Abner Mikva

Abner Joseph Mikva (/ˈæbnər ˈmɪkvə/ AB-nər MIK-və; January 21, 1926 – July 4, 2016) was an American politician, federal judge, and legal scholar. He was a member of the Democratic Party. After serving in the Illinois House of Representatives, Mikva ran for the U.S. Congress in 1966 but lost the primary to incumbent congressman Barrett O'Hara. In 1968, Mikva defeated O'Hara. Mikva served in the United States House of Representatives representing Illinois's 2nd congressional district (1969–1973) and 10th congressional district (1975–1979). He was appointed as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Jimmy Carter, serving from 1979 to 1994. He served as the White House Counsel from 1994 to 1995 during Bill Clinton's presidency. He was one of the few people in modern times to serve in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Federal government.

In his later career, Mikva taught at the University of Chicago Law School, the Georgetown University Law Center and the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He mentored future President of the United States Barack Obama and future United States Attorney General Merrick Garland (who also succeeded him on the D.C. Circuit) during their early years in law. In 2014, Obama honored Mikva with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Mikva was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Ida (Fishman) and Henry Abraham Mikva, Jewish immigrants escaping from pogroms in Ukraine. Mikva and his parents spoke Yiddish at home. During the Great Depression, his father was often unemployed and the family relied on welfare. Abner attended local public schools. During World War II, he enlisted and was trained in the United States Army Air Corps, but the war ended the day before he was due to be deployed. Afterward, the GI Bill enabled Mikva to attend the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee before transferring to Washington University in St. Louis, where he met his future wife, Zorita Rose (Zoe) Wise. Both graduated in 1948 and soon married.

The couple moved to Chicago, Illinois, where Zoe had urged Mikva to enroll at the University of Chicago Law School. He graduated in 1951 with a J.D. degree, having served as editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. The couple eventually had three daughters: Mary Lane (b. 1953), an Illinois Appellate Court judge in Chicago; Laurie, who teaches at Northwestern University and is on the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation; and Rachel, a rabbi and professor who teaches at the Chicago Theological Seminary.

After graduation, Mikva clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton. He also returned to Chicago and began practicing law, at a firm which became Goldberg, Devoe, Shadur & Mikva after he made partner. The firm handles labor, real estate, commercial and civil rights cases, as well as some criminal defense.

Nonetheless, his early interest in Chicago clearly was politics:

One of the stories that is told about my start in politics is that on the way home from law school one night in 1948, I stopped by the ward headquarters in the ward where I lived. There was a street-front, and the name Timothy O'Sullivan, Ward Committeeman, was painted on the front window. I walked in and I said, "I'd like to volunteer to work for [Adlai] Stevenson and [Paul] Douglas." This quintessential Chicago ward committeeman took the cigar out of his mouth and glared at me and said, "Who sent you?" I said, "Nobody sent me." He put the cigar back in his mouth and he said, "We don't want nobody that nobody sent." This was the beginning of my political career in Chicago.

He spent ten years, 1956 to 1966, in the Illinois House of Representatives. In the Illinois House, Mikva was part of the "Kosher Nostra", a group of independent, clean Democrats that included future United States Senator and Presidential candidate Paul Simon, future Illinois Comptroller and candidate for Governor Dawn Clark Netsch, and Representative Anthony Scariano.