Richard Cordray
Richard Adams Cordray is an American lawyer and politician who served from 2021 to 2024 as COO of Federal Student Aid in the United States Department of Education. From 2012 to 2017, he served as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Before that, Cordray variously served as Ohio's attorney general, solicitor general, and treasurer. He was the Democratic nominee for governor of Ohio in 2018. In April 2024, the Biden administration announced Cordray's departure after a chaotic rollout of changes to the FAFSA student aid application form.
Cordray was raised near Columbus, Ohio and attended Michigan State University. He was subsequently a Marshall Scholar at Brasenose College, Oxford and then attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. In 1987, Cordray became a five-time Jeopardy! champion.
Cordray was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1990. After redistricting, he decided to run for the United States House of Representatives in 1992 but was defeated. In 1993, the Ohio Attorney General appointed Cordray as the first Solicitor General of Ohio. His experience as Solicitor led to his appearance before the United States Supreme Court to argue six cases. Following Republican victories in Ohio statewide elections in 1994, Cordray left his appointed position and entered the private practice of law. While in private practice, Cordray unsuccessfully ran for Ohio Attorney General in 1998 and the United States Senate in 2000. He was elected Franklin County treasurer in 2002 and reelected in 2004 before being elected Ohio State Treasurer in 2006.
Cordray was elected Ohio Attorney General in November 2008 to fill the remainder of the term ending in January 2011. In 2010, he lost his bid for reelection to former U.S. Senator Mike DeWine. Cordray became Director of the CFPB via recess appointment in July 2011 and was confirmed by the Senate in 2013. He left the agency in late 2017 to run for governor of Ohio, an election he lost to DeWine. In 2021, Cordray was named to head Federal Student Aid, where he oversaw student loan forgiveness for 3.6 million Americans.
Early life and education
Cordray was born on May 3, 1959, in Columbus, Ohio, the middle child between brothers Frank Jr. and Jim, and was raised in Grove City, Ohio, where he attended public schools. At Grove City High School, Cordray became a champion on the high school quiz show In The Know and worked for minimum wage at McDonald's. He graduated from high school in 1977 as co-valedictorian of his class. Cordray's first job in politics was as an intern for United States Senator John Glenn as a junior at Michigan State University's James Madison College. Cordray earned Phi Beta Kappa honors and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in legal and political theory in 1981. As a Marshall Scholar, he earned a Master of Arts with first class honors in philosophy, politics and economics from Brasenose College, Oxford. Cordray was a member of the Oxford University Men's Basketball Team and earned a Varsity Blue in 1983. At the University of Chicago Law School, where he earned his J.D. degree with honors in 1986, Cordray served as editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law Review.Early career
After starting work as a law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court, Cordray returned to his high school to deliver the commencement speech for the graduating class of 1988. He began his career by clerking for Judge Robert Bork of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States. After clerking for Kennedy in 1989, Cordray was hired by the international law firm Jones Day to work in its Cleveland office.From 1989 to at least 2000, Cordray taught various courses at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and Georgetown University.
Ohio House of Representatives
In 1990, Cordray ran for an Ohio State House of Representatives seat, in the 33rd district, against six-term incumbent Republican Don Gilmore. Unopposed for the Democratic nomination, Cordray defeated Gilmore by an 18,573–11,944 margin.1992 congressional election
In 1991, the state Apportionment Board, controlled by a 3–2 Republican majority despite the party's 61–38 minority in the state House of Representatives, redrew state legislative districts following the results of the 1990 Census, in the hope of retaking control of the state House. The new boundaries created nine districts each with two resident incumbent Democrats, pairing Cordray with the 22-year incumbent Mike Stinziano. Unable to be elected in another district due to a one-year residency requirement, Cordray opted not to run for reelection.Cordray ran for Ohio's 15th congressional district in the 1992 U.S. House of Representatives elections, and won the Democratic nomination over Bill Buckel by an 18,731–5,329 margin, following the withdrawal of another candidate, Dave Sommer. Cordray's platform included federal spending cuts, term limits for Congress and a line-item veto for the president. When Deborah Pryce, then a Franklin County municipal judge, announced that she would vote to support abortion rights, Linda Reidelbach entered the race as an independent. Thus, the general election was a three-way affair, with Pryce taking a plurality of 110,390 votes, Cordray 94,907 and Reidelbach 44,906.
Ohio solicitor general
While in private practice in 1993, Cordray co-wrote a legal brief for the Anti-Defamation League, in a campaign supported by Ohio's attorney general, for the reinstatement of Ohio's hate crime laws. This was considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, but not ruled on because of its similarity to a previous Wisconsin ruling.In 1993, the government of Ohio created the office of state solicitor general to handle the state's appellate work. The state solicitor, appointed by the Ohio attorney general, is responsible for cases that are to be argued before the Ohio Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. Until 1998, the Solicitor worked without any support staff. Cordray, who had earlier worked for a summer in the office of the United States solicitor general, was the first Solicitor to be appointed, in September 1993. He held the position until he resigned after Ohio Attorney General Lee Fisher was defeated by Betty Montgomery in 1994. Cordray's subsequent cases before the Supreme Court included Wilson v. Layne and Hanlon v. Berger. Though he lost his first case, Cordray won his second case, which garnered a substantial amount of media attention for its consideration of the constitutionality of media ride-alongs with police. Other cases included Household Credit Services v. Pfennig, Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington, Demore v. Kim, and Groh v. Ramirez.
Cordray contested the Ku Klux Klan's right to erect a cross at the Ohio Statehouse after the state's Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board denied the Klan's request during the 1993 Christmas holiday. He argued that the symbolic meaning of the cross was different from the Christmas tree and menorah, which the state permits. The Klan prevailed in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on December 21, 1993, and erected a 10-foot cross the following day. The same board denied the Klan a permit to rally on Martin Luther King Day due to the group's failure to pay a $15,116 bill from its Oct. 23 rally and its refusal to post a bond to cover expenses for the proposed rally. When the same 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision to deny the 1994 permit, the state chose not to appeal. The following year the Klan again applied to erect a cross for the Christmas holiday season, and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the prior ruling. The United States Supreme Court did not agree to hear arguments on the topic until a few weeks after Cordray resigned from his solicitor general position. After his resignation in 1994, Cordray represented the federal government in the U.S. Supreme Court several times: two of Cordray's appearances before were by appointment of the Democratic Bill Clinton Justice Department and two were by the Republican George W. Bush Justice Department.
Cordray was granted a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court that lower courts could not grant a stay of execution for a death row inmate. At the same time, Fisher, Cordray's boss, sought a referendum to mandate that appeals in death penalty cases be made directly to the Supreme Court. In 1994, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Steffen v. Tate limited death row inmates to a single federal appeal and said that federal courts cannot stay an execution if the case is still in a state court.
In early 1996, Cordray was elected to the Ohio Democratic Party Central Committee from the 15th district by a 5,472–1,718 margin over John J. Kulewicz. From 1995 to 2007, Cordray was a sole practitioner and Of Counsel to Kirkland & Ellis.
In late 1996, Cordray, who was in private practice at the time, was a leading contender and finalist for a United States attorney position during the second term of the Clinton administration, along with Kent Markus and Sharon Zealey. Zealey was eventually selected.