James C. Ho

James Chiun-Yue Ho (born February 27, 1973) is a Taiwanese-born American jurist who serves as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Ho was born in 1973 in Taipei, Taiwan.

His family immigrated to the United States when he was a child, and he grew up in San Marino, California.

He attended the Polytechnic School, a rigorous private school located in Pasadena, where he became the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, The Paw Print.

After graduating, Ho studied public policy at Stanford University, graduating in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts with honors.

He then spent a year at California State University, Sacramento, as a California Senate Fellow and as a legislative aide to Quentin L. Kopp before attending the University of Chicago Law School.

He was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review.

He has held multiple positions as a member of the Federalist Society since 1996.

He graduated in 1999 with a Juris Doctor degree with high honors and membership in the Order of the Coif.

After graduating from law school, Ho was a law clerk to Judge Jerry Edwin Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1999 to 2000.

He was in private practice in Washington, D.C., at the law firm of Gibson Dunn from 2001 to 2002.

Ho then joined the U.S. Department of Justice, first in the Civil Rights Division in 2001 and then in the Office of Legal Counsel from 2001–2003.

He was Chief Counsel to subcommittees of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2003 to 2005 under Republican Senator John Cornyn.

He was then a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas from 2005 to 2006.

Ho was in private practice in Gibson Dunn's Dallas office from 2006 to 2008 and 2010 to 2017.

In a 2006 law review article published in The Green Bag, Ho wrote that "Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. That birthright is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers."

Ho formerly served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2008 to 2010.

From 2008 to 2010, he was the Solicitor General of Texas in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, replacing Ted Cruz in that position.

As Texas solicitor general, Ho led the state's lawsuits against the Obama administration.

Ho has worked as a volunteer attorney with the First Liberty Institute, a religious legal advocacy organization.

In a 2011 op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Ho wrote, "Opponents of illegal immigration cannot claim to champion the rule of law and then, in the same breath, propose policies that violate our Constitution."

He was nominated to the seat vacated by Judge Carolyn Dineen King, who assumed senior status on December 31, 2013.

On September 28, 2017, President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Ho as a Circuit Judge to an undetermined seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Cruz had promoted Ho as a candidate for a vacancy on the court.

On October 16, 2017, Trump sent Ho's nomination to the Senate.

On November 15, 2017, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On December 7, 2017, his nomination was reported out of committee by an 11–9 vote.

On December 13, 2017, the United States Senate invoked cloture on his nomination by a 53–44 vote.

On December 14, 2017, Ho's nomination was confirmed by a 53–43 vote.

He was nominated to the Fifth Circuit by President Donald Trump, and took office in 2018.

He received his judicial commission on January 4, 2018.

He was sworn in by Justice Clarence Thomas at the private library of Texan real estate billionaire and Republican donor Harlan Crow.

In July 2018, Carrie Johnson of NPR wrote that "Ho has shaken up the staid world of appellate law by deploying aggressive rhetoric in cases involving guns, abortion rights and campaign finance regulations."

Johnson wrote that "critics say Ho is writing op-ed columns, not legal opinions... Friends and former colleagues said he's an intellectual engaging with ideas."

In a judicial opinion, Ho said the current "government... would be unrecognizable to our Founders"; in another he wrote of the First Amendment "right[s] of... bishops to express their profound objection to the moral tragedy of abortion".

On September 9, 2020, Trump included Ho on a list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court.

Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, who was confirmed.

On September 29, 2022, Ho delivered a speech at a Federalist Society conference in Kentucky and said he would no longer hire law clerks from Yale Law School, which he said was plagued by "cancel culture" and students disrupting conservative speakers.

Ho said Yale "not only tolerates the cancellation of views — it actively practices it.", and he urged other judges to likewise boycott the school.

U.S. Circuit Judge Elizabeth L. Branch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit confirmed her participation in the Yale boycott in a statement to National Review.