Jamie Raskin

Jamin Ben Raskin (born December 13, 1962) is an American attorney, law professor, and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Maryland's 8th congressional district since 2017.

Jamin Ben Raskin was born in Washington, D.C., on December 13, 1962, to Jewish parents Barbara (née Bellman) Raskin and Marcus Raskin.

His name is a variant of that of his paternal grandfather, Benjamin Raskin.

His mother was a journalist and novelist, and his father was a former staff aide to President John F. Kennedy on the National Security Council, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies, and a progressive activist.

Raskin's ancestors immigrated to the U.S. from Russia.

He graduated from Georgetown Day School in 1979 at age 16, and magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts in government with concentration in political theory.

In 1987, he received a J.D. degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

For more than 25 years, Raskin was a constitutional law professor at American University Washington College of Law, where he taught future fellow impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett.

He co-founded and directed the LL.M. program on law and government and co-founded the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project.

From 1989 to 1990, Raskin served as general counsel for Jesse Jackson's National Rainbow Coalition.

In 1996, he represented Ross Perot regarding Perot's exclusion from the 1996 United States presidential debates.

Raskin wrote a Washington Post op-ed that strongly condemned the Federal Election Commission and the Commission on Presidential Debates for their decisions.

In 2006, Raskin was elected as a Maryland state senator for District 20, representing parts of Silver Spring and Takoma Park in Montgomery County.

On March 1, 2006, during a Maryland State Senate hearing on same-sex marriage, Raskin was noted for his response to an opposing lawmaker: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the Maryland State Senate from 2007 to 2016.

The district previously included portions of Montgomery County, a suburban county northwest of Washington, D.C., and extended through rural Frederick County to the Pennsylvania border.

Since redistricting in 2022, Raskin's district now encompasses only part of Montgomery County.

Raskin co-chairs the Congressional Freethought Caucus.

He was the lead impeachment manager (prosecutor) for the second impeachment of President Donald Trump in response to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Before his election to Congress, Raskin was a constitutional law professor at American University Washington College of Law, where he co-founded and directed the LL.M. program on law and government and co-founded the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project.

In 2012, he was named Senate majority whip and chaired the Montgomery County Senate Delegation and the Select Committee on Ethics Reform, and was a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee.

Raskin sponsored bills advocating the repeal of the death penalty in Maryland, the expansion of the state ignition interlock device program, and the establishment of the legal guidelines for benefit corporations, a type of for-profit corporation that includes a material societal benefit in its bylaws and decision-making processes.

A former board member of FairVote, he introduced and sponsored the first bill in the country for the National Popular Vote, a plan for an interstate compact to provide for presidential election by popular vote.

Raskin long championed efforts to reform marijuana laws and legalize medical marijuana in Maryland.

He introduced a medical marijuana bill in 2014 that was signed by Governor Martin O'Malley and went into effect in January 2015.

Raskin helped lead the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland.

On April 19, 2015, The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post reported that Raskin announced his campaign for Congress and said, in response to observations that his positions were notably left-of-center, "My ambition is not to be in the political center, it is to be in the moral center."

The district's seven-term incumbent, Chris Van Hollen, gave up the seat to run for the United States Senate.

The primary election was the most expensive House race in 2016, and Raskin was heavily outspent.

During the general election, Raskin was endorsed by the Bernie Sanders-affiliated political organizing network Our Revolution, and the community organizing effort People's Action.

He defeated Republican nominee Dan Cox with 60% of the vote.

As one of his first actions in Congress, Raskin and several other members of the House objected to the certification of the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump due to alleged ties with Russia, and Russia's interference in the 2016 election, as well as voter suppression efforts.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden ruled their objection out of order because it had to be sponsored by at least one member of each chamber, and it had no Senate sponsor.

Raskin questioned the legitimacy of the election, claiming it was "badly tainted by everything from cyber-sabotage by Vladimir Putin, to deliberate voter suppression by Republicans in numerous swing states".

In late June 2017, Raskin was the chief sponsor of legislation to establish a congressional "oversight" commission with the authority to declare a president "incapacitated" and removed from office under the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In April 2018, Raskin, Jared Huffman, Jerry McNerney, and Dan Kildee launched the Congressional Freethought Caucus.

Its stated goals include "pushing public policy formed on the basis of reason, science, and moral values", promoting the "separation of church and state", and opposing discrimination against "atheists, agnostics, humanists, seekers, religious, and nonreligious persons".

During the primary, Raskin was endorsed by the Progressive Action PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which grew from 72 members at the time of the endorsement to 92 members in early 2020.

Raskin won the seven-way Democratic primary—the real contest in this heavily Democratic district—with 33% of the vote.

He was viewed as the most liberal candidate in the race.