List of people who have served in all three branches of the United States federal government
Following is a list of persons who have served in all three branches of the United States federal government. Membership in this list is limited to persons who have:
- served in the executive branch, as President of the United States, Vice President, a Cabinet officer, or another executive branch office requiring confirmation by the United States Senate; and
- served as a member of either the United States Senate or of the House of Representatives; and
- served as a United States federal judge on a court established under Article Three of the United States Constitution.
Contents
Summary
Twenty-seven men can claim to have served in all three federal government branches. The first person to achieve this distinction was John Marshall, when he was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1801, having briefly served in Congress and as Secretary of State. The most recent person to join the list was James L. Buckley, who had already been President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a U.S. Senator when he was appointed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1985.
Of those who have served in all three branches, ten served as a United States Attorney; five served as Attorney General; four served as Secretary of the Navy; three served as Secretary of the Treasury; two served as Secretary of State; two served as Secretary of the Interior; two served as Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization; one served as Secretary of Labor; one served as Secretary of War; one served as Postmaster General, while this office was still a cabinet post. Three held multiple Cabinet posts. Although many Presidents and Vice Presidents have also served in Congress, and one later served on the Supreme Court, none has ever served in all three branches.
With respect to legislative service, ten of these men were Senators and eighteen were Representatives (including four who served in both houses). The states from which they were elected are largely diverse, with only three states having multiple members on the list: Virginia had four, Ohio had three, and Maine had two.
With respect to Judicial service, the tendency is toward higher office. Twelve members of the list served on the Supreme Court of the United States - three as chief justice. Of the other twelve, six served on one of the federal courts of appeals (called federal circuit courts pre-1912), one went from a district court to a circuit court, and nine garnered their judicial branch service in district court judgeships alone. Three of the Supreme Court Justices on the list had previously served on federal circuit courts. For nineteen of the members of the list, their judicial appointment was also their final point of service. Of the other five—one Supreme Court justice, and four District Court judges—four resigned from the bench to take cabinet posts. The fifth instance was a district court judge who resigned the bench to take a seat in the United States Senate.
Three people on the list—James F. Byrnes, Salmon P. Chase, and Levi Woodbury—have, in addition to their varied federal government service, also served as governor of a U.S. state.
List
| Person | Executive branch service |
Legislative branch service |
Judicial branch service |
|---|---|---|---|
| James L. Buckley | Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance, 1981–1982 President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1982-1985 |
Senator, New York, 1971–1977 | U.S. Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, 1985–1996 |
| James F. Byrnes | Director, Office of Economic Stabilization, 1942-1943 Chairman, Office of War Mobilization, 1943-1945 Secretary of State, 1945–1947 |
Representative, South Carolina, 1911–1925 Senator, South Carolina, 1931–1941 |
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1941-1942 |
| Salmon P. Chase | Secretary of the Treasury, 1861-1864 | Senator, Ohio, 1849–1855 1861 |
Chief Justice of the United States, 1864-1873 |
| Nathan Clifford | Attorney General, 1846-1848 | Representative, Maine, 1839-1843 | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1858-1881 |
| Nathan Goff, Jr. | United States Attorney for West Virginia, 1868-1881, 1881-1882 Secretary of the Navy, 1881 |
Representative, West Virginia, 1883-1889 Senator, West Virginia, 1913-1919 |
U.S. Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 1892-1913 |
| David M. Key | Postmaster General, 1877–1880 | Senator, Tennessee, 1875–1877 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee and the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, 1880-1895 |
| Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (II) | Secretary of the Interior, 1885–1888 | Representative, Mississippi, 1857-1860 1873-1877 Senator, Mississippi, 1877-1885 |
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1888-1893 |
| John Laurance | Judge Advocate General, 1777-1782 | Representative, New York, 1789-1793 Senator, New York, 1796-1800 |
U.S. District Court, U.S. District Court for the District of New York, 1794-1796 |
| George MacKinnon | United States Attorney, District of Minnesota, 1953-1958 | Representative, Minnesota, 1947-1949 | U.S. Circuit Judge, U.S. District Court for the D.C. Circuit, 1969-1995 |
| John Marshall | Secretary of State, 1800-1801 | Representative, Virginia, 1799-1800 | Chief Justice of the United States, 1801-1835 |
| John Y. Mason | Attorney General, 1845–1846 Secretary of the Navy, 1844-1845 1846–1849 |
Representative, Virginia, 1831-1837 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 1841-1844 |
| Stanley Matthews | United States Attorney, Southern District of Ohio, 1858-1861 | Senator, Ohio, 1877-1881 | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1881-1889 |
| James P. McGranery | Attorney General, 1952-1953 | Representative, Pennsylvania, 1937-1943 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1946-1952 |
| Joseph McKenna | Attorney General, 1897–1898 | Representative, California, 1885-1892 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 1892–1897 Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1898–1925 |
| John McLean | Postmaster General, 1823–1829 | Representative, Ohio, 1813-1816 | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1829–1861 |
| George J. Mitchell | United States Attorney, Maine, 1977-1979 | Senator, Maine, 1980-1995 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, 1979-1980 |
| William Henry Moody | United States Attorney, District of Massachusetts, 1890-1895 Attorney General, 1904–1906 Secretary of the Navy, 1902–1904 |
Representative, Massachusetts, 1895-1902 | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1906-1910 |
| John Paul, Jr. | United States Attorney, Western District of Virginia, 1929-1932 | Representative, Virginia, 1922-1923 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, 1932-1964 |
| Nathaniel Pope | Secretary of the Illinois Territory, 1809-1816 | Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, Illinois Territory, 1817-1818 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Illinois, 1819-1850 |
| Lewis B. Schwellenbach | Secretary of Labor, 1945–1948 | Senator, Washington, 1934–1940 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, 1940-1945 |
| Caleb Blood Smith | Secretary of the Interior, 1861–1862 | Representative, Indiana, 1843-1849 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Indiana, 1862-1864 |
| Emory Speer | United States Attorney, Northern District of Georgia, 1883-1885 | Representative, Georgia, 1878-1882 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, 1885-1918 |
| Horace Worth Vaughan | United States Attorney, District of Hawaii, 1915-1916 | Representative, Texas, 1912–1914 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, 1916-1922 |
| Fred M. Vinson | Director, Office of Economic Stabilization, 1943–1945 Secretary of the Treasury, 1945–1946 |
Representative from Kentucky, 8th and 9th districts, 1924–1929, 1931–1933, 1933–1938 | U.S. Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, 1938–1943 Chief Justice of the United States, 1946-1953 |
| Edmund Waddill, Jr. | United States Attorney, Eastern District of Virginia, 1883-1885 | Representative, Virginia, 1890-1891 | U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 1898-1921 U.S. Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 1921-1931 |
| William Wilkins | Secretary of War, 1844–1845 | Senator, Pennsylvania, 1831-1834 Representative, Pennsylvania, 1843-1844 |
U.S. District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, 1824-1831 |
| Levi Woodbury | Secretary of the Navy, 1831-1834 Secretary of the Treasury, 1834-1841 |
Senator, New Hampshire, 1825-1831 1841-1845 |
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1845-1851 |
Near misses
A number of people have come close to achieving this distinction, having held offices in two branches but having failed in an attempt to hold office in a third branch:
- John J. Crittenden was a Representative and Senator from Kentucky, and was Attorney General. He was also unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court.
- Caleb Cushing served in Congress and the cabinet. He was also unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court.
- David Davis served as a Supreme Court Justice and as a U.S. Senator from Illinois, but he was never appointed to the executive branch although he served as Abraham Lincoln's 1860 campaign manager and later as an administrator of Lincoln's estate after the assassination.
- Oliver Ellsworth served as one of Connecticut's first two United States senators and on the United States Supreme Court. He was an unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States, receiving eleven votes in the electoral college in the United States presidential election of 1796. He also served as a United States Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of France between 1799 and 1800, an unofficial position under the auspices of the executive branch.
- Walter F. George served as U.S. Senator from George from 1922 until 1957 and later as a special ambassador to NATO, but his only worked as a judge for the Georgia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Georgia, state positions rather than as a federal judge.
- Ebenezer R. Hoar served in Congress and as Attorney General. He was unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court.
- John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the United States, and he was also elected to serve as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses and served as United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs and as United States Minister to Spain before the Constitution was adopted.
- John J. Jenkins was a territorial United States Attorney in Wyoming Territory from 1876-1880, and a Representative from Wisconsin from 1894 to 1909. He served as a judge of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico from 1910-1911, but the court had not yet become an Article III court in that period.
- John Marvin Jones served in Congress and held various executive branch positions, ultimately being appointed to the United States Court of Claims, an Article I court that falls under the Executive Branch, not the Judicial Branch.
- William Lewis served as a United States Attorney for the District of Pennsylvania and as a United States District Court Judge, but he was only elected to the Pennsylvania State Legislature.
- Sherman Minton served as a United States Senator from Indiana, and later sat as a judge on the Seventh Circuit, and then the United States Supreme Court. In between these offices, he was an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but held no official office in the Executive Branch.
- Walter Q. Gresham served as a judge for the Court of Appeals and also as Postmaster General, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of State, but his only legislative service was in the Indiana House of Representatives.
- John Pettit was a United States Attorney for Indiana from 1839-1843, and later served as both a Representative and a Senator. He served as a territorial judge in Kansas, but never as an Article III judge.
- James E. Rogan was a Representative from California from 1997-2001, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office, 2001-2004, and was nominated in 2007 to the United States District Court for the Central District of California but his nomination failed. He later served as Judge of the Superior Court of California, a state position rather than as a federal judge.
- Jeff Sessions has served as U.S. Senator from Alabama since 1997. He previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. In 1986, President Reagan nominated him to be a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, but his nomination was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
- John C. Spencer served in Congress and as both Secretary of War and Secretary of the Treasury. He was also unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court twice.
- George Henry Williams was a Senator from Oregon from 1865-1871, and Attorney General from 1871–1875. He served as a Justice of the Oregon territorial supreme court, an Article I court, but was unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court.
