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Douglas Howard Ginsburg
Chief Judge of United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office  2001
Preceded by	Harry T. Edwards
Succeeded by	Incumbent
Judge of D.C. Circuit Court
Incumbent
Assumed office  1986
Nominated by	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	J. Skelly Wright
Succeeded by	Incumbent
Born	May 25, 1946 (1946-05-25) (age 61) Chicago, IL
Spouse	Deecy Gray

Douglas Howard Ginsburg (born May 25, 1946) is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to this court in October 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. He became its Chief Judge of the court on July 16, 2001. He is not related to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ginsburg graduated high school in Chicago at The Latin School of Chicago. Ginsburg went on to attend Cornell University in 1964-1965 and then from 1968 to 1970, when he received his degree. His undergraduate education was interrupted when he started a computer dating service business called Operation Match.[2] He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1973 and became a law clerk for US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

From 1975 to 1983 Ginsburg was a professor at Harvard Law School. From 1983 to 1986 he served in various positions within the Reagan administration. Since 1988 he has been an Adjunct Professor at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia, where he teaches a seminar called "Reading in Legal Thought." In alternate years, he is a Visiting Lecturer and Charles J. Merriam Scholar at the University of Chicago Law School in Chicago, Illinois.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan announced his nomination of Ginsburg to the United States Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Lewis F. Powell. Ginsburg was chosen after a Democratically-controlled Senate had rejected the nomination of Judge Robert Bork after a bruising, partisan confirmation battle.

Ginsburg almost immediately came under some fire for an entirely different, and non-partisan, reason. Shortly after his nomination, revelations came out that Ginsburg had used marijuana during his student days in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1991, a similar admission by then nominee Clarence Thomas that he had used the drug during his law school days would have no effect on his nomination. Ginsburg, it emerged, had used pot not only during his student days, but admitted that he had used it while a law professor at Harvard. This was the crucial distinction in the minds of many Senators and members of the public.^[1]. Ginsburg was also accused of a financial conflict of interest during his work in the Reagan Administration. Coupled with the further allegation of a discrepancy between his actual amount of courtroom experience and that which he had claimed, this caused support for his nomination to evaporate. ^[2]

Due to these allegations, Ginsburg withdrew his name from consideration only nine days after his nomination, subsequently returning to the federal appellate bench, where he is now Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Anthony Kennedy was then nominated and confirmed as the 107th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

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Ginsburg is perhaps best known in legal circles^{[citation needed]} for his views on Constitutional interpretation, known by the shorthand "Constitution in Exile", taken from a phrase used in a book review Ginsburg penned in the journal Regulation. Roughly, Ginsburg's approach advocates reversing the expansions of federal power, particularly under the Interstate Commerce Clause, starting in the 1930s. Some argue^{[citation needed]} that the use of the term "Constitution in Exile" is inappropriate as a generalization for Ginsburg's views, or its broader application to conservative, originalist, or textualist legal theorists.

Critics of Ginsburg's approach argue^{[citation needed]} that such a philosophy would require overturning several decades of Supreme Court precedent, significantly undermining the doctrine of stare decisis. Defenders of the view argue^{[citation needed]} that such a move would merely reverse decades of accumulated judicial activism. Other proponents also point out^{[citation needed]} that implementing Ginsburg's vision could be done gradually, rather than suddenly.

• Federal Judiciary Bio
• University of Chicago Faculty Bio
• George Mason University Faculty Bio
• Reagan's Remarks in Nomination to the Supreme Court