John Cornyn III ( ; born February 2, 1952) is an American politician and former judge who is the senior United States senator for Texas, a seat he has held since 2002. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Born in Houston, Cornyn is a graduate of Trinity University, St. Mary's University School of Law, and the University of Virginia School of Law. He was a judge on Texas's 37th District Court from 1985 to 1991, an associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court from 1991 to 1997, and Attorney General of Texas from 1999 to 2002. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002. During his tenure, Cornyn chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 2009 to 2013 and served as the Senate Republican whip from 2013 to 2019.
Cornyn has been described as an establishment Republican. Although considered conservative by voting record, he has a reputation for bipartisan negotiation on gun legislation and immigration reform. In 2022, he helped negotiate passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, for which he was rebuked by the Republican Party of Texas.
Cornyn ran for reelection in 2026. After narrowly coming in first place but not receiving more than 50% of the vote in the Republican primary, he faced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a runoff election. Cornyn lost renomination in the May runoff, receiving about 37% of the vote. Cornyn is the first incumbent Texas senator to lose renomination since Ralph Yarborough in 1970.
Early life, education, and legal career Cornyn was born in Houston, the second child of Atholene Gale Cornyn () and John Cornyn II, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. He attended the American School in Japan after his family moved to Tokyo in 1968, and graduated from it in 1969. In 1973, he graduated from Trinity University, where he majored in journalism and was a member of Chi Delta Tau. Cornyn earned a Juris Doctor from St. Mary's University School of Law in 1977 and an LL.M. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1995.
Cornyn served as a district judge in San Antonio for six years before being elected as a Republican in 1990 to the Texas Supreme Court, on which he served for seven years.
Texas attorney general (1999–2002) 1998 election In 1998, Cornyn ran for Texas attorney general. In the March Republican primary, Railroad Commissioner Barry Williamson received 38% of the vote, and Cornyn, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, received 32%. In the April runoff election, Cornyn defeated Williamson, 58% to 42%. Cornyn won the general election with 54% of the vote; he defeated Jim Mattox, a former Texas attorney general (1983–1991) and U.S. representative.
Tenure In September 2000, Cornyn created the Texas Internet Bureau to investigate illegal internet practices. The Internet Bureau was funded through an $800,000 grant from Governor Bush’s office, and its mission was to "help fight cybercrime in Texas, including consumer fraud, hacker break-ins, and online child exploitation". Cornyn investigated fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims.
Cornyn was criticized by civil rights groups for failing to investigate in a timely manner the false drug convictions of numerous African Americans in Tulia, Texas. On September 6, 2002, The Austin Chronicle reported that Cornyn had announced that his office would investigate the 1999 drug bust, where the testimony of one narcotics agent led to the arrests of 46 people, 43 of whom were Black.
U.S. Senate (2002–present) Elections
2002
In the 2002 Republican primary, Cornyn faced five opponents. Cornyn defeated his closest Republican challenger, the self-financed, Dallas-based international physician Bruce Rusty Lang, by a ten-to-one margin. In the general election, Cornyn defeated Democratic nominee Ron Kirk in a campaign that cost each candidate over $9 million.
2008
Cornyn defeated Christian activist Larry Kilgore in the Republican primary. Texas Representative Rick Noriega won the March4 Democratic primary against Gene Kelly, Ray McMurrey, and Rhett Smith. Cornyn was reelected.
2014
Cornyn was reelected in 2014. He won the March Republican primary with 59% of the vote against Houston-area congressman Steve Stockman. In the general election, he raised $14 million, outspending Democratic nominee David Alameel by nearly 3–1. Cornyn won again by over 20 points.
2020
Cornyn was reelected to a fourth term in 2020 in the closest of his Senate campaigns. He won the primary with 76% of the vote, and then defeated Democrat MJ Hegar in a race that the Cook Political Report had initially rated "Likely Republican" but then shifted to "Lean Republican".
2026
Cornyn ran for a fifth Senate term in 2026. He faced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Representative Wesley Hunt in the March 3 primary. No one received 50% of the vote, which triggered a runoff election between Cornyn and Paxton on May 26.
Cornyn lost to Paxton by 28 points, becoming the second incumbent senator to lose renomination in the 2026 elections cycle, after Bill Cassidy. According to Decision Desk HQ, it was the worst primary performance for an incumbent senator in a head-to-head race since J. William Fulbright in 1974.
