Mike Lee

Michael Shumway Lee (born June 4, 1971) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Utah, a seat he has held since 2011.

He is a member of the Republican Party.

Lee began his career as a clerk for the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah before clerking for Samuel Alito, who was then a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Lee was born in Mesa, Arizona on June 4, 1971, the son of Janet (née Griffin) and Rex E. Lee, who was solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan.

Lee's older brother Thomas Rex Lee is a former justice of the Utah Supreme Court.

Lee's family moved to Provo, Utah, one year later, when his father became the founding dean of Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School.

While Lee spent about half of his childhood years in Utah, he spent the other half in McLean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. His father served first as the assistant U.S. attorney general for the civil division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1975 to 1976, and then as the solicitor general of the United States from 1981 to 1985.

Lee is of English, Swiss, and Danish descent.

After graduating from Timpview High School in 1989, Lee attended Brigham Young University.

He served as the president of BYUSA, serving together with his father, who was then president of BYU.

He graduated in 1994 with a bachelor of arts in political science.

Lee then attended BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he was a member of the BYU Law Review and graduated with a juris doctor in 1997.

After law school, Lee clerked for Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah from 1997 to 1998, then for Judge (later Supreme Court Justice) Samuel Alito of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1998 to 1999.

Lee then entered private practice at the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm Sidley Austin, specializing in appellate and Supreme Court litigation.

From 2002 to 2005, Lee was an assistant United States attorney for the District of Utah.

In 2002, Lee left Sidley and returned to Utah to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney in Salt Lake City, preparing briefs and arguing cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

He joined the administration of Utah governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr., serving as the general counsel in the governor's office from 2005 to 2006.

Lee again clerked for Alito after he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He served as general counsel to Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr. from 2005 to 2006.

From 2006 to 2007, Lee again clerked for Alito, who had recently been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Afterward, Lee returned to private practice in Utah, joining the Salt Lake City office of the law firm Howrey LLP.

As an attorney, Lee also represented Class A low-level radioactive waste facility provider EnergySolutions Inc. in a highly publicized dispute between the company and the Utah public and public officials that caused controversy during his first Senate election.

Utah's government had allowed the company to store radioactive waste in Utah as long as it was low-grade "Class A" material.

When the company arranged to store waste from Italy, many objected that the waste was foreign and could be more radioactive than permitted.

Lee argued that the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution allowed the company to accept foreign waste and that the waste could be reduced in grade by mixing it with lower-grade materials, while the state government sought to ban the importation of foreign waste using an interstate radioactive waste compact.

In 2010, during the Tea Party movement, Lee entered the party caucus process to challenge incumbent three-term Republican senator Bob Bennett.

He defeated Bennett and business owner Tim Bridgewater during the nominating process at the Utah Republican Party convention.

Lee won the Republican primary, and defeated Democratic nominee Sam Granato in the general election.

EnergySolutions eventually abandoned its plans to store Italian radioactive waste in Utah, ending the dispute, with the 10th U.S. Circuit court later ruling that the compact had the power to block foreign radioactive waste from being stored in Utah.

Lee ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010.

When campaigning, he focused on the size of the federal government.

He said the U.S. Constitution needed to be amended to create a flat-tax system and impose term limits on members of Congress.

Senators would be allowed up to two terms and representatives up to six terms under the proposal.

At the Republican State Convention, he received 982 votes (28.75%) on the first ballot, to Tim Bridgewater's 26.84% and incumbent U.S. senator Bob Bennett's 25.91%.

He was reelected in 2016 and became the dean of Utah's congressional delegation when Representative Rob Bishop retired in January 2021.

He was reelected again in 2022.

Lee chaired the Joint Economic Committee from 2019 to 2021.

Lee became Utah's senior senator in January 2019, when Orrin Hatch retired from the Senate.

He is also the dean of Utah's congressional delegation.

He coordinated with and supported the Trump administration in its efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but ultimately voted to certify the election.