Chris Van Hollen, who successfully ran for the Senate. That came after a historic election to replace then Rep. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)īut when he was elected to Congress last November, he had to leave behind his position at American University. Jamie Raskin speaks during a debate on possible amendments to a gay marriage bill in Annapolis, Md., Thursday, Feb. When he was elected to the Maryland State Senate in 2006, he could maintain both jobs, as the bicameral legislature is made up of “citizen legislators” who are only in session for a portion of the year. I’ve been deeply enmeshed in the academic world.” “You know, some of these politicians were law professors for about 45 minutes, like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
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He then taught constitutional law for 25 years. Kennedy administration, before he founded the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think-tank.Īs Raskin grew up in a political environment, he became obsessed with the law and enrolled in Harvard Law School. His father, Marcus Raskin, was a concert pianist who eventually moved to Washington to work on Capitol Hill. His maternal grandfather, Samuel Bellman, a member of the left-wing Farmer-Labor Party in the 1930s, was the first Jewish person ever elected to the Minnesota state legislature. Raskin grew up with politics in his blood. It’s only possible through the democratic arts of organizing, mobilizing and educating people for change.” Politics in his blood
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“For me, it was a great lesson in politics, because nothing’s impossible, nothing’s inevitable. “So I went from impossible to inevitable,” he said. Drawing from his first campaign, the curly-haired 54-year-old legislator recalled a pundit saying when he entered the race, his chances of victory were “considered impossible.” Nine months later, after he won with 67 percent of the vote, another pundit told The Washington Post his victory was “inevitable.”