WASHINGTON — Theodore B. Olson, a conservative lawyer who helped win same-sex marriage rights in California, died Wednesday at the age of 84.
Olson was a feisty and courteous advocate who won landmark conservative decisions on the Supreme Court.
These included the Bush v. Gore decision that made George W. Bush president, and the Citizens United decision that struck down the ban on campaign spending.
Four years ago, he represented so-called Dreamers in an immigration case before the Supreme Court, winning a 5-4 decision that blocked the first Trump administration from revoking protections for young immigrants who came to this country with their parents. Ta.
Olson surprised many by agreeing to lead a challenge to California’s Proposition 8 and ban on same-sex marriage.
“I wanted to send the message that this is not Republican or Democratic, this is not conservative or liberal, this is about human rights and human decency,” he said in an interview with the Times.
Olson filed the lawsuit on behalf of two same-sex couples, and Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that denying them the right to marry was unconstitutional discrimination.
The proposal’s proponents appealed, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that they did not represent the state and were not qualified.
Although the decision was procedural, it cleared the way for same-sex couples to marry in California. Two years later, the court ruled that the Constitution protects same-sex marriage nationwide.
He said he lost some conservative friends at the time, but they no longer came to lunch with him or to his home for dinner.
The incident “changed my life forever, and I get very emotional when I talk about it,” Olson said.
Just last week, California voters formally removed Proposition 8 from the state constitution, enshrining the right to marry.
Olson was born in Chicago in 1940 and raised in Mountain View, California.
He was a law student at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964. There, he said he was one of the only students to support Republican Barry Goldwater, who lost the presidential election.
When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, Olson was a lawyer at Gibson Dunn in Los Angeles.
Reagan selected William French Smith, a partner at Gibson Dunn, to be U.S. attorney general. Mr. Smith then selected Mr. Olson to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
Olson would later represent President Reagan as his personal attorney after he left the White House.
In 1984, he left the administration and helped establish the Gibson Dunn firm in Washington.
He worked there for the next 40 years, except for a four-year stint as U.S. attorney general representing the Bush administration.
He has tried 60 cases in the Supreme Court as a private and government attorney.
“Ted has been the heart and soul of Gibson Dunn for 60 years and has made us who we are today,” said Ted, a partner at Gibson Dunn in Los Angeles who regularly collaborates with Olson on major cases. said Theodore J. Boutras Jr. “He was not only an unparalleled lawyer, mentor, role model, and friend, but also an immeasurable contributor to the rule of law, our Constitution, and our country. We will miss him dearly. I miss you.”
The Bush v. Gore case was resolved in five days in early December 2000. Olson filed an emergency appeal seeking to halt Florida’s recount of uncounted paper ballots. He said the results would vary from county to county because there are no agreed-upon standards for determining when defective ballots can be counted.
At noon Saturday, the court granted his appeal by a 5-4 vote and agreed to hold a hearing on Monday. Late that Tuesday evening, the court ended Florida’s recount in an unsigned opinion with four dissenting voices.
After President Bush took office, he selected Olson to represent his administration in court.
Olson was in his Justice Department office in the early morning hours of September 11, 2001, when he received a call from his wife, Barbara. She was on an American Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles when the plane was hijacked. After a few minutes, the phone went off. The plane crashed into the Pentagon, killing all on board.
He said he believes he was lucky to have a busy legal career and many friends to help him through his grief.
He later remarried, and his wife, Lady Booth Olson, was a Democrat and more liberal. She said the same-sex marriage lawsuit changed him.
“When you look at the discrimination, the people who stood up and testified for hours about what it’s like to be denied the right to marry, it’s transformative,” she said in a 2013 interview with The Times. Ta. “I think he’s starting to open up and listen a little bit more than he used to.”
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