Cleta Deatherage Mitchell (born September 15, 1950) is an American lawyer, politician and conservative activist. Elected in 1976, Mitchell served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives until 1984, representing District 44.
Video Cleta Mitchell
Early life and education
Cleta Mitchell was born as Cleta B. Deatherage in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1950. She attended Classen High School her junior and senior year. She received a B.A. in 1973 and a J.D. in 1975, both from the University of Oklahoma. Mitchell also has an honorary degree in Home Economics from Oklahoma State University due to her work with former dean, Beverly Crabtree.
In 1971, Mitchell was one of the five original conveners of the Oklahoma Women's Political Caucus.
Maps Cleta Mitchell
Married life
She married Duane Draper, a fellow Oklahoman from Norman, in 1973. In 1980, Draper moved to Massachusetts to take a teaching fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The couple divorced two years later in July 1982 on grounds of "incompatibility." Draper later came out as a gay man and became director of AIDS programming at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
In 1984, Cleta Deatherage married Dale Mitchell, who was the son of all-star Brooklyn Dodgers left-fielder Dale Mitchell. In the early 1980s, the FBI began investigating Dale Mitchell for banking malpractice, and in 1992 he was convicted of five felony counts of conspiracy to defraud, misapplying bank funds and making false statements to banks, and ordered to pay $3 million in restitution. According to Mitchell, this is what convinced her that government had grown too big.
Oklahoma House of Representatives
She served as a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1976 to 1984, as member of the Democratic Party. She was the first woman in the United States to chair a House Appropriations and Budget Committee. She served on the executive committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Committees
- Chair of the House Appropriations and Budget committee
Career after the House
In 1991 she moved to Washington to become general counsel and executive director of the Term Limits Legal Institute and later served as a losing co-counsel in the case of U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton.
She is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Foley & Lardner. She has served as legal counsel for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Rifle Association. She represents Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK). She has also represented Tea Party candidates Sharron Angle and Joe Miller. She refused to represent Christine O'Donnell . She has been appointed to the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Election Law and as an advisor on the American Law Institute's Election Law Project entitled "Principles of Election Law: Dispute Resolution."
She serves on the Board of Directors of the Bradley Foundation. She also serves on the Board of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the American Conservative Union Foundation. She sits on the Board of Governors of the Republican National Lawyers Association, where she is a former president. After leaving the House, Mitchell switched her political affiliation from democratic to republican.
In August 2013, conservative Newsmax magazine named Mitchell among the "25 most influential women in the GOP".
Awards and achievements
- "Rising Star" Award by Campaigns and Elections magazine (1993)
- South Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce's Native Daughter Award
- Outstanding Female Attorney (1980)
- Selected as a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics (1981)
Published works
- Press articles
- Setting the record straight on voter ID laws, The Daily Caller, July 6, 2011.
- Campaign-Finance Reform and Its Casualties, The Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2012.
- Give Partisanship a Rest and Address Real Issues, The New York Times, November 9, 2012.
- Scholarly articles
- 'The Rise of America's Two National Pastimes: Baseball and the Law' (1999, Michigan Law Review)
- 'Donor Disclosure: Undermining The First Amendment' (Minnesota Law Review, 2012)
- Books
- The Lobbying Compliance Handbook (2008, Columbia Books)
References
External links
- Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project - OSU Library
- Appearances on C-SPAN
Source of article : Wikipedia
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