BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Honorable James Abourezk, Esq.

James G. Abourezk was born in 1931 on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota , the youngest son of Lebanese immigrant parents. He attended schools in Wood and in Mission , South Dakota , where his parents owned general stores, then enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the age of 17, following his graduation from high school, serving four years during the Korean War period.

He later worked as a rancher, a car salesman, a bartender and bouncer, then after four years at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. After working for the State of California and Peter Kiewit and Sons Construction Company in South Dakota , Abourezk entered law school at the University of South Dakota School of Law.

He began practicing law in Rapid City , South Dakota , during which time he ran for, and lost a political race for South Dakota Attorney General. In 1970, he ran for South Dakota 's Second District Congressional seat and won, serving one term in Washington , D.C. , after which he ran for, and won, Senator Karl Mundt's U.S. Senate seat. He served one term in the U.S. Senate before voluntarily stepping down in 1979.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Abourezk was a member of the Interior and the Judiciary Committees. In the Senate, Abourezk served on the Energy Committee, the Budget Committee, the Space and Aeronautics Committee, and the Judiciary Committee. He created by legislation--and chaired--the American Indian Policy Review Commission, which was a two year study of American Indian policy that resulted in a series of broad recommendations for change in policy. Creation of a full Senate Indian Affairs Committee was one of the results of the Commission, a committee which Abourezk chaired until he left the Senate.

He is the author of a number of significant bills while in office, among them the Indian Child Welfare Act; the Indian Religious Freedom Act; and the Indian Self-Determination Act. In 1977, he led a thirteen day pro-consumer filibuster in an effort to defeat natural gas de-regulation. He organized a combined basketball team from two South Dakota Universities and led them to Cuba in 1977 as a way to re-open relations between the United States and Cuba .

After leaving the Senate, Abourezk in 1980 organized and chaired the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a nationwide civil rights organization which worked to end discrimination and racism against people of Arab descent. He served as its chairman for fifteen years, stepping down in 1995.

Abourezk has published two books, Through Different Eyes, which is a debate in print on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, co-authored with Hyman Bookbinder, a former spokesman for the American Jewish Committee; and Advise and Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate. He has published numerous newspaper opinion pieces and Law Review articles. He was an adjunct professor of International Politics at the American University in Washington , D.C. , and lectures at universities and other public organizations, primarily on the Congress, on the Middle East , and on American Indian Policy.

Abourezk actively practices law in Sioux Falls , South Dakota , under the firm name of Abourezk Law Offices, P.C. He is married to the former Sanaa Dieb, who is a nutritionist, a renowned chef, and a cookbook author. He has four children, including a daughter, Alya, who was born on July 27, 1996. He also has ten grandchildren and fourteen great grandchildren.