WASHINGTON – Theodore B. Olson, a conservative lawyer who helped win gay marriage rights in California, died Wednesday at age 84.
Olson was a brilliant advocate who won conservative decisions from the Supreme Court.
They include the Bush vs. It was Gore that made George W. Bush president, and the Citizens United decision that struck down the ban on campaign spending.
Four years ago, he represented the so-called Dreamers in a Supreme Court immigration case and won a 5-4 ruling that blocked the first Trump administration from revoking protections for young immigrants who came to this country with their parents.
Olson surprised many when he agreed to lead the challenge to California’s Proposition 8 and the ban on same-sex marriage.
“I want to send the message that this is not Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, this is about human rights and human decency,” he said in an interview with The Times.
Olson sued on behalf of two gay couples, and Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that it was unconstitutional discrimination to deny the right to marry.
Proponents of the proposition appealed, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that they did not represent the state and had no status.
While the decision is procedural, it clears the way for same-sex couples to marry in California. Two years later, the court ruled that the Constitution protected gay marriage nationwide.
He said he lost a conservative friend who refused to join him for lunch or dinner at his house.
The case “changed my life a lot. When I talk about it, I get very emotional,” Olson said.
Just last week, California voters officially removed Proposition 8 from the state Constitution and granted the right to marry.
Olson was born in Chicago in 1940 and grew up in Mountain View, California.
He was a law student at UC Berkeley in 1964, where he says he was one of the students who supported Republican Barry Goldwater when he lost the presidential election.
In 1980, Olson was an attorney at Gibson Dunn in Los Angeles when Ronald Reagan was elected president.
Reagan appointed William French Smith, a Gibson Dunn partner, as US attorney general. Smith then selected Olson to lead the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
Olson would later represent Reagan as his personal attorney after he left the White House.
In 1984, he left the administration and helped set up Gibson Dunn’s Washington office.
For the next 40 years, he worked there, except for four years as US attorney general representing the Bush administration.
He argued 60 cases in the Supreme Court as a private lawyer and government lawyer.
“Ted has been the heart and soul of Gibson Dunn for sixty years and made us what we are today,” said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a partner at Gibson Dunn in Los Angeles who regularly collaborates with Olson in major cases. “He was not only an incomparable lawyer, mentor, role model, and friend, but he has made immeasurable contributions to the rule of law, the Constitution, and our country. We will miss him with all our hearts.”
The case of Bush vs. Gore ran for five days in early December 2000. Olson filed an emergency appeal to stop the recount of unaltered paper ballots in Florida. He said that because there is no agreed-upon standard for deciding when spoiled ballots can be counted, results will vary from county to county.
At noon on Saturday, the court granted the appeal by a 5-4 vote and agreed to hold a hearing on Monday. Late Tuesday afternoon, the court ended Florida’s recount in an unsigned opinion with four dissents.
After taking office, Bush appointed Olson to represent the administration before the courts.
Olson was at the Justice Department office in the early hours of September 11, 2001, when he got a call from his wife, Barbara. He had boarded a hijacked American Airlines flight to Los Angeles. A few minutes later, the phone went dead. The plane crashed into the Pentagon, killing everyone on board.
He said he was fortunate to have a busy legal career as well as many friends to help him through the ordeal.
He later remarried, and his wife, Lady Booth Olson, was a Democrat and more liberal. He said the gay marriage case has changed him.
“When you look at discrimination in the face – these people who got up and testified for hours about what they were denied the right to marry, it’s transformative,” he said in an interview with The Times in 2013. “I think they’re starting to open up think and hear more than before.”
