sites.
Bush, who had brought Gonzales to the White House as his general counsel in 2001, was traveling when the Senate confirmed him. Vice President Dick Cheney swore in Gonzales as the nation’s 80th attorney general in a low-key ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. Bush called to congratulate him.
Gonzales was born to migrant workers in 1955 in San Antonio, Texas. He was reared in Houston in a home that had no hot water or a telephone. After graduating from high school in 1973, he joined the U.S. Air Force. Once he left the military, Gonzales attended Rice University and Harvard Law School. As governor of Texas, Bush chose Gonzales to be his general counsel. He subsequently became Texas secretary of state and then took a seat on the state Supreme Court.
After Gonzales became attorney general, he faced scrutiny over the administration’s domestic surveillance policies as well as the wholesale firing of eight U.S. attorneys. In 2007, as evidence of political shenanigans mounted, the Senate Judiciary Committee investigated the firings.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who had been the first lawmaker to call for Gonzales’ ouster, declined to ask his last round of questions. Instead, Schumer angrily said there was no point in further questioning and reiterated his call for Gonzales to resign. By Schumer’s count, Gonzales had stated “over a hundred times” that he didn’t know or couldn’t recall important details concerning the firings, and also didn’t seem to know about the workings of his own department.
Gonzales responded that the onus was on the committee to prove whether anything improper occurred. Schumer replied that Gonzales faced a higher standard, and that under this standard, he had to give “a full, complete and convincing explanation” for why the eight attorneys were fired.
With Democrats calling for his ouster, Bush defended Gonzales as “an honest, honorable man in whom I have confidence.” Nevertheless, as allegations of lying under oath multiplied, Gonzales resigned in September 2007, saying that “this is the right time for my family and me to begin a new chapter in our lives.”
In 2008, Gonzales began a mediation and consulting practice. Additionally, he taught a political science course and served as a diversity recruiter at Texas Tech University. He currently serves as dean of Belmont University College of Law, in Nashville, where he teaches constitutional law, separation of powers doctrine, national security and First Amendment law.
SOURCE: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE