Cameron Kerry
Cameron Kerry | |
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United States Secretary of Commerce Acting |
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In office June 1, 2013 – June 26, 2013 |
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President | Barack Obama |
Deputy | Patrick Gallagher (Acting) |
Preceded by | Rebecca Blank |
Succeeded by | Penny Pritzker |
Personal details | |
Born | Cameron Forbes Kerry September 6, 1950 |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse(s) | Kathy Weinman |
Relations | <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
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Parents | Richard John Kerry Rosemary Isabel Forbes |
Alma mater | Harvard University (A.B.) Boston College (J.D.) |
Religion | Judaism (Previously Catholicism) |
Cameron Forbes Kerry (born September 6, 1950) is an American politician. He is the younger brother and political confidant of John Forbes Kerry and the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Commerce.[1] He was appointed Acting United States Secretary of Commerce on June 1, 2013,[2] and resumed his position as General Counsel on June 26, 2013, when Penny Pritzker was sworn in as the 38th Secretary of Commerce.
As the General Counsel of the Department of Commerce, Cameron Kerry is the principal legal advisor to the Secretary of Commerce and third ranking secretarial officer. President Obama nominated him on April 20, 2009, and he was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate on May 21, 2009. He serves as the department's chief legal officer and oversees the work of over 325 lawyers in 14 offices. Kerry is the Department's chief ethics officer, and co-chairs the Secretary's Internet Policy Task Force, which brings together Commerce agencies with expertise on the internet in the 21st-century global economy.[3]
Life and career
The fourth child of U.S. diplomat Richard John Kerry and Rosemary Isabel Forbes of the Forbes family and Dudley–Winthrop family, Cameron Kerry graduated from Harvard College in 1972, and Boston College Law School in 1978. Cameron Kerry was an associate with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Washington, D.C. and served as law clerk to U.S. Senior Circuit Judge Elbert Tuttle, former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (now the Eleventh Circuit). He has been an Adjunct Professor of Telecommunications Law at Suffolk University Law School and has written on First Amendment and cable television issues.[4] From 1983 to 2008, he worked as a Partner at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky, and Popeo, focusing on civil litigation, environmental issues, and communications regulation.[citation needed]
In 2004, Cameron Kerry served as an influential advisor in his brother's presidential campaign. Kerry played a role in decisions behind the scenes and as a campaign surrogate.[5]
In 1983, Cameron Kerry converted from Roman Catholicism to Judaism before marrying Kathy Weinman.[6] Cameron Kerry traveled across the country speaking to his brother's views on Israel, campaigning with Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, writer-comedian Larry David, and Jewish elected officials.[7]
In 2006, Cameron Kerry explored a run for Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth but decided not to run when the Democratic incumbent William F. Galvin announced that he would seek re-election.[8]
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, he was the Vice-Chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council and defended Barack Obama in the Jewish press.[9] He will be speaking at the upcoming Big Data Innovation Summit taking place in Boston on September 9-10, 2015.
Controversy
On September 18, 1972, the day before the primary election in which John Kerry was seeking his district's nomination in his race for the U.S. House of Representatives, Cameron Kerry and Thomas J. Vallely were caught in the basement of the building that housed both John Kerry and opponent Anthony R. DiFruscia's campaign headquarters. Cameron was charged with breaking and entering. One month later, the charges were dropped after the Kerry campaign explained that Cameron was in the building to investigate rumors that his brother's campaign telephone lines were being wiretapped.[10]
References
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- ↑ http://www.commerce.gov/about-commerce/commerce-leadership/cameron-kerry
- ↑ Profile, commerce.gov; accessed August 5, 2015.
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to [[commons:Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).|Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).]]. |
Political offices | ||
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Preceded by | United States Secretary of Commerce Acting 2013 |
Succeeded by Penny Pritzker |
- Articles with unsourced statements from August 2015
- Commons category link from Wikidata
- 1950 births
- American Jews
- American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
- American people of English descent
- American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
- American people of Scottish descent
- Boston College Law School alumni
- Converts to Judaism from Roman Catholicism
- Forbes family
- Foreign Service brats
- Harvard University alumni
- Living people
- Massachusetts Democrats
- Massachusetts lawyers
- Kerry family
- Obama Administration cabinet members
- Politicians from Boston, Massachusetts
- United States Secretaries of Commerce
- Dudley–Winthrop family