Greg Abbott

Gregory Wayne Abbott (born November 13, 1957) is an American politician, attorney, and jurist serving as the 48th governor of Texas since 2015.

Abbott was born on November 13, 1957, in Wichita Falls, Texas, of English descent.

His mother, Doris Lechristia Jacks Abbott, was a housewife and his father, Calvin Rodger Abbott, was a stockbroker and insurance agent.

When he was six years old, they moved to Longview; the family lived there for six years.

When he was 12, Abbott's family moved to Duncanville.

In his sophomore year in high school, his father died of a heart attack; his mother went to work in a real estate office.

Abbott graduated from Duncanville High School, where he was on the track team, in the National Honor Society and was voted "Most Likely to Succeed".

In 1981, Abbott earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity and the Young Republicans Club.

He met his wife, Cecilia Phalen, while attending UT Austin.

The two married in 1981.

In 1984, he earned his Juris Doctor degree from the Vanderbilt University Law School.

Abbott went into private practice, working for Butler and Binion, LLP between 1984 and 1992.

Before becoming attorney general, Abbott was a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, a position to which he was appointed in 1995 by then-governor George W. Bush.

Then-Governor George W. Bush appointed Abbott to the Texas Supreme Court; he was then twice elected to the state's highest civil court—in 1996 (two-year term) and in 1998 (six-year term).

In 1996, Abbott had no Democratic opponent but was challenged by Libertarian John B. Hawley of Dallas.

Abbott defeated Hawley, 84% to 16%.

Abbott won a full term in 1998 with 60% of the vote.

In 1998, Abbott defeated Democrat David Van Os, 60% to 40%.

In 2001, after resigning from the Supreme Court, Abbott returned to private practice and worked for Bracewell & Giuliani LLC.

He was also an adjunct professor at University of Texas School of Law.

Abbott resigned from the Texas Supreme Court in 2001 to run for lieutenant governor of Texas.

He had been campaigning for several months when the previous attorney general, John Cornyn, vacated the post to run for the U.S. Senate.

A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 50th attorney general of Texas from 2002 to 2015 and as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court from 1996 to 2001.

Abbott was the third Republican to serve as attorney general of Texas since the Reconstruction era.

He was elected to that office with 57% of the vote in 2002 and reelected with 60% in 2006 and 64% in 2010, becoming the longest-serving Texas attorney general in state history, with 12 years of service.

Abbott then switched his campaign to the open attorney general's position in 2002.

He defeated the Democratic nominee, former Austin mayor and former state senator Kirk Watson, 57% to 41%.

Abbott was sworn in on December 2, 2002, following Cornyn's election to the Senate.

Abbott expanded the attorney general's office's law enforcement division from about 30 people to more than 100.

He also created a new division, the Fugitive Unit, to track down convicted sex offenders in violation of their paroles or probations.

In 2003, Abbott supported the Texas Legislature's move to cap non-economic damages for medical malpractice cases at $250,000, with no built-in increases for rising cost of living.

As attorney general, he successfully advocated for the Texas State Capitol to display the Ten Commandments in the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case Van Orden v. Perry, and unsuccessfully defended the state's ban on same-sex marriage. He was involved in numerous lawsuits against the Barack Obama administration, seeking to invalidate the Affordable Care Act and the administration's environmental regulations.

Abbott's judicial career began in Houston, where he served as a state trial judge in the 129th District Court for three years.

In a 2013 speech to fellow Republicans, when asked what his job entails, Abbott said: "I go into the office in the morning, I sue Barack Obama, and then I go home."

Abbott filed 31 lawsuits against the Obama administration, including suits against the Environmental Protection Agency; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including challenges to the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"); and the U.S. Department of Education, among many others.

According to The Wall Street Journal, from Abbott's tenure as attorney general through his first term as governor, Texas sued the Obama administration at least 44 times, more than any other state over the same period; court challenges included carbon-emission standards, health-care reform, transgender rights, and others.

Elected in 2014, Abbott is the first Texas governor and third governor of a U.S. state to use a wheelchair, the others being Franklin D. Roosevelt and George Wallace.

As governor, Abbott supported the Donald Trump administration and has promoted a conservative agenda, including measures against abortion such as the Texas Heartbeat Act, lenient gun laws, opposition to illegal immigration, support for law enforcement funding, and election reform.

In response to the power crisis following a February 2021 winter storm, Abbott called for reforms to Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and signed a bill requiring power plant weatherization.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas, Abbott opposed implementing face mask and vaccine mandates, while blocking local governments, businesses, and other organizations from implementing their own.