Douglas William Kmiec (; born September 24, 1951) is an American legal scholar, author, and former U.S. ambassador. He is the Caruso Family Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University School of Law. Kmiec came to prominence during the 2008 United States presidential election when, although a Republican, he endorsed Democrat Barack Obama. In July 2009, he was nominated by President Obama to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Malta. He was confirmed by the Senate and served for close to two years as ambassador to Malta. He resigned his post effective May 31, 2011.
Education and career
Kmiec received his undergraduate degree with honors from Northwestern University in 1973 and his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Southern California in 1976. He was a member of the school's law review and was awarded the Legion Lex Commencement Prize for Legal Writing.
Kmiec was a member of the faculty at Valparaiso University School of Law, then taught at Notre Dame Law School from 1980 to 1999, with several leaves to serve in the Office of Legal Counsel for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. At Notre Dame, he directed the Thomas White Center on Law & Government and founded the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy. From 2001 to 2003, Kmiec was the Dean and St. Thomas More Professor of the law school at the Catholic University of America. Following his Catholic University of America deanship, Kmiec assumed the endowed chair in constitutional law at Pepperdine University School of Law. Kmiec also teaches at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy.
Scholarship and legal thought
Kmiec has been a White House Fellow and a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar on the Constitution in Asia. His published works include The Attorney General's Lawyer (1992), three books on the American Constitution, a two-volume legal treatise, related books, and hundreds of published articles and essays. He is a frequent guest in the media on programs such as PBS's NewsHour, Meet the Press, and NPR, analyzing constitutional questions. He writes the Faith and Precedent column for the Catholic News Service.
When asked what it "mean[s] to teach within a Catholic framework", Kmiec responded:
Proposition 8
Days before the arguments in front of the Supreme Court of California on Proposition 8, the amendment to the state constitution which recognizes marriage the union of man and woman, Kmiec and his colleague Shelley Ross Saxer, co-wrote an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle. They opened by explaining "One of us (Saxer) opposed Prop. 8 for civil rights reasons; Kmiec supported it for reasons of religious liberty. Today, both of us believe the arguments in support of Prop. 8 fail each of these interests." They offer two reasons for "resisting" Proposition 8: 1) it could be read too broadly; 2) it ignores the different religious practices of the citizenry. "Marriage", they argue, "is of religious origin; it should remain there." Therefore, in order to retain the separation of church and state, they suggest that the state use consistent terminology for all couples, gay and straight, extending the same bundle of secular rights. If a couple wanted "marriage," Proposition 8 should prevent the state from dealing with the topic, which means it could again become the sole province of religious bodies. Of this view, Time wrote: "The Pepperdine idea puts into a play a new way of thinking — and whether it's part of the court's decision in the Prop 8 case or whether it makes its way into a new referendum, the idea of getting governments out of the marriage business offers a creative way of thinking about a problem that is otherwise likely to be around for a long, long time".
2008 U.S. presidential election and aftermath
Although he initially supported Republican Mitt Romney, Kmiec "caused a stir" when he endorsed Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election in a piece on Slate. As he explained in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, "One of the things I kept discovering...was that Obama was sounding more Catholic than most Catholics I know." The issues that drew Kmiec's attention were wages, health care, and the cost of the Iraq War. To those fellow Catholics and abortion opponents who were surprised at his position, he argued that Obama's desire to "alleviate social conditions that correlate with abortion", such as poverty, was convincing. In the endorsement itself, Kmiec explained his disagreements with Obama, especially over the issue of abortion, but indicated that it was time to find common ground on this and other topics. Kmiec opened his piece by praising Obama's "integrity, intelligence, and genuine good will".