Tenure During George W. Bush's presidency, The Dallas Morning News considered Cornyn a reliable Bush ally on most issues."Bush rallies immigration bill's GOP foes", The Dallas Morning News June 13, 2006
In 2004, Cornyn and Senator Hillary Clinton co-founded the U.S. Senate India Caucus, of which he became the co-chair. In December 2006, he was selected by his colleagues to join the five-person Republican Senate leadership team as Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.
In 2005, Cornyn gained notice by connecting the Supreme Court's reluctance to hear arguments for sustaining Terri Schiavo's life with the recent murders of Judge Joan Lefkow's husband and mother, as well as the courtroom murder of Judge Rowland Barnes. Cornyn said: "I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions, yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up, and building up to the point where some people engage in violence."Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, p. 248. Doubleday. His statement and a similar one by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay were widely denounced, including by The New York Times. Cornyn later said that the statement was taken out of context, and for that reason, he regretted the statement. Cornyn was mentioned as a possible replacement for Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist.
On May 18, 2007, Cornyn was involved in a verbal altercation with Senator John McCain. During a meeting on immigration, McCain and Cornyn had a shouting match when Cornyn started questioning the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive. McCain responded by yelling profanity and insults at Cornyn and said, "I know more about this than anyone else in the room." Previously, Cornyn had told McCain: "Wait a second here. I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations, and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."
As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Cornyn was a strong supporter of Norm Coleman's various court challenges to the certification of the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. Cornyn advocated for Coleman to bring the case before the federal court and said the trial and appeals could take years to complete. Cornyn threatened that Republicans would wage a "World War III" if Senate Democrats had attempted to seat Democratic candidate Al Franken before the appeals were complete. Coleman conceded after the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Franken had won the election.
Cornyn voted to confirm Samuel Alito as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and John Roberts as Chief Justice. In September 2005, during Roberts's Supreme Court hearings, Cornyn's staff passed out bingo cards to reporters. He asked them to stamp their card every time a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee used terms such as "far right" or "extremist". On July 24, 2009, Cornyn announced his intention to vote against President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, saying that she might rule "from a liberal, activist perspective".
In 2013, National Journal ranked Cornyn the 14th-most conservative senator.
On the day of Obama's inauguration, it was reported that Cornyn would prevent Hillary Clinton from being confirmed as secretary of state by unanimous floor vote that day. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's spokesman reported to the Associated Press that a roll call vote for the Clinton confirmation would be held instead on the following day, January 21, 2009, and that it was expected Clinton would "receive overwhelming bipartisan support". The vote was 94–2 in her favor, with only Senators Jim DeMint and David Vitter voting in opposition.CNN broadcast, The Situation Room, January 21, 2009
On March 18, 2020, Cornyn blamed the COVID-19 pandemic on cultural practices in China and mistakenly blamed China for the MERS and swine flu epidemics. His comments were criticized by some Democrats and the National Council of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. At the time, the consensus among researchers was that coronavirus had originated at a wet market in Wuhan, China.
Senate Majority Whip
On November 14, 2012, Cornyn was elected Senate Minority Whip by his peers.
Cornyn was named Senate Majority Whip after the 2014 election, in which Republicans gained a Senate majority.Gilman, Todd J. Texas's John Cornyn rises in power in GOP-led Senate , The Dallas Morning News, November 4, 2014. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
After the death of Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, Cornyn said that anyone Obama nominated to replace him would have a difficult confirmation process and feel like a piñata. He also said that no serious candidate would accept a nomination knowing that they would not be confirmed. When Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace Scalia, Cornyn said that even if the president has the constitutional authority to nominate someone, the Senate has full authority on how to proceed. Cornyn also said that the voice of the people should play a role, and that the "only way to empower the American people" was having the vacancy be filled by the winner of the upcoming presidential election, so no hearings on Garland should be held. The Senate did not vote on Garland's nomination, which expired after the November election of President Donald Trump. Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the seat, and Gorsuch was confirmed. In September 2020, Cornyn supported a vote on Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In March 2016, he took the position that the Senate should not consider Obama's Supreme Court nominee.
On June 8, 2017, during a committee hearing whose announced topic was the Russian interference in the 2016 election and Comey's dismissal as FBI director, Cornyn opted instead to spend his time questioning James Comey on Hillary Clinton's email controversy.
In September 2018, during the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, Cornyn accused the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of devolving into mob rule by breaking the rules of decorum when asking for postponement or adjournment of the hearing to obtain or review documents from Kavanaugh's time working for the George W. Bush administration. Cornyn said that it was hard to believe the Democrats' claim that they could not properly assess Kavanaugh without the documents because it seemed that their minds were already made up.
2024 Senate Majority Leader election