Spencer Abraham: Federalist Society Founder Who Ran the Energy Department

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Spencer Abraham was born in 1952 in East Lansing, Michigan, to a family of Lebanese descent, and his mother was active on the state Republican committee. After graduating from Michigan State University's Honors College in 1974 he went to Harvard Law School, where in 1978 he co-founded the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and then helped found the Federalist Society, formally organized in 1982. He taught at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, chaired the Michigan Republican Party from 1983 to 1990, and served as deputy chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle before winning a U.S. Senate seat in 1994. As of 2026 he remains the last Republican to represent Michigan in the Senate.

In the Senate he wrote early internet law, including the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and the Government Paperwork Elimination Act, and in 1996 he led the effort that blocked proposed cuts to legal immigration. In 2000 he lost to Debbie Stabenow after voting in 1999 to convict Bill Clinton and facing attack ads from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. In 1999 he had co-sponsored a bill to abolish the Department of Energy, yet in 2001 George W. Bush named him the 10th Secretary of Energy, a post he held until 2005. He later moved into the nuclear industry.

• The National Council of La Raza gave him its Defender of the Melting Pot award for his 1996 immigration work.
• The FAIR ads placed his photo alongside Osama bin Laden and tied his immigration stance to terrorism.
• The 1999 bill he co-sponsored would have moved the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the Defense Department.
• As chairman of Areva Inc. he worked on a program to turn weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for civilian reactors.
• He chaired Uranium Energy Corp and co-wrote the 2010 book Lights Out about America's energy problems.