Abner J. Mikva

Abner Joseph Mikva (born January 21, 1926) is a Democratic former U.S. Representative, federal judge and law professor from Chicago. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mikva attended the University of Chicago Law School, from which he graduated in 1951. After graduation, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton, but his early interest in Chicago clearly was politics: One of the stories that is told about my start in politics is that on the way home from law school one night in 1948, I stopped by the ward headquarters in the ward where I lived. There was a street-front, and the name Timothy O'Sullivan, Ward Committeeman, was painted on the front window. I walked in and I said "I'd like to volunteer to work for [Adlai] Stevenson and...