Before his election to the Senate, Abraham was a law professor at
Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
Republican Party service He was elected chairman of the
Michigan Republican Party from 1983 to 1990. He was deputy chief of staff for Vice President
Dan Quayle from 1990 to 1991. He later served as co-chairman of the
National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) from 1991 to 1993 and ran for chairman of the
Republican National Committee in 1993, coming second to
Haley Barbour.
United States Senate Abraham was elected to represent
Michigan in the
United States Senate in
1994, and he served until 2001 after being defeated for reelection in
2000 by
Debbie Stabenow. He was the only
Lebanese American in the chamber. According to the
New York Times, state Republicans attributed his loss to "scathing advertisements by a wide range of special interest groups, including advertisements that criticized Mr. Abraham's support for a relaxation of some immigration restrictions". During the campaign, the
Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigration advocacy group with ties to
white nationalism, ran ads asking: "Why is Senator Spencer Abraham trying to make it easier for terrorists like Osama bin Laden to export their war of terror to any city street in America?" The media denounced these commercials as "vengeful". In 1996, when President Bill Clinton endorsed Representative
Barbara Jordan's proposed cuts to legal immigration, Abraham played a leading role in blocking the cuts. Another factor in his defeat was his vote to convict Clinton in his
1999 impeachment trial. The next year he received the "Defender of the Melting Pot" award from the
National Council of La Raza for his efforts on immigration.
Committee service and legislation Abraham served on the Budget, Commerce, Science and Transportation, Judiciary, and
Small Business Committees. He also chaired two subcommittees: Manufacturing and Competitiveness, and Immigration. Abraham authored the H1B Visa in Global and National Commerce Act, establishing a federal framework for online contracts and signatures; the Government Paperwork Elimination Act, and the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which protects Internet
domain names for businesses and persons against
copyright and
trademark infringements. In 1999, Abraham co-sponsored S.896, a bill to abolish the
U.S. Department of Energy, which would have transferred control of the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve in large part to the
Defense Department.
U.S. Energy Secretary In 2001,
George W. Bush appointed Abraham
Secretary of Energy. On November 15, 2004, Abraham announced that he would resign from this position, effective with the swearing-in of his successor,
Samuel W. Bodman, on February 1, 2005. In 2004, Lebanese Ambassador
Farid Abboud awarded Abraham the
National Order of the Cedar.
Hoover Institution From 2005 to 2007, Abraham was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the
Hoover Institution, a think tank based at
Stanford University. After leaving office, he opened The Abraham Group, a Washington DC–based international strategic consulting firm, of which he is chairman and CEO.
Fred Thompson presidential campaign On July 24, 2007, Abraham was announced as an "ambassador to official Washington" for
Fred Thompson's
2008 presidential campaign. ==Later career==