Virginia L. Linder | |
---|---|
Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court | |
In office January 2, 2007 –January 4, 2016 | |
Preceded by | Wallace P. Carson,Jr. |
Succeeded by | Lynn Nakamoto |
Judge of the Oregon Court of Appeals | |
In office September 1997 –January 2007 | |
Appointed by | John Kitzhaber |
Preceded by | William L. Richardson |
Succeeded by | Timothy Sercombe |
Solicitor General of Oregon | |
In office 1986–1997 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Cañon City,Colorado | April 20,1953
Spouse | Colleen Sealock |
Alma mater | Southern Oregon University Willamette University College of Law |
Virginia Lynn Linder (born April 20,1953) [1] is an American judge from Oregon who served as the 99th justice of the Oregon Supreme Court from January 2007 until January 2016. She served on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 1997 until her election to the state's Supreme Court in the 2006,an electoral campaign in which she defeated former Labor Commissioner and Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Roberts.
Virginia Linder was born in Colorado,the daughter of two teachers,but grew up mostly in Carmichael,California. [2] Linder earned her first degree in political science from Southern Oregon State College in Ashland,Oregon in 1975. [2] She then spent two years working on the East Coast in order to save money for law school before returning to Oregon in 1977 to study law at Willamette University College of Law in Salem. She graduated from Willamette in 1980 with a Juris Doctor. While in school she worked at the Oregon Department of Justice during both her second and third years of law school, [3] clerking in the Appellate Division of the Attorney General's Office. [2]
She began her career as an Assistant Attorney General in the Appellate Division of the Oregon Department of Justice,starting in 1980. Then in 1984 Linder was appointed as assistant solicitor general of Oregon. [3] In 1986,at the age of 33,she was appointed Oregon Solicitor General,being the first woman to hold that position and serving in that office for longer than anyone else in state history. During her time as Solicitor General,she represented the state of Oregon in front of the United States Supreme Court,winning Oregon v. ACF in 1994. [4]
In 1997,she was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Governor John Kitzhaber,and was re-elected in 1998 and 2004. [3] Her campaign for a seat on the Oregon Supreme Court began in 2005 when Chief Justice Wallace Carson,Jr. announced that he would retire from the court in 2006. She faced Roberts and Pendleton attorney Gene Hallman in the May primary,winning 39% of the vote to Roberts' 42%. [5] Because no candidate won a majority of the votes,Linder and Roberts advanced to the November runoff. In that runoff,Linder defeated Roberts by 52% to 48%. [6] Linder's campaign committee raised just over $350,000 for her campaign but was outspent by more than two-to-one by the Roberts committee,which raised over $710,000. Since 1998 she has been a professor at Willamette's law school. [3]
Linder was the first woman elected to the Oregon Supreme Court;all previous female justices had been appointed to fill vacancies. [2] She was also the first ever openly lesbian member of a state supreme court anywhere in the nation and the first openly LGBTQ person elected as a non-incumbent to a state supreme court. [7] When in office,she served as one of eight openly LGBT supreme court justices in the United States,alongside fellow Oregonian Rives Kistler,Colorado Supreme Court justice Monica Marquez,Hawaii Supreme Court justice Sabrina McKenna,Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court justice Barbara Lenk,Connecticut Supreme Court justice Andrew J. McDonald,Vermont Supreme Court justice Beth Robinson,and Washington Supreme Court justice Mary Yu. Her 2006 election campaign was supported by the Gay &Lesbian Victory Fund. [8]
Ballot Measure 58 was a citizen's initiative that was passed by the voters of the U.S. state of Oregon in the November 1998 General Election. The measure restored the right of adopted adults who were born in Oregon to access their original birth certificates. The measure passed with 609,268 votes in favor,454,122 against. It was immediately challenged by several birth mothers who had put children up for adoption,which delayed instituting the measure for a year and a half.
Rives Kistler is an American attorney and judge in the state of Oregon. After college and law school on the East Coast,he moved to Oregon where he worked in private practice before joining the Oregon Department of Justice. Kistler then joined the Oregon Court of Appeals before appointment to the Oregon Supreme Court in 2003.
Wallace Preston Carson Jr. is an American attorney and politician from Oregon. He has spent time in both of Oregon's legislative branches and served on the Oregon Supreme Court for 24 years. Carson's fourteen-year tenure as chief justice was longer than that of any of his predecessors.
ChristineKotek is an American politician serving as the 39th governor of Oregon since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party,Kotek served eight terms as the state representative from the 44th district in the Oregon House of Representatives from 2007 to 2022,as majority leader of the Oregon House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013,and as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives from 2013 to 2022. She won the 2022 Oregon gubernatorial election,defeating Republican nominee Christine Drazan and independent candidate Betsy Johnson.
Robert Donald "Skip" Durham Jr. is a retired justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. Previously,Durham was a judge for the Oregon Court of Appeals and a lawyer in private practice.
Katherine Brown is an American politician and attorney who served as the 38th governor of Oregon from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party,she served three terms as the state representative from the 13th district of the Oregon House of Representatives from 1991 to 1997,three terms as the state senator from the 21st district of the Oregon Senate from 1997 to 2009,three terms as majority leader of the Oregon Senate from 2003 to 2009,and two terms as Oregon Secretary of State from 2009 to 2015. She assumed the governorship upon the resignation of John Kitzhaber in 2015. She was elected to serve out the remainder of his gubernatorial term in the special election in 2016 and was reelected to a full term in 2018.
Susan M. Leeson is an American attorney and former judge in the state of Oregon. She was the 94th justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. Prior to her appointment to the supreme court,the Utah native served on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 1993 to 1998.
Virginia Margaret Bell is a former Justice of the High Court of Australia,the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy. She was sworn in on 3 February 2009,and retired on 28 February 2021.
Susan Pia Graber is an American attorney and jurist. She is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A native of Oklahoma,she was the 90th justice of the Oregon Supreme Court from 1990 to 1998. She served on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 1988 to 1990.
Monica Marie Márquez is the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. Previously a deputy Colorado attorney general,she was appointed by Governor Bill Ritter to the Supreme Court in 2010 to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey. She was sworn in on December 10,2010.
Mary Isabel Yu is an American lawyer who has served as an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court since 2014. She served as a judge of the King County Superior Court from 2000 to 2014. She is the state's first openly gay,Asian American,and Latina justice.
Allison Lynn Hartwell Eid is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She previously served as an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.
Beth Robinson is an American lawyer and judge from Vermont. She is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and is the first openly lesbian judge to serve on any federal court of appeals. Robinson served as an associate justice of the Vermont Supreme Court from 2011 to 2021.
Ellen F. Rosenblum is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 17th Oregon Attorney General from June 2012 to December 2024. She is the first female state attorney general in Oregon's history,and previously was a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 2005 to 2011.
Lynn R. Nakamoto is an American judge who is a former justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. She was appointed to the court by Governor Kate Brown,and previously served on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 2011 to 2016.
Meagan Aileen Flynn is an American judge who is the chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. She previously served as a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 2014 to 2017. Flynn was appointed to the state’s supreme court by the Governor Kate Brown in March 2017.
Kelli Evans is an American lawyer who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California. She previously served as a judge of the Alameda County Superior Court